Posts by simonlb

Nvidia warns its GPUs – even Blackwells – need protection against Rowhammer attacks

Here's a better idea than another messaging app

He suggested BitChat’s developers used AI to code the app.

Instead of trying to create another messaging app, why don't these very clever and intelligent people devote their time to develop something which would be truly useful to many more people, such as, oh, I dunno, an inherently secure, vendor agnostic IoT protocol that could be used by ALL IoT devices and become (possibly) the industry standard. Trust me, that is a much more worthwhile goal and more likely to get buy-in from others in the wider IT community to both develop further and implement. They'd also be better remembered as the person who 'fixed' the major flaw with all IoT devices and actually made them properly secure and trustworthy to use.

Airbus okays use of ‘Taxibot’ to tow planes to the runway

Re: Proper warm up still required

When Concorde was still flying from Heathrow it would typically burn around two and a half tons of fuel between engine start and taxiing to the end of the runway. Concorde flights were always prioritised on the ground so that they usually got to the end of the runway then took off straight away - a delay of even five minutes could mean having to return to the gate for a fuel top up. Also, the pilots would always be using the brakes as the engines were that powerful that even at idle the aircraft still wanted to bob along at around 20mph.

Private equity types to snap up NoSQL biz Couchbase

Re: Welp

Private Equity? I'll give it four years before it's gone completely.

Windows 11 migration heats up... on desktops

Re: September is going to be a great time to buy refurbed PCs

If all you are doing is web based stuff - browsing, email, and a few docs with nothing too CPU intensive - then a low-spec NUC for around £150 is more than enough and should have a decent sized SSD with 8Gb RAM and plenty of connectivity. Oh, it'll come with Win11 preinstalled but with a Linux USB ISO you'll never have to deal with that insanity and will have a stable, reliable and perfectly functional PC that'll last you years.

It's very much Double Plus Ungood

Microsoft cuts the Windows 11 bloat for Xbox handhelds

"designed around productivity scenarios for Windows"

It isn't productive if it is loaded unnecessarily, saps your resources and can't be turned off (and made to stay turned off) without a lot of hassle.

Musk and Trump take slap fight public as bromance ends

"Mercurial Billionaires"

You might be onto something there as mercury is very slippery to both control and contain and is as toxic as hell. Just saying.

Trump tariff turmoil hurting global smartphone market, but hitting US hardest

AI May Be A Factor

The fact that absolutely everyone is ramming AI into as much stuff as possible as if it is an industry-wide competition might also have something to do with it. I don't want a load of half-arsed random AI shit bumbling around on my phone, popping up all the time and getting in the way while burning through my battery reserves, I just want a durable handset with a working OS a decent and usable UI as well as updates for a few years.

Just because AI is there, doesn't mean it has to be shoved into everything available because 'reasons'. Just like Clippy, you can fuck off with that shit!

Tesla FSD ignores school bus lights and hits 'child' dummy in staged demo

"Elon sets priorities, and he's never made safety a priority."

Musk has been proposing all sorts of crap for well over a decade and has never delivered any of them or it's "in about two years", yet people still think he's a genius when he's really just an arse.

• Hyperloop? Nope.
• Solar roof tiles? Nope.
• Tesla Truck? Nope.
• New Roadster? Nope. However, did raise over $2B from orders for it when it was announced seven years ago. Hasn't returned any of that money yet.
• Tesla robot? Nope.
• Full Self Driving? Nope.
• Starship to orbit? Not really, although a banana possibly managed to get to the Indian Ocean.

Crims defeat human intelligence with fake AI installers they poison with ransomware

"a never-before-seen malware named “Numero” that breaks Windows machines"

That's not really a high bar though is it? Even normal Windows updates regularly do that.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang labels US GPU export bans ‘precisely wrong’ and ‘a failure’

Failure?

So the export bans are impacting Nvidia's ability to wring as much money from the AI bubble as possible? Cry me a river. They were quick to jack up the prices for consumer GPU's during covid and the subsequent supply chain issues, but haven't dropped them at all since and show no inclination to do so. Perhaps if they adjusted their pricing back to more realistic levels instead of keeping them artificially high they'd sell more consumer stuff. If Intel can bring out products giving better performance for substantially less then Nvidia are charging, it should be straightforward to do. Price gouging consumers and chasing the AI dragon is not the way to go.

