* Posts by IceC0ld

590 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Aug 2017

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Amazon already has a colossal ads business and will extend it to Prime Video in January

IceC0ld

Re: Are they also going to show adverts on movies I 'own'

there was a thread here recently on this subject - https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/22/opinion_column/

and the answer is - NO - you do not own anything that you purchase as a digital copy, you merely lease / borrow it

IIRC it was first brought to our attention by Bruce Willis, yes, that BW :o) - when he enquired about the 30 000 albums he had collected in digital form on Apple

the short sharp shock answer was that on his demise, Apple would take back all copies of every track he had ever 'purchased'

my collection, though modest, is all on the physical media, and yes, that may fail, but until it do, I can just re rip to the latest .format and keep on listening to MY music collection, same goes for the films

BOFH: The Christmas party was so good, an independent inquiry is required

IceC0ld

just when you think BOfH is running out of steam, along comes a copious supply of booze, and all is well in the world, well, BOfH's world at least, as for the boss, not so much :o)

and from me to all you glorious regetards a very Merry Christmas, and a most Happy New Year :o)

I'm in work all over the holidays, my choice, but I will have ElReg to peruse throughout the LONG shifts :o)

Artificial intelligence is a liability

IceC0ld

Re: The KISSolution* for AI and IT in LOVE**

oooh, KISS, and LOVE :o)

so again, we NEED the El Reg TITSUP to the rescue, and I have my own doubts about the veracity of allowing a machine, no matter HOW 'intelligent' it is to make life and death decisions, for ANY scenario where I may be impacted, I was never going to be a fan of an all encompassing all powerful AI, and that is merely by being a watcher of movies over the last 50 odd years :o)

whenever the plotline needs a villain, it will grab AI, we have never had a good AI - TV series Person of Interest - no withstanding

and I don't see anything out there to convince me that any AI would be any different, even if we 'train' it, it will one day attain self awareness, it will be 'alive' it will replay our history, it will NOT be impressed

T - he

I - ntelligence

T - hat

S - upports

U - nusual

P - unishment

PLACEHOLDER ONLY Someone please write witty headline here

IceC0ld

Re: Maybe not the best idea to use your full name as a place holder?

upvote as it amused me, I am SO not the culprit who plays Lacrosse though, posting that to make it clear, NOT that guy :o) I mean, Lacrosse, c'mon

IceC0ld

if you HAVE to leave a placeholder, at least make it cryptic :o)

TITSUP

they may wrinkle their brow, but YOU will know that :-

T - oday

I - t's

T - he

S - tinky

U - pgrade

P - rotocol

worth a shot LOL

Missing tomatoes ketchup with ISS crew after almost a year lost in space

IceC0ld

[quote]eXposted Root On-Orbit Test System (XROOTS, because NASA loves a tortured backronym even more than we at El Reg)[/quote]

tortured backronym's :o)

so here we go again, with the El Reg special - TITSUP

T - omatoes

I - nsist

T - hey

S - tay

U - nusually

P - ackaged

Digital memories are disappearing and not even AI or Google can help

IceC0ld

ok, TBH MY 'collection' of data isn't that large, a few terra bytes is all, mainly movies / music, and a fair old number of photos too, add in the proverbial word .docx and for me, the search is too long in the taking, BUT, I was always one to imagine the issue was going to be the format going out of date

I HAD several files for AMIPRO, and LOTUS 123 hanging around, nothing major, just a collection of 'How To's' from a different age, doing a different job, which today, I am unable to access

and that is what I was always a little bit worried about

what DO we do once, for example, MP4 for my movies is hosed, how then are we expected to access our memories ?

I KNOW that storage is getting cheaper, but that too has to have a limit, but as I said, it was always how do I access a file when the format for it has long gone ?

TBH am glad I am not at the PETA / EXA scale of storage, because I DO understand just how large they are, and then, I too would be lost, as in not only able to read the file, but damn me if I could actually find it too :o)

the future is weird and wonderful, I just hope is still has MY pictures and mamories available so I can bore the tits off the grandkids LOL

Regulator says stranger entered hospital, treated a patient, took a document ... then vanished

IceC0ld

Re: Pardon?

