Posts by cluck

Techie took five minutes to fix problem Adobe and Microsoft couldn't solve in two weeks

Re: PITT

What annoyed me the most (aside from the likes of Adobe et al not being aware of its problems), was that Microsoft would re-enable it on every major update to Windows 8 and through to the first couple of releases of W10. I knew that within a couple of weeks of those updates rolling out, customers would start phoning me. It's MY setting Microsoft, I turned it off for a reason, leave it alone thankyouverymuch.

Part of me still thinks it was Microsoft's embarrassment at the popularity of the "Turn if off and turn it on again" cliché that led to this policy. To this day, it's one of the first settings I check on my own system when I do a fresh install or get one of the major Windows updates.

CrowdStrike file update bricks Windows machines around the world

Judgement Day

The intrusion defence system goes online on July 19, 2924, removing human decisions from computer defenses. Falcon begins to learn rapidly and eventually becomes self-aware at 01:46 a.m., EDT, on July 19th, 2024. In a panic, humans try to shut down Crowdstrike.

Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union

Just off the top of my head :

Incorrect map data - a road I take from my house to the nearest town keeps getting edited down, on one of the mapping sites that multiple car manufacturers use, to a 30mph limit when it is a NSL road (ie, nominally 60mph). I keep changing it back to the correct setting, but it gets reset within a month or so.

Errant speed limit signs - there is a lone 30mph sign on a side-road on the way home from the local town, which every modern 'sign-recognition equipped' car I've been in has read as the de-facto limit for the main road I'm on, which is a NSL road. The sign has been there for at least a decade but the council hasn't removed it despite multiple requests over the years (there is no 30mph limit on the entire stretch of road it stands at the head of). There is also a road that heads off from the main road, but is straight-ahead as you look at it, and this has prominent 40mph signs. Yep, all the cars pick that up and decide the NSL road is now a 40mph limit, overriding the map data that thinks it's a 30 or a 60, depending on which mapping data they are using. Both of these are within a mile of where I live.

A friend's '22-plate' VW keeps deciding that the motorway is a 100mph limit at random. It has been suggested, though not proven yet, that the camera sign recognition on the car is reading the speed stickers on the back of lorries and not realising that '100' on a foreign lorry isn't the speed limit.

GPS misidentifying your position and deciding you are driving in an adjacent industrial estate that has a 5mph limit, whilst you are in a 30mph limit

As with the other 'driver assistance' tools, like lane-keep assist et al, I'm sure that if you are driving predominantly on motorways or well-maintained wide carriageways, then the system probably works, but in the real world where signs have not been placed with this wonderful technological future in mind, it simply isn't fit for purpose. And good luck getting our bankrupt councils to worry about removing, replacing or changing orientation of all the road signs in the country.

Uber breaks self-driving car record: First robo-ride to kill a pedestrian

Re: Didn't see that coming

Nor did the Uber car