Posts by jonathan keith

Insert token to continue, says AI. Yeah, about that...

Re: AI.

Just a thought but are you by any chance neurodivergent?

AI bills are baffling the C-suite after shift to usage-based pricing

Boy, are the other two-thirds in for a nasty shock soon.

How the AI bubble could pop and take down the global economy, according to the BIS

Re: I doubt

... right up until the moment an angry mob pitches up outside their offices and homes.

US auto regulators want to kill robotaxi brake pedals

Yes, the giant-size popcorn bucket please

... because this is going to end well.

Feds freaked over Fable 5 after simple 'fix this code' prompt, not jailbreak, says researcher

Re: Although Trump's lot have taken 'thick as poop' to new levels...

Ah, DeCSS. You might think that I bought one of those T-shirts; I couldn't possibly comment.

Microsoft reaches for olive branch after public dustup with 0-day researcher

Re: Is this not insanity?

They made excellent joysticks. A long time ago.

Brussels tells Google to hand rivals its search crown jewels as privacy row brews

Re: intellectual property

"If I created a new car manufacturer, would the same EU force Mercedes to hand over all technical information about their cars so that I can start my production without investing years and a fortune ?"

No...

... you knob.

Open source isn't a tip jar – it's time to charge for access

No - enshittification is taking something that used to be good (for a given value of 'good') and making it worse to generate greater short-term profit. A key point is that the product was already a paid product (somewhere along the line, not necessarily with the end-user.)

It is not requiring corporations to pay for OSS.

AI-pilled Arm CEO teases mystery products that will turn it into a money machine

Er, one moment please...

Does AGI in this context stand for i) Artificial General Intelligence or ii) something significantly different? Because if it's i), then ARM is either a) hiding a genuinely profound breakthrough or b) lying through its marketing-led teeth. And if it's ii), then an explanation in the text would be appreciated.

Calling out corporate BS? There's a steaming pile to aim for

I've always found that the phrase "Excuse me, but would you explain what [the fuck] that actually means?" tends to bring such meetings to an unexpectedly early end. It may also have something to do with the fact that I have also had a succession of short-lived jobs instead of anything remotely resembling a career.

Why, yes, I have recently received an autism diagnosis. What made you ask?

I know it's not an official criterion but I also see the ig-Nobels as 'useful science that won't change a damned thing.'

Systemd-free antiX Linux 26: Debian 13, in bonsai form

Pronunciation?

Is it 'anticks' or 'anti-ex'?

Horizon redress still a mess, MPs say – and Fujitsu hasn't paid a penny

And then everyone involved will be enormously surprised one morning when people start being strung up by their ankles from lamp-posts. I don't think the corporate and political elites realise how angry the public is with them.

Openreach: Fiber can sniff out leaky water pipes – if anyone bothers fixing them

Re: Win, win, win

I assume you're referring to the OP's downvote? Although that may have come from a shareholder, I suppose.

Re: Win, win, win

The water industry can now take this new technology on board as their 100% method for leak detection. All other leak detection systems can now be disbanded, saving huuuuge amounts of money, meaning more bonuses for the bosses and better income for the shareholders! The fibre companies will be mandated to do the leak detection so they may as well keep and maintain the leak database as well, so no need for the water companies to do any extra record-keeping! When it all goes wrong it will definitely not be the water companies to blame either. It gets better by the minute!

Amanda. This memo was discovered accidentally by an alert volunteer data-archaeologist during a random archive trawl in November 2088. Along with other material recovered from the same tranche, it provides some useful insight into the circumstances leading up to the Great Blackout of 2029, and helps explain the pressure-cooker society that the British population were living in at the time. On a personal note, having reviewed the material as a whole, I'm frankly astonished that it took so much to make them revolt in the first place, although that might also be why the following few months were quite so bloody. Looking at documents like these, from such a tragic and hideous moment in our history, we can only remind ourselves how lucky we are today to live in more enlightened times!

Britain turns up the heat on homegrown ceramics for hypersonic missiles

Think of the civilian applications!

Tell you what - this sounds like it might be really useful for some sort of hypersonic SSTO spaceplane project. Something that could Take-Off and Land Horizontally, perhaps using a novel propulsion technology like - oh, I don't know - a Reaction Engine. I don't suppose anyone has any plans for a project of this nature?

Windows 11 finally hits right note: MIDI 2.0 support arrives

Re: Progress

I think you missed an important part of the article. Windows now supports MIDI 2.0. Windows has supported the original MIDI system for - as you say - decades.

And MIDI is one of those rare things: an industry standard that has actually stood the test of time remarkably well*, to the point where it's taken this long to get to the point where it really benefits from being revised. And the opportunities that MIDI 2.0 present are genuinely exciting for musicians.