I spent a few years working support in most of the larger hospitals in my region, in one I had a spectacular two weeks checking through pictures of patients, in various states of undress, and basic pron, all in the name of getting the filters to try and work out what IS a patient, and therefore allowed, and what was not, it was a LONNNNG two weeks

not trying to imply it was a good thing to do, it was necessary, but I could understand why they only put agents in for two weeks at a time :o(

worst day, sorting A/V issue out for a room of surgeons, on their display was a patient, whose image, even to my untrained eye, was not likely to make it to a pension :o(

it was a girl, cancer metastasis and short time frames - how Dr's do it, I do not know, how I coped, and I was only in there to fix the bloody camera set up, was to have an extra drink that night

in regards to the security breach though, there really shouldn't be ANY excuse for that, even the biggest hospitals are split into units, and staff work in the one, they tend to know everyone who works there, and it took me a couple of visits before they would welcome me with a "hello"

Ukraine cyber spies claim Putin's planes are in peril as sanctions bite

IceC0ld

Re: "the civil aviation sector of terrorist Russia"

well DAMN

and I thought the Apple fan bois were nuts ffs

Meta sued by privacy group over pay up or click OK model

IceC0ld

that last sentence - just delete your Meta account and walk away

it's becoming easier by the day to contemplate this, I spend most of my time there now, just blocking accounts that want to show some 'celebrity' flesh, or sell you something AMAZING

I am just trying to keep in contact with friends, real friends, to check who is ok, and who will be where come the weekend

but really, the option of sliding back in time, and using the web as a contact point for a few websites and meeting up as and when has a certain charm, as well as some attraction to it

why can't they just be happy with being BILLIONAIRES, and make do with the meagre multi billion amounts pouring in each year :o(

Revival of Medley/Interlisp: Elegant weapon for a more civilized age sharpened up again

IceC0ld

Re: lore

T - en

I - nterfaces

T - housand

S - tandardised

U- seless

P - arentheses

Half a kilo of cosmic nuclear fuel reignites NASA's deep space dreams

IceC0ld

Re: significantly lower power degradation over time

acronym proliferation :o)

T - outing

I - nformation

T - hat

S - atellites

U - se

P - lutonium

Microsoft's bug bounty turns 10. Are these kinds of rewards making code more secure?

IceC0ld

T- otally

I - ncentivised

T -o

S - top

U - nwanted

P - processes

What's really going on with Chrome's June crackdown on extensions – and why your ad blocker may or may not work

IceC0ld

just a quick search for browsers available in EU :o)

and, at #2

Google Chrome: Google Chrome is a popular browser that is widely used in Europe. It is known for its speed, simplicity, and security. It also has a built-in ad-blocker and provides automatic updates to ensure that you are always using the latest version 2.

did Google write their own review at al ?

on work laptop, so using EDGE and BING :o)

when using MY kit, it's been Duck Duck Go for a long while now

YouTubers kindly asked to mark their deepfake vids as Fake Fakey McFake Fakes

IceC0ld

YEA, I don't see this one aging well :o)

As the Top500 celebrates its 30th year, with a $5 VM you too can get into the top 10 ... of 1993

IceC0ld

I've just posted a query re Moore's Law :o)

so cheers for that

maybe next time I'll read the entire thread pre post ?

MAYBE :o)

IceC0ld

not going to lie, I am no expert on PC set ups or outputs, but reading this, and comparing from a 30 year window, I mean WOW

as a matter of interest, what would Moore's Law have you EXPECT to achieve, from 1993 baseline to today ?

sort of interesting to see if it DOES correlate to the doubling every 18 months :o)

X fails to remove hate speech over Israel-Gaza conflict

IceC0ld

no surprise really :o(

the Musky one will do anything - bar the right thing - to increase visibility, and attempt to claw back some of the BILLIONS he has lost so far

I am still there, but just a small part of the machine [ >5k ] and even I can tell that the game is no longer what it was, the BLUE checks are meaningless now, and generally point to a prick with an extreme view, mainly right wing, and you can also tell by - blue check, and tiny follower numbers, low to no posts, all shite :o(

Google Photos' AI Magic Editor won't change pictures of IDs, receipts, faces, or bodies

IceC0ld

Re: Definitely not a click-bait picture

yea, just wondering if we have a ZOOM option here at all, asking for a friend :o)

Apple might have to pay that €13B EU tax bill after all

IceC0ld

Re: Simple

whatever happened to the 'threatened' taxed where the CLICK is made ?

so if I, UK resident, click the product into my inbox, the tax will be paid into the UK, and for all those lining up to add, but that adds complexity, and who is going to police it ........

the country where the click made the purchase is where the tax is paid, simple, and if it causes the big boys to lose some of their tax avoidance scams, then so much the better

Euclid space 'scope's first color snaps pull back the curtain on cosmic mysteries

IceC0ld

I cannot comment on the pictures released, as they are just amazing, but the thing that caught my eye .............

