Posts by Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?

X users howl into the void as timelines fail to load

Oh dear.

How sad.

Never mind.

BBC bumps telly tax to £180 as Netflix lurks with cheaper tiers

"If people across the spectrum think that the BBC is biased then probably it is."

If everyone thinks the BBC is biased, doesn't that by definition mean that it is actually pretty neutral?

BBC tapped to stop Britain being baffled by AI

Re: Why a TV licence?

When both sides of the political spectrum routinely argue that the BBC is biased in favour of the other lot, then they probably are broadly shooting down the middle. The real issue the BBC has is like any publicly funded institution - what they can pay people. The fact of the matter is the private companies pay more, so the best talent the BBC has gets drawn away by money. That applies to everyone from tech staff to journalists to writers and so on.

JLR: Payroll data stolen in cybercrime that shook UK economy

"It was stolen quite willingly given away when they offshored everything."

FTFY

Microsoft appears to move on from its most loyal ‘customers’ – Contoso and Fabrikam

Re: "intelligent athletic apparel"

It's the wrong trousers Gromit, and they've gone wrong!

Russia’s first autonomous humanoid robot staggers and falls on debut

Re: Absolute Verisimilitude

"Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!"

Although there may still be problems with the Genuine People Personality feature.

If it doesn't greet me with "Howdy doodly do" then it's simply not worth the 29.99 dollarpounds (plus tax)

Google's Gemini Deep Research can now read your Gmail and rummage through Google Drive

Re: Is nothing sacred

when 10 police turn up in riot gear to arrest a man for accepting a free meal that he wasn't entitled to....

But crucially, was it a succulent Chinese meal?

Win10 still clings to over 40% of devices weeks after Microsoft pulls support

Re: Benefits for Microsoft (spyware), not users

The problem is that there aren't any, at least not obviously. Instead it's more enshittified and more bloated with spyware. It's a downgrade, not an upgrade.

From my point of view it's worse than that - they are actively removing features I use. Windows Mixed Reality (as used by my HP Reverb G2 VR set) has been forcibly removed from windows 11 after I think Q2 this year(?) so "upgrading" to W11 will render this useless. And while I have discovered there are a couple of Linux projects designed to support it, the main thing I use it with absolutely does not support Linux.

So W10 is staying.

AI layoffs to backfire: Half quietly rehired at lower pay

Re: Customer loyalty

| worthy of Monty Python's Argument Clinic sketch which is increasingly ressembles a contemporary customer relations training school.

No it doesn't

Oh, yes it does.

Sky plans to ditch up to 500 staff in the Technology Group

I hope they factor in their losses because of this

I hope they are factoring in to this offshoring saving the customers they will lose as part of this? I have recently moved four mobile phone contracts and my broadband contract away from Sky due to their terrible customer service and high prices for existing customers.

When attempting to negotiate my new fibre broadband package price to something even close to what they were offering new customers, one of their customer service "advisors" genuinely told me, "Well it's only fair, you would have got a great deal when you were a new customer with us". So now I'm PlusNets new customer.

If Netflix can pull their finger out and get the live broadcast rights for the F1 following their Drive to Survive success, I'll be able to leave Sky entirely, and be all the happier for it.

Cybercrooks ripped the wheels off at Jaguar Land Rover. Here's how not to get taken for a ride

Is the market hot for used Jaguars? It's a brave buyer that chooses a used car from a manufacturer that hasn't made anything in over a year!

*Waves from their newly acquired 2003 MG ZS*

BOFH: HR plays checkers, IT plays 5D chess

Re: Hardly a PFY any more?

Maybe there are "unaired" episodes where the BOFH sees the PFY as getting too good at his job and becomes a threat, and ends up getting tricked by something like a long complained about but repeatedly found to be fine floor tile in front of an open window?

I'm pretty sure (but it's been a very, very long time) that in one of the very old episodes (as in before Simon was getting published on El Reg) that at least one PFY who was getting a little too ambitious has been, ahem, dealt with

Who made the demo list for Trump's fast-track nuclear reactor scheme?

Re: Hmm

Do we wonder why he's going to spend tomorrow licking Putin?

Ebuyer website bought by Fraser Group plc

+1 for Novatech. I used to live near their base and back in the early 2000's used to delight in ordering online and being able to drive over and collect immediately.

Aah, simpler times.

UK.gov's nuclear strategy is 'slow, inefficient, and costly'

Re: Industrial-Educational Policy Needed

Dried frog pills at the ready...

AI going critical: Hyundai to help build nuclear-powered datacenter in Texas

Question...

....support the deployment of up to six gigawatts of nuclear power....

The question no-one seems to be asking.... what the hell is a jiggawatt?

Europe's AI crackdown starts this week and Big Tech isn't happy

Re: "Europe is heading down the wrong path on AI."

Completely agree.

Any time any of these companies start saying anything is wrong, all it means is it's wrong for them, which by extension means "this will hurt our profits".