Apple slams door on Fortnite's stateside iOS comeback

"a knee-jerk, anti-Apple response"

It isn't knee-jerk or anti-Apple when they have consistently engaged in anti-competitive practices and lodged countless (sometimes completely baseless) legal threats over the years because they can afford to railroad just about anyone they want to with almost no consequences. The phrase "vexatious litigant" has also been used by judges more than once to describe Apple's legal practices and attitude, so it really is about time they were brought to book, and hopefully, punished in a way which makes them alter their behaviour to something less offensive and more responsible.

And as for the "nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head and making them buy iPhones" part, if you've invested yourself into the Apple ecosystem with iTunes et al then you have no choice when you come to change your handset and have to pay the Apple Tax. And if you're happy to do that, then you do you.

After more than half a century, the voyage of Kosmos 482 is over

At least it did make it to orbit, unlike a certain few Starships we could mention...

US govt's science foundation purges 37 divisions, equity unit among casualties

They expect to shortly be regressing to using flintlock rifles and carrying pitchforks for self defense. I'm surprised they haven't also shut down DARPA due to not being able to see what their various budgets are being spent on.

Nvidia boss gets 45% pay bump, but is the billionaire happy?

Earn?

Earn it? There's no incentive when big corporations are willing to throw money at you hand over fist to buy as many AI GPU's as they can to 'invest' in the AI bubble. That also means there's no incentive to reduce the cost of consumer GPU's which were artificially inflated during COVID and subsequent supply chain issues back down to realistic prices when they can just say to consumers, "Fuck You." and continue to gouge you needlessly.

I really do hope Intel take advantage of this massive consumer opportunity.

Google goes cold on Europe: Stops making smart thermostats for continental conditions

Re: Again

If only we had an industry standard IoT protocol that was open source, inherently secure by design and vendor agnostic so we could avoid all this shit.

America's National Science Foundation tells DEI, misinfo studies: You're fired

Re: Question

Nothing whatsoever. But defunding programs which no longer align with the current political ideology or viewpoint because you've decided they don't fit in with your world-view and have changed the qualifying criteria is neither logical or scientific. It's just stupid.

PIRG's 'Electronic Waste Graveyard' lists 100+ gadgets dumped after support vanished

Nexus 6

The list is stating Nexus 6 devices were only supported for 2.9 years. I'm pretty sure it was 4 years for those until retirement, unless I'm getting confused...

4-day work-week pilot due in tech land by early summer

Re: Krystal Hosting

"Don't get into a business, just invest in property"

Oh thanks, can you possibly lend me a couple of million quid interest free to get me started Sir Alan?

Datacenters near Heathrow seemingly stay up as substation fire closes airport

Re: How?

This is what happens when you privatise a public utility and rig the finances around it to maximise profits paid to the companies running the various parts of the utility (irrespective of how badly they perform), whilst allowing them to do the bare minimum of maintenance to keep it running and making no provision to force them to reinvest any of the profits in any form of modernisation at any time. Chuck in a "regulator" who just sits idly by to let these companies make their obscene profits every quarter, allows them to raise prices because 'reasons' and then finally lets them say to the incumbent government, "You need to give us X £Billion to invest in a modernisation program over the next decade because we've taken all those profits and given them all to our shareholders and executives."

We did not have Brave clashing with Rupert Murdoch on our 2025 bingo card, but there it is

Re: Sigh…

Never used Brave myself either, but that aside, the AI summaries are probably a lot more accurate and useful than any original article ever published in The Sun in the UK, although YMMV.

As Elon Musk makes thousands of federal workers jobless, tycoon pushes for $56B Tesla pay deal

Re: Women and fast cars

Some of the rockets are paid for by money from the US Government hard working US taxpayers. $3 Billion so far for Starship, with eight launches, none of which made it to orbit, but did manage to send a banana to the Indian Ocean.

HPE revenue outlook feels the thump of Trump tariffs

Wait? What?

Regarding the bid for Juniper Networks: "...and claimed the merger would boost the networking market by enhancing competition."

How can buying a company which makes competing products possibly increase competition? You've bought a competing company so that is one less vendor in the market for your customers to use, therefore less choice for them and less competition for you. Or am I missing part of the 'synergising' bullshit bingo part here?

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

My Canon Is Still OK

My Canon inkjet still prints ok using the third party cartridges I've been getting from Amazon for the past three years, although the front panel keeps reminding me there is a firmware update available on the server, but I just cancel the message each time. I recently changed three of the cartridges as they were empty and found that text printing was fine but photos were awful. After a bit of faffing around I confirmed it was the printer and not the Linux and Windows PC's in the house, so I tried a deep clean on the print head which fixed the issue. Was a little bit concerned for a few minutes until the though of trying a little maintenance occurred.