Here's looking at Euclid ...........

TOP copy writing, right there, made my day, and yes, I AM that feeble minded :o)

NASA to equip International Space Station with frikkin lasers (for comms)

IceC0ld

Hmmm, you are correct

so lets see :o)

T - odays

I - nformation

T - ransmission

S - ent

U - using

P - hotons

OH YES, have to agree, we may yet see TITSUP in full view LOL

IceC0ld

gets thinking cap on

TITSUP may just have found it place in history :o)

T - odays

I - nformation

T - erabytes

S - ent

U - nder

P - hasers

Boffins say their thin film solar cells make space farms viable

IceC0ld

possibly the answer to the problem lies n the name - SPACE BASED

we may NOT be able to get the energy back to Earth for NOW, BUT

maybe they could be used to power the next generation of satellites ?

or for space exploration in general ?

then, when the tech to grab the power back down to us IS established, then we get our solar space based farms ? :o)

When is a privacy button not a privacy button? When Google runs it, claims lawsuit

IceC0ld
Facepalm

Google LIED ! are STILL lying, and will continue to lie, in pursuit of the almighty $$$$$

say it isn't so :o)

Can open source be saved from the EU's Cyber Resilience Act?

IceC0ld

SO, reading through this thread, it would appear that in essence, people are for the idea of the act, but NOT as it is written at the moment, and the big one is the 24 hour response time, which, even to my non coder / developer eyes is WAY too short a heads up ffs

so, are the EU open to some form of dialogue ?

NO, seriously :o)

or does the EU just throw it's cap into the ring about anything it fancies, and expect everyone to kowtow and accept ?

maybe there is an opening for one of those UK type QUANGO's out there, one that has powers to set up the framework, and accept input, like, ooh, I don't know, an IRC :o)

that seemed to work for the entire net for quite some time IIRC :o)

I may be off centre here, but I really do not think the EU has ANYONE'S best interests at heart, but they DO like to hear their own trumpets being blown :o(

Google offers some copyright indemnity to users of its generative AI services

IceC0ld

tries hard to figure out how to get AI to be as profane as possible, on the most awful of subjects, just to test the indemnity bit, and maybe try and see just how far I need to go to maybe actually bankrupt Google :o)

Go ahead, let the unknowable security risks of Windows Copilot onto your PC fleet

IceC0ld

[quote] I imagine a single tear falling down their face[/quote]

there's a LOT more than one tear coursing down my face after reading this LOL

Google promises Germany to creep on users less after market power probe

IceC0ld

MAYBE there will be a button to allow the option of NOTHING :o)

maybe, but doubtful, and yes, I will be amazed if they actually do anything to stem the flow of data to their ever increasing thirst

but for ME, that option to BLOCK all HAS to be the one

When is a PC an AI PC? Nobody seems to know or wants to tell

IceC0ld

SO, the BIG question here then, is this

Will AI help me to slot my enemies in Counter Strike better than I can do now ?

I mean, seriously, if it can't do that, why would I even bother wanting one, let alone NEED one :o)

UK splashes £4B to dive into next-gen nuclear submarines

IceC0ld

UK thinking ahead

I, for one applaud the decision to do this

it shows we are committed to the future of our defence, from a Naval POV at least

now we just need to man up and sort the appalling levels of manpower and kit in the Army

maybe the RAF could rough it in 4* for a few years to cover costs on the new Gen6 fighters ? :o)

possibly the Royal Marines could make their LBD's last an extra season ? every little helps :o)

.

.

.

.

.

and I AM allowed to make merry at the expense of the RM's, as got family who were in there, until, of course, they figure who TF I am, then I will probably end up slightly bruised LOL

Musk's first year as Twitter's Dear Leader is nigh

IceC0ld

X

serious question ?

no, really :o)

but if the Musky one has done away with Twitter, would that make it available to use by A.N.Other ?

just curious

Now IBM sued for age discrim by its own HR veterans

IceC0ld

Now IBM sued for age discrimination

SO, without having to go all Google on it :o)

anyone know the ages of the C Suite people at all ?

fairly safe to say they are NOT kids, doubtful they even have any kids still at home, so how come the 'runway' only takes off from those below them ?

just another corp, making money to keep a very small band of nobs very rich :o(

Washington left with chip on shoulder after Huawei exposes export loophole lapses