* unless you're talking about the Suzuki Q-chord, which has the most demented MIDI implementation I've ever come across, and which could only have been a product of the copious ingestion of recreational drugs. (The MIDI implementation, not the Q-chord. Although...) Those crazy music-industry engineers, eh?

If Microsoft made a car... what would it be?

I would suggest a Land Rover, actually. Originally straightforward, uncomplicated and got the job done. Over time has become increasingly expensive, bloated in both size and the addition of overly-complicated gadgets, and socially unacceptable.

Google's AI training tactics land it in another EU antitrust fight

... WTF?

So am I understanding this correctly?

These tech companies are essentially arguing that it's perfectly fine for them to brazenly break the law because by doing so they can gain a competitive advantage? Oh, I'm sorry, I mean 'innovate'.

What have I misunderstood here?

Publishers say no to AI scrapers, block bots at server level

Re: ClaudeBot / AppleBot

This seems to be as good a place to start as any:

https://perishablepress.com/ultimate-ai-block-list/

As humanoid robots enter the mainstream, security pros flag the risk of botnets on legs

Have we learned nothing from sci-fi films and TV shows?

Why is it that, for quite a long time now, the corporates appear to have confused dystopian fiction with instruction manuals?

Is it as simple as seeing 'board makes massive short-term profits / bonuses and to hell with the consequences' and they think "that's a really good idea" ?

Micron ditches consumer memory brand Crucial to chase AI riches

It'll bite them in the arse when the AI bubble pops

... which will be sooner rather than later.

When will these people learn that shortsighted profit-chasing is never a sound business strategy? I hope their bonuses are paid in stock that vests after five years.

Meta knows how bad its sites are for kids, say lawyers

Re: Internet of Crap!

It's as real shame that you come across as a frothing nutcase, because there are elements of truth in a lot of what you write.

The Steam Machine rises again as Valve readies 2026 hardware trifecta

Re: I Hope It Takes Off

Regarding a SteamOS ISO:

(AMD CPU+GPU only at the mo though)

https://store.steampowered.com/steamos/download?ver=steamdeck

This might kill Windows outside the office

Not the steam machine itself, per se, but SteamOS. I can only speak for myself, but I am sick to the back teeth of Microsoft's bullshit, and the moment I can jump to something that will run *all* my Windows software that isn't Windows, then I'm gone. SteamOS looks promising. I wonder, out of interest, how long it will take Microsoft - if it isn't already - to code Office365 to not launch if it detects it's running on SteamOS?

Microsoft apologizes for not explaining cheaper no-AI M365 plans, and all it took was a government lawsuit

Re: Microsoft apologises for getting caught attempting to rip off its customers

Controversially, I'll assert that big companies shouldn't be allowed to challenge regulators through the courts

Absolutely nothing controversial about that as far as I can see. Corporates have chosen to push the pendulum as far as they can, and we're starting to recognise that we've had enough of their nonsense. We need to sustain the pressure on lawmakers to start moving the pendulum back, to ignore the howls of outrage from the corporates, billionaires, and lobbyists, and to ultimately make sure these greedy swine can't ever do it again.

No account? No Windows 11, Microsoft says as another loophole snaps shut

SteamOS

Counting the days for the desktop release of SteamOS.

Digital ID, same place, different time: In this timeline, the result might surprise us

Huh?

Why on earth was Starmer being let in to a conference of center-left leaders? I'd hope they'd have seen through the sheep's clothing by now.

Firefox is fine. The people running it are not

Ok... so, how exactly, then?

Now hear me out, but What If…? browser development was in the hands of some kind of nonprofit organization?

In my humble but correct opinion, Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only:

Building THE reference implementation web browser, and

Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.

There is no 3.

I agree wholeheartedly. How do we make this happen, please?

Apple tries get €500M EU fine tossed

So tired of this shit

For far too long now appealing against every negative court judgement has become simply another cost of doing business for multinationals. Penalties - meaningful penalties - must be introduced to put a stop to this.

Want to appeal? Go right ahead, but if the judge decides you're doing so simply to avoid paying the fine, drag the case out, cost the government department (read: taxpayer) you're appealing against, etc. etc., then your fine has just gone up by an order of magnitude, and it's payable in 30 days or the bailiffs get sent round, your operating licenses are revoked and your executives are liable.

Fuck these people. They need to be beaten with sticks until they learn to respect the society we all live in.

Why users still couldn't care less about Windows 11

The continuing enshittification of (almost) everything

Yes, 98, Vista, 8 were pretty (ok, very) crappy, but their service packs (98SE, 7, 8.1) eventually fixed them up pretty well. Even XP only really shone after three service packs.