It's looking like Canon or Epson are some of the few printer manufacturers still respecting their customers.

Cybercrims now licking stamps and sending extortion demands in snail mail

What goes around comes around

This is just like the junk mail I used to get regularly thirty years ago: "Hi, we entered you in a European lottery sweepstake and you have won a prize. Just send us £30 to cover our administration costs and we will release your prize money. If you don't respond within a month, your prize money will be shared amongst the other winners." These were usually sent from somewhere in the Netherlands, and apparently, pensioners were quite gullible to this and genuinely thought they would get some money, so responded. Spoiler alert, they didn't get anything.

Profit slide at HP can only mean one thing: Hammer time

Ah, I remember the days when HP was run by engineers, made bloody good products, provided excellent customer service and valued all their staff at every level. They were highly regarded in every field they served and were a byword for quality and integrity. Pity they've pissed it all away now.

Framework guns for cheap laptops with upgradeable alternative

Re: $899 is not cheap

And yet people will still buy them.

Indian authorities seize loot from collapsed BitConnect crypto scam

I have a landfill with spare capacity available at very competitive rates.

North Korea targets crypto developers via NPM supply chain attack

It's crypto so only idiots stupid enough to be investing gambling on it will be affected.

Remember kids, never gamble more than you can afford to lose.

Sophos sheds 6% of staff after swallowing Secureworks

Time to leave

So Sophos, Proofpoint, Sailpoint, Darktrace and now Secureworks are all owned by one private equity company. I do hope people are moving to use alternatives - if they haven't already - as we all know how the private equity playbook runs and it's never beneficial to any customer.

Man who binned 7,500 Bitcoin drive now wants to buy entire landfill to dig it up

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear

I have discussed this option recently with investment partners and it is very much on the table

What's the ballpark figure for removing and sorting through all that waste and where will that be done? That's one hell of a tenuous "investment" for almost certain failure.

"The crypto idiocy is strong with this one."

Microsoft 365 price rises are coming – pay up or opt out (if you can find the button)

Clippy was shit. Copilot is shit. Big tech is throwing money hand over fist on AI and trying to force it onto users without even asking. AI in it's current form is not fit for purpose and something the vast majority of people don't want or need.

As for M365, what's wrong with pressing F1 for assistance? Or does that option no longer exist?

Microsoft makes sweet, sweet music with Windows MIDI Services

Re: Cutting Edge Crap

And this service will be just as reliable as all the other ones in Windows which arbitrarily disappear for no reason / insist no device is plugged in even when device manager shows it is there / just stop working and require a full removal and reinstall to resolve. And don't forget the configuration settings for this service will be collectively over four different screens with only the basic one being relatively east to access with the others all hidden in different submenus.

Microsoft, why are you even bothering?

Tesla sales crash in Europe, UK. We can only wonder why

Re: Tesla was all about PR

Yet, over at the Tesla forums...

Did you misspell 'cult' there? Asking for a friend.

Early mornings, late evenings, weekends. Useless users always demand support

Re: Dual SIM phone

Time off in Lieu...

Yes, if I work six hours at time and a half and you decide you wont pay me for it, I will be taking nine hours of time off to cover those nine hours of pay you don't think I'm worth.

Dell ends hybrid work policy, demands return-to-office despite remote work pledge

a thirty-second in-person conversation can replace an email discussion that goes on for hours or days

Would a Zoom, Teams or similar video call suffice, as that can also be recorded?

Arrr! Can a sailor's marlinspike fix a busted backplane?

I always changed the look on XP to 'classic' so that is was like 2000. I still don't understand why MS won't provide that functionality now.

40 years ago, classified Shuttle mission foreshadowed Challenger's fatal flaw

Re: Most significant

What staggers me is that they thought having just two o-rings on each joint was sufficient. Knowing the forces and temperatures at work here - Yes, this IS rocket science - three should have been the bare minimum, as in terms of cost, what value do you attribute to a couple of SRB's when compared to the overall cost of an orbiter, it's crew and the payload?

UK telco TalkTalk confirms probe into alleged data grab underway

one of our third-party supplier's systems

Well you will keep offshoring outsourcing stuff to reduce your costs, but is anyone ensuring customer data safeguarding is mentioned in the contracts you are signing with those third-parties? I'd guess probably not.