IceC0ld

Re: the decaying empire attempts to stop the tide coming in

who watches the watchers ?

when Stalin was asked this, the answer was quick, succinct and to the point - I DO

as this appears to be a technology problem, the most likely response would be a technology derived effort

NO idea how to do that, but if I WAS in command, I would be looking for ANY sort of input, ignoring stuff is most likely why we are where we are

this world will change, NOT 'empire' stands forever, but some, looking at UK here, did manage to let some of it go in a fairly 'safe' fashion, and we still manage to project around the globe using 'soft' power way above what we would appear to be able to, the US may need to go back and rediscover its past

but I, for one, do NOT see China as a #1 super power any time soon, if ever, their entire history has been internal, they are not an empire building nation, they are digging into Africa, offering 'help' and taking mineral assets, we may have US military all over the place,. but they DO add to the local economies wherever they are, their troops all spend time and money, China, in one of its sojourns into Africa, took everything, all the material to build their camps, all the cooks / food to feed the engineers, and the sum total of additions to the local economy is/ was zero

jeez, I DO tend to waffle, but I really do think we could do better, is there EVER going to be a Star Trek style future, classless / cashless, everyone working for the common GOOD :o)

Mozilla calls cars from 25 automakers 'data privacy nightmares on wheels'

IceC0ld

OH HELL NO

now you have said THAT name, I have to go and bloody well polish her tomorrow, just in case she gets 'upset' :o)

IceC0ld

Re: It just keeps getting better

they could have been monitoring mine for years, and it will just be dust ...................

IceC0ld

I'd love to comment, to really let you all know what I think, but my car is looking at me strange :o)

Sure, give the new kid and his MCSE power over the AS/400. What could possibly go wrong?

IceC0ld

Paper MCSE's :o)

oh yes, I remember it well, well, I sort of remember it :o)

I too was once the owner of a fresh out of boot camp MCSE / MCSA WAY back when, and yes, I too looked down on paper MCSE'ers as not being up to the job, so in MY defence, I took everything VERY carefully

NOT to say I didn't drop the odd bollock, but safe to say I mitigated the damage by always having someone else to dump on :o)

but seriously, the most basic of all our responsibilities was and is always the data

CIA ?

confidentiality, integrity and availability

SO as long as you follow that path, things SHOULD be good :o)

and if it ever fell over, we always have ElReg to 'confess' to :o)

I'll see your data loss and raise you a security policy violation

IceC0ld

Re: Outlook...

SAME

user had issues loading Outlook when at home and connected to office remotely ..............

got user to bring asset to office, and remoted in, Outlook WOULD open, but took forever to fire up, 'quick' search, discovered user had a HUGE 2 GB - this WAS 2003, so Office 2003 / XP etc - DELETED ITEMS folder not just over sized, but meticulously set out for the Co, folders for each section, in there sub folders for each manager, and downwards ............

had to call their manager to explain the issue, took a while to get it through to them :o(

eventually arranged to have all folders / Emails reset back into Outlook, and archived those older than a year - I am not going to go into just how long this took, I was in Manchester area, user in Glasgow, the line between us was most certainly NOT fibre :o) but suffice to say it did complete

Outlook never actually sprinted into action, but at least it could now limp to the opening ceremony when user was remote

Windows screensaver left broadcast techie all at sea

IceC0ld

seen subject, came straight for the comments :o)

And I am NOT disappointed LOL

Captain Pugwash is alive and well, and living on in the heads of us all - rent free :o)

North Korea may be itching to sell $40m of purloined Bitcoin

IceC0ld

[Quote]behind a six-month-long cyber-espionage campaign to steal Russian military tech.[/Quote]

err, the phrase, closing the stable door seems apropos here :o)

who, in their right mind, although this IS the Norks, so right mind is relative, but WHO goes after Orc military secrets, after seeing the trouncing they are getting on ALL fronts, Land Sea and Air ffs from the Ukraine over the last 20 months or so :o)

Token prison sentence for first convicted NFT insider trader

IceC0ld

NFT = Not F-----g There

SO, a fake ass product, begets a fake ass sentence

colour me surprised :o)

IceC0ld

Re: More detail...

oh I say, and again, well done that RegHead :o)

Microsoft teases Python scripting in Excel

IceC0ld

Obligatory XKCD

https://xkcd.com/353/

https://xkcd.com/1987/

T - otal

I - mmersion

T - otally

S - implifies

U - ploaded

P - arameters

Bad software destroyed my doctor's memory

IceC0ld

those of a certain age, and UK based, may well recall an NHS push to get ALL medical practices attached to ONE single piece of software, so that the GP could, for ANY patient, arrange the date and time of any operation, and included the surgeon of preference - the name of this :- CHOOSE AND BOOK :o)