Nobody much likes change, but the big problem with Win11 is that it is actively more difficult and time-consuming to use than previous versions, for no obvious or clearly-explained reasons. Change because it's significantly more efficient once you've adapted? Grumble, moan, demand proof or examples, but all right. But change for the sake of change alone, or more cynically change for the sake of profit alone is not good enough. The only carrot in view is the promise of bonuses (or just continued employment) for those at Microsoft and their satellite businesses, but for the users, Win11 only offers a stick, and that does not make a compelling sales pitch.

Now’s your chance to try Microsoft’s controversial Windows Recall ... maybe

Re: "Chance to try..."

Heroin's the only one of those four that's very moreish.

WinAmp's woes will pass, but its wonders will be here forever

Yes, there are many options, just none you could give to anyone and say "Here, this will play your music, you will understand how, it won't try to take your money nor sell you anything."

The closest I know of is foobar2000.

As major web browser makers snuggle up to AI, these skeptical holdouts remain

Re: The title is too long.

Er... what?

I was going to write that this looked AI-generated, but I suspect that if it had been it would make some sort of understandable sense, wrong or mad as that might be.

At least amanfrommars1 can be relied on to have a point of some sort.

Microsoft PC accessories rise from the grave just in time for Christmas

Sidewinder Strategic Commander to live again?

Hopefully Incase will bring gaming's most misunderstood peripheral into the modern era: the Sidewinder Strategic Commander.

Under-fire Elon Musk urged to get a grip on X and reality – or resign

Re: If the UK was a more authoritarian country

If you want to actively choose to invite Russia Today into your home, then I suggest you seek urgent professional help.

Twitter tells advertisers to go fsck themselves, now sues them for fscking the fsck off

Re: ICON --------------------------------------------->

That's approximately the same number as DCI Barnaby's tally over in Midsomer, so entirely feasible I'd suggest.

The US needs to update their civics teaching...

... so that the lesson includes "The differences between protected free speech, unprotected free speech, and liability to any resultant consequences".

Or maybe just put together a short yet informative public information film and broadcast it everywhere for a month.

Re: He Doesn't Expect Any Response

It's because they had a massive helping of money.

Chrome Web Store warns end is nigh for uBlock Origin

"As an IT administrator, uBlock Origin is a requirement for our users," wrote one individual posting under the name Kendoka on Monday. "As a personal user, I hereby swear to uninstall Chrome the day ad blockers are removed."

As an IT administrator, why is s/he using Chrome in the first place?

Facebook prank sent techie straight to Excel hell

Correction..?

I assume the subs had a heavy weekend, and that para twelve should read:

Dave was in his manager's office making all manner of excuses for spending time own social media and pleading not to keep his job

Feds sue Adobe and execs for stinging subscribers with 'hidden' cancellation fees

Re: Although....

Can Adobe's reputation get any worse than it already is? Without, y'know, murdering puppies in a TV advert for Premiere?

European Commission may be about to put the squeeze on Apple for its App Store rules

Re: Fines on US companies? Pointless

I've said it before, and I have no doubt I'll be saying it many times again, but c-suite jail terms are the only effective deterrents against corporate malfeasance. Write the laws so that if a regulator decides that a company has knowingly breached them, ALL c-suite executives face a minimum of a year in chokey. Let them pass that off as simply the cost of doing business.

I stumbled upon LLM Kryptonite – and no one wants to fix this model-breaking bug

Re: How it works in practice

That would be fine if I believed a word that came out of Paula Vennells' mouth.

How will this get fixed?

In exactly the same way as everything else gets fixed these days: despite plenty of detailed warnings about this flaw, nothing will be done at any of these companies until either a) people (by which I mean white westerners) die as a direct result of this, or b) the flaw causes significant reputational damage to a multinational corporate customer, or a (again, western) government.

At that point, something will be done to address this flaw. Nothing will happen right up to that point, however, because any activity would "harm stockholder value" (and bonuses).

Climate change is going to result in the end of either late-stage capitalism or humanity. At the moment I don't honestly know which I'd prefer.

Apple crushes creativity and its reputation in new iPad ad

There are two passages in Three Men And A Boat concerning the playing of musical instruments that are among the funniest writing I have ever read. (Your mileage may vary.)

This and this.

I told Halle Berry where to go during a programming gig in LA

Re: Halle Berry? big deal!

I attended a Dubai cocktail party with the entire cast of Are You Being Served.*

*I was six, far more interested in the Lego, and Dubai at the time was breeze-block buildings alongside a road through open desert.

Oracle ULA audits are a license to bill

I don't understand.

Is their software so good that it justifies the accompanying hell?

Palantir's CEO calls 'woke' a 'central risk to Palantir, America and the world'

Re: Thin pagan religion

Yeah, I don't think I'll bother answering the questions of an Anonymous Coward.

Re: Paganism.

A leftist writes: "You're wrong!"