Trump 'waved a white flag to Chinese hackers' as Homeland Security axed cyber advisory boards

Re: Daily Trump

Should have the name Trumpton in there as it's ready made for it.

Tech support fill-in given no budget, no help, no training, and no empathy for his plight

Re: Universities are the absolute worst for shadow IT

Not at a University, but a few years ago (around 2007) I got a call from a user about a PC stuck in a boot loop. After a couple of minutes conversation with the user I'd established there were no identification labels on the machine - asset tags, PC id etc. - they then mentioned the make and model which was by then a defunct manufacturer which we'd never used. Further dialogue revealed that the user had been told to use this PC for their work when they'd started a year previously, and after I'd asked them the check the back of the machine it wasn't even plugged into the network. After asking them what was displayed on the screen when booting they said, "Windows 98." So this was just a random machine someone had brought in years before and started using and it had become a fixture in the office multiple people had used over the years.

I had to end the call by telling them to speak with their boss as the machine wasn't covered under any support for either hardware, software or user.

Brit government contractor CloudKubed enters administration

Strange Conicidence?

What's that? A company set up during the pandemic (when government oversight seemed to have gone on a holiday) wins a number of government contracts then a couple of years later goes bust? I wonder where the money went? Or even if they delivered anything? Or (allegedly) bought a yacht with the cash? We'll probably never know.

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

AI is the new offshoring, so the costs won't be tangible for a while.

Crypto klepto North Korea stole $659M over just 5 heists last year

Not really, but some of those hit probably don't want to draw any attention to it as they can't provide satisfactory proof of where the money they 'invested' came from.

However, give it time and eventually there will be a mega-heist on one of the crypto companies and a pension fund that will have invested massively in it will lose multi-millions of dollars and go bust. All those peoples pensions will go up in smoke, but no-one responsible for 'investing' it in crypto will go to prison.

Microsoft, PC makers cut prices of Copilot+ gear in Europe, analyst stats confirm

Re: the value proposition of these devices still needs to be communicated more effectively

There is no value proposition to these devices while MS's shit AI is rammed into them for no good reason. No-one asked for it, so why should they pay for it if they don't want it or need it?

At least this price reduction will benefit anyone who just wants a new PC but will only ever run Linux on it.

Tesla recalls 239,382 vehicles over rearview camera problems

Re: will be able to get their car computer replaced free of charge

a shower of sparks explodes from the console in the bridge

Sparks???? FFS! This is where SF programmes fail hard these days. Everyone knows an overload would release the magic smoke from the console. Bloody sparks? Away with you!

But I thought Musk knows more about manufacturing than anyone else alive, so how could this happen? I'm shocked I tell you! Shocked!

Sonos CEO steps down after smart speaker app upgrade hit bum note

Re: "henceforth “always establish rigorous quality benchmarks

“improve the Sonos core experience for our customers, while optimizing our business to drive innovation and financial performance.”

Sonos already have a bad record of bricking 'end of life' devices or disallowing re-registration for ones which have been sold on to other people, creating the completely avoidable problem of creating landfill in the pursuit of profits. Not sure how that can possibly improve any of their customers experience, nor how that is in any way innovative, but hey, it's forcing people to buy more of their shit so that's a win.

For me, any company which issues a press release that links any presumed benefits for their customers with a reference to potential future profits is to be avoided.

Microsoft tests 45% M365 price hikes in Asia-Pacific to see how much you enjoy AI

Perpetual?

But how perpetual is that license, as these days there is no guarantee any more? I'm hoping you are located in a territory where they have some form of consumer protection which might force MS to honour that wording and keep it truly 'perpetual'. Sadly, if you're in the USA, you'll probably be offered the 'forced arbitration' route when MS decide to shaft you.

Mail-out madness as insurer offers refunds to customers in error

Telematics?

the company's take on telematics – YouDrive

Ah, yes, a black box, fitted to monitor your driving and (hopefully) get you lower premiums. The same black boxes which interpret any sudden control input as you trying to avoid an accident because you weren't paying attention or were driving badly. Nothing to do with someone pulling out in front of you / the traffic lights changing to red / someone fixated on their mobile stepping out into the road without looking / a dog running out into the road, all of them causing you to brake sharply and/or possibly swerve to avoid a collision. Or even dictating what time you are allowed to drive your own vehicle and reporting you for driving after 10pm (yes, that is a thing.)

Recording telematics without anything to provide context, such as a camera, is stupid and pointless.