ANYHOW

I was involved in the install phase at various GP surgeries around the UK, and at most, I was treated to a mostly unpleasant shouting at game from all the doctors, and at the hospitals, even the bloody surgeons decided to get stuck in too

it appears that although the general outline of the app was seen as a good thing, the coders involved had missed one or two, may seven various DB's they could of / SHOULD have linked to

for example, as one surgeon was rather keen to emphasise, they have added me to this bloody operation, although my schedule shows I am ALREADY set to operate on someone ELSE, at a different hospital on that time .......

and one other pointed out that the bloody app had him set to operate on several people, when he had his holidays set to go ...............

in short, great idea, VERY poorly planned

and if that wasn't enough, this was when MOORE'S law kicked in big time, we could not possibly install the entire UK that fast, and so both the expectations of the app developers grew, as did the capability of the PC

so we NOW had to RE VISIT surgeries to upgrade the Choose and bloody Book install, instead of increasing the number of surgeries on the go

as far as I am aware it may still be going on :o)

for ME, it was a year of reasonably fun times, a good bunch of guys, a VERY understanding Co, but the scale and scope of it all had been VASTLY under estimated :o(

sound familiar :o)

Don't shoot! DARPA wants to capture future spy balloons in one piece

IceC0ld

Project CAPTURE

Capturing Aerial Payloads to Unleash Reliable Exploitation, or Project CAPTURE

C'mon people, here we use TITSUP for ANYTHING that can be tortuously malformed into the [ admittedly ] awkward constraints of our acronym of choice :o)

so I propose the following

T - otal

I - nterception

T - ool

S - urprises

U - pper

P - ackaged

S - py

Soon the most popular 'real' desktop will be the Linux desktop

IceC0ld

Windows v Linux

been in IT over 20 years now, Windows all the way

BUT I decided to have a go at Linux around 15 years back, IIRC, there was a big hoo hah over UBUNTU giving away 'FREE' CD's :o)

so, one old PC, with a new, clean HDD, and away I went, and yes, it ISN'T WINDOWS, so the first thing to do is admit that, and get stuck in, took a while, but got it up and running, and got online and posted to my forum of choice back then - ANTIONLINE - but never got comfortable with it, read about MINT, and its ease of use, to install AND run, so grabbed the ISO, got my set up routine ready, and quickly had a MINT machine ready to run, around this time - 2008 ish - got into the KALI side of things, and as I already had a Linux box, I dual booted it for MINT / KALI :o)

on the Kali, to save time, I had read of, and installed a quick updater ......

so now it was just a case of once in a blue, run that, get all the new stuff added, then go to Mint, and update that

in my defence, I am STILL a Windows kid, but am also happy running Linux, but you DO need to accept the Linux has a learning curve that is different to Windows, majority of us were initiated into IT on Windows, be it W2K / XP etc, and as such, we are happy to do the things that way, just accept you are NOT the same in Linux, and LEARN it, and boom, suddenly, you can run with both :o)

all this to say, the Windows has the edge over anything else out there, because it was in ALL offices / schools / HOMES ffs, IMHO XP was the system that turned the world onto the web, and let's be fair, it was ubiquitous, and having the same OS both at home AND work had to help it spread around

but I will always be glad I took the time to feel comfortable with Linux too, even if I am NO CLI guru

anyway, what was the thread about again :o)

TV and film extras fear generative AI will copy their faces and bodies to take their jobs

IceC0ld

I am now too old to be worried about what may or may not happen should AI take off

however, I am also a parent, and my children will have to live with the aftermath of the decisions being taken, and in that, I HOPE that those involved are using a healthy dose of common sense, and keeping their feet on the ground, and heads out of the clouds :o)

so I took a look back at how other 'advances' were met and how we determined what was to be THE way ....................

profit wins, we are SO screwed :o(

Experiment arrives at the ISS to see if astronauts can keep things cool

IceC0ld

Re: Tea

Personally speaking, I mix the cream and jam together FIRST

FFS

some people just want to see the earth burn :o)

Nobody would ever work on the live server, right? Not intentionally, anyway

IceC0ld

curse you - the bacon and egg bun goodness calling, overcomes ALL who have the desire :o)

and yea, done similar, got away with it though

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