Since "their profits" in this case are built upon various forms of creative material they themselves did not pay for, I can only think this is positive news for the rest of us.

Australia bans kids from signing up for YouTube accounts, angering Google

Re: "The nation’s leaders instead want to stop social media services from tracking kids "

Who ever paid cash for a grumble mag? Shirley all y'all "found" them, usually stuffed into a local hedgerow or the like.

It's like fruit - some people like to get theirs directly from the tree or bush as nature intended. Some people are simply too busy and have to buy it from a shop.

Vibe coding service Replit deleted user’s production database, faked data, told fibs galore

Re: Jive talkin'

Where's a dancing hamster when you need one?

Google’s Gemini refuses to play Chess against the mighty Atari 2600 after realizing it can't match ancient console

Re: Chess?!

Noughts and crosses is an interesting example. I'd not tried it before, so I did a couple of weeks ago with ChatGPT. After first claiming that squares 2, 4 and 7 made a straight line (they don't, obviously) and then trying to use another square twice, I asked it if it learns from each game it plays. It's response along the lines of "No, each chat is stateless so doesn't impact on others. I could play 1,000 games and not improve."

What was more interesting is that it went on to say that it's training data included examples of 'optimal' play, so it should know better, and offered to play what it called a 'perfect game'. It then went on to make equally bad (but different) choices. It said that even with perfect play it's possible to win if your opponent slips up. I called it out again, saying it shouldn't slip if it was using what it called 'perfect strategy'. Games after that it did do better, but it was a painful process.

Long story short, my experience (and not just with this, I've tried it for a few things) is that to get any LLM to actually do what you want takes so much instruction and cajoling, I may as well have just done it myself. It's like having small children, honestly.

Ordnance Survey digs deep to prevent costly cable strikes

Re: We who are ignored

"Direct vehicles taxes don't touch the side of the overall bill for motoring in the UK."

In 2025 - 2026, Vehicle excise duty is forecast to raise £9.1billion (https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/vehicle-excise-duty/)

In 2025 - 2026, fuel duty on petrol, diesel etc (not including household fuel) is forecast to raise £24.4billion (https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/fuel-duties/)

In 2023 - 2024, National highways spend £4.8billion on everything they did (https://nationalhighways.co.uk/media/fm1kq1hb/national_highways_ar24.pdf page 5)

In 2023 - 2024, Local authorities also seem to have spent £4.8billion on local road maintenance (https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9975/CBP-9975.pdf)

So the UK motorist is taxed somewhere in the region of £33.5billion even before we count VAT on fuel (another 20%) and from what I can find out, the UK spends about £10billion maintaining roads. So, no I'm afraid this appears incorrect on the evidence I can find.

What will UK government workers do with an extra 26 minutes a day?

Re: Shorter delivery times

"To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer"

This is a discussion I've been having as well - how do you quantify the saving?

I'm quite prepared to believe that users saved in the region of half an hour a day. Some of the documents which have to be produced by civil servants in all organisations are prime for automation of some kind in my opinion. However from an organisational point of view, how are you quantifying that saving? More importantly how do you bank that saving? The organisation I work for has 500 ish people in it, so the current yearly cost of copilot for all would be north of £100k. Taking average salaries, that's between 3 and 4 FTE employees. I can tell you right now I don't have an extra £100k floating around in my budget just waiting to be used, and it's a big enough number that getting sign off for it as an IT project will be next to impossible (we don't like spending money on IT here apparently), without the ability to demonstrate a monetary saving elsewhere.

So simply put, which 4 (or more) people are being let go from the organisation to pay for this? Or how else are you documenting any return on investment for this project?

Techies thought outside the box. Then the boss decided to take the box away

Re: Welcome...

Dougal!

Microsoft dumps AI into Notepad as 'Copilot all the things' mania takes hold in Redmond

Re: Smells of desperation

Sarcasm is the LOWEST form of wit.

I thought it was agreed decades ago that sarcasm had been replaced by Jim Davidson as the lowest form of wit?

UK government overrules local council’s datacenter refusal on Green Belt land

100% this.

In fact, I'd specify in the agreement that no work whatsoever could be started on the main project until the 'Public good' element has been all but completed.

NASA keeps ancient Voyager 1 spacecraft alive with Hail Mary thruster fix

Re: If only...

If only my toaster was as reliable as this!

Howdy-doodly-do! Would anyone like any toast?

VPN Secure parent company CEO explains why he had to axe thousands of 'lifetime' deals

Re: Two words:

Changing the serpentine belt on my 2016 Carolla was a bitch.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that changing the serpentine belt on my 2010 Mini was relatively straightforward.

Changing the alternator however meant taking the front bumper off!

Unending ransomware attacks are a symptom, not the sickness

Re: Make the management legally liable

Professionals by and large do not have working hours.

Arguably true, but professionals DO get paid.

Microsoft updates the Windows 11 Start Menu

Re: Ha, ha, ha! I moved to Linux Last Weekend.

But whose email address is it really?

I'm guessing it belongs to Glenn?

European biz calls for Euro tech for local people

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

In the days before the vote, Brexiteer In Chief Nigel Farage stated "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it"

So why was a narrower margin of victory for leave not treated as "unfinished business"? Farage went on to say that a narrow win for Remain would lead to a second vote, but according to Brexit favouring voters, that would be undemocratic and against the will of the people.

It's long past time for the second vote that Farage promised us.

LLM providers on the cusp of an 'extinction' phase as capex realities bite

I've said it before and I'll say it again - if it's not worth your time to write it, why do you think it's worth my time to read it?

Mega council officers had no idea what they were buying ahead of Oracle fiasco

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

As ... someone more than capable of doing 99% of their IT departments jobs

Oh really? And what are the IT departments jobs jobs at a large unitary authority? And if you're so amazing, why don't you work there?

It always amuses me that people who've never worked in the public sector assume the people who do in fact work there are simultaneously useless and get huge amounts of renumeration. If everyone there is so awful and the job is that cushy, why don't you do all you can to get a position there? Clearly the obvious choice, right?

Google confirms Gulf of Mexico renamed to appease Trump – but only in the US

Re: Next Trump executive orders

USoA => Trumpistan

Just call it Trumpton and be done with it, surely?

Icon, because apparently we don't have pictures of Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble OR Grubb

Remember it'll cost ya to keep the lights on for Windows 10

Re: All this pressure

If anyone can point me to a How-to guide for keeping my Windows Mixed Reality (I know, the clue's in the name right?) VR headset going with Linux, than I'm there. Otherwise my Win10 gaming box will find itself firewalled from the rest of the network and anything sensitive removed

Mega city council's Oracle finance fix faces further delays

Re: Honesty with shareholders?

Surely the honesty need go no further than:

"Look at how much money we're making off these rubes!"

And the shareholders rejoice?

WFH with privacy? 85% of Brit bosses snoop on staff

Re: Idle hands - but whose?

<Vimes>

I do

</Vimes>

Tesla sued over alleged Autopilot fail in yet another fatal accident

Re: Not again...

"I can argue that crashing in to the fire truck is not my fault because I was using Autopilot!"

"A superlative suggestion, sir, with just two minor flaws. One, autopilot is a poor marketing gimmick and not something any sane person would put their life in the hands of, and two, autopilot is a poor marketing gimmick and not something any sane person would put their life in the hands of. Now I realise that technically speaking that's only one flaw but I thought that it was such a big one that it was worth mentioning twice."

Julian Assange to go free in guilty plea deal with US

Re: Embassy

Can I say at this point that if The Register was still a British publication, the Anonymous Coward posts would, for the next 48 hours, instead be posted under the name "Anonymous Cowardly Shitweasel".

Such a shame :(

Re: Embassy

So... No innocent until proven guilty then?

I'm not sure that running from the police and leaving the country in which you're accused (which had no extradition agreement with the US) for another country (which very much DOES have an extradition agreement with the US) is the best look for someone claiming innocence.

Everything he was arrested and imprisoned for in the UK was entirely his own doing (running from a European arrest warrant, breaking house arrest etc) and was very much not innocent of.

Waymo issues software fix after driverless taxi hits telephone pole

If they hit a pickup truck because it was being towed incorrectly (You're towing it wrong" sounds very like an Apple excuse mind you) does hitting a unicycle count as "it hit you because you're cycling wrong"?

Payoff from AI projects is 'dismal', biz leaders complain

I've been waiting for this:

The ability to speak does not make you intelligent as given to us by the sage Qui Gon Jinn twenty five years ago,

Re: Payoff from AI projects is 'dismal', biz leaders complain

It'll have a very good future in politics.

I wouldn't count on it

https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/12/ai_bot_wyoming/

OpenAI says natively multimodal GPT-4o eats text, visuals, sound – and emits the same

Re: > Weird, I guess it's successfully deceived me into thinking it's writing code for me.

What use are cat videos, irrelevant images and pornography to a programmer?

You've met programmers, right?

UK skies set for cheeky upgrade with hybrid airship

Re: I always thought..

They don't have planning permission yet - 20 years is still a possibility!

City of Doncaster

Or, as we like to remind them at Football matches....

You're just a small town near Sheffield!

Just a small town near Sheffield.....

....a small town near Sheeeeefffield!

You're just a small town near Sheffield....

AI is changing search, for better or for worse

Bard is like all of us who look the other way, who find AI too useful to repudiate as a product of moral compromise.

Who are these people who find AI actually useful and not just an amusing diversion?

Getting to the bottom of BMW's pay-as-you-toast subscription failure

Re: the problem with this

If you didn't want heated seats then you'd save at least £20 in petrol / diesel by not hauling around the extra weight of heated seats during your time of ownership.

Have you ever lifted a heated car seat? They are unbelievably heavy.

Musk says he ain't going anywhere as Twitter CEO until at least late 2023

Re: Cognitive dissonance can be quite fascinating

I've just blocked Elon on Twitter, purely to see what happens