Posts by theDeathOfRats

Attention data hoarders: Alexa loses its Plex appeal as voice feature gets canned

Re: "Smart"

<scot>ELEVEN!!!</scot>

Artemis II astronaut: 'I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working'

Re: I Have NO OutLook...........

And I MUST SEND A MESSAGE IN ALL CAPS!

Microsoft's Project Silica promises eternal storage. It can't get there from here

Or they just don't understand it.

Keir Starmer declares 'months' timeline for social media age clampdown in UK

I'd say the North-American one is the most dangerous for the children, nowadays.

Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder

“Abuse” is an interesting choice of word

Maybe it's some kind of silly not-really-an-acronym?

As in Ad Blocker USE -> ABUSE

Guess I'm an abuser, then.

Notepad will now tell you all the ways Microsoft has enshittified it

Re: Answers on a postcard to,...

Notepad--

I think we have a winner ---------------->

Techie banned from client site for outage he didn’t cause

Re: Workig for a Dialup ISP in the 90's...

Too late to edit, so...

Going by his previous posts, I'd go with NOT A CHATBOT.

Re: Workig for a Dialup ISP in the 90's...

A couple of grammatical and ortographic errors. Soo... Maybe not?

And, then again, maybe yes if the poster is a chatbot prompt warrior.

The story itself is not too nuts. If you leave some USofA specific details apart... It might be one of me own tales :p

Re: It's always the DNS...

And sometimes (as mentioned in the interlude in the story) it's the OOOPS!

CES 2026 worst in show: AI girlfriends, a fridge that won't open unless you talk to it, and more

"Tea is simpler."

BURRRNNN THE HERETIC!!!

;p

P.S.: Just joking. To each, its own.

Tired of sky-high memory prices? Buckle up, we're in this for the long haul

Re: Good timing for purchasing my new computer

This is insane. I bought 64GB of RAM just one year ago:

02/12/2024 - Kingston FURY Impact SO-DIMM DDR5 5600MHz 64GB 2x32GB CL40 - 203.48€ (VAT included).

Right now. Same vendor:

20/12/2025 - Kingston FURY Impact SO-DIMM DDR5 5600MHz 64GB 2x32GB CL40 - 939.48€ (VAT included).

I built a full home "miniserver" with a Ryzen 7, 2x4TB NVME storage and the aforementioned 64GB of RAM for the price the two fscking sticks are selling now.

This is a joke.

Hot for its bot, McKinsey may cut thousands of jobs

Re: Obelisk shaped

Now try it with "fewer employees at every lower level, starting at TOPLEVEL-1" and modify the level of reduction appropriately as you descend.

You probably could write a PERL one-liner to implement it.

Techie 'forgot' to tell boss their cost-saving idea meant a day of gaming

Re: Dension DMP3

Nowadays? Yes, that's one option.

Back in the noughties? Not so much, unless your car was a heavily modified Delorian.

User insisted their screen was blank, until admitting it wasn't

Re: Reminds me of the time ...

A developer at a previous job used two mices, left and right. He'd use one or the other, depending on what he was doing at the moment. Didn't have the left one configured for left-hand, either, he said he was used to it.

It worked for him, so...

Pretty nice chap, by the way.

Windows boss defends 'agentic OS' push as users plead for reliability

Re: New features! New Features!! PUMP THAT STOCK PRICE!!!

Apparently, not yet.

I'm gonna refill my glass with some whisky. I'd offer you some, but I'm afraid it doesn't work well when poured on the laptop (we may need a new protocol for WoIP). In the meantime, have one of these ----->

New boss took charge of project code and sent two billion unwanted emails

And as I tell everyone (work, family, friends...) nowadays: Instant Messaging doesn't imply Instant Answering.

Microsoft suggests temporary registry hack for stricken smart card users

"duel booting"

I found that an extremely accurate description when the other OS is one of the latest from Micros~1.

I'm keeping it for later use, if you don't mind. Thank you!

Turns out the end of Windows 10 is good for something: The PC refresh cycle

The only Win machine I have at home is a laptop (in name only) with an Intel Core i7-7700HQ, 16GB of RAM, 2xSSDs and a Nvidia 1050 card. Bought it 8 or 9 years ago.

I've changed the battery 2 times (the last one a couple of months ago). It works. Mostly for games, not my main driver nowadays, but why would I change it?

I'll change the OS when the time comes, and it certainly won´t be W11.

Microsoft hypes PCs with NPUs, still can't offer a good reason to buy one

Pioneers

In the shop I worked back in the '90s we used to warn users and prospective buyers that "in IT, being a pioneer IS expensive AND risky".

Also not to trust all the hype from that era magazines.

I'd say it still applies.

Big money is nervous about AI hype, but not ready to call it a bubble

Is that you ‘Amanfrommars1’?

Naah... Too many links.

Google stuffs Chrome full of AI features whether you like it or not

But... But... You don't have all your devices sync'ed?

Now, that's preposterous...

Shame on you.

Word to the wise: Don't tell your IT manager they're not in Excel

Re: "Surely an IT manager should know the difference between Word and Excel?"

But here you were PULLING data from an SQL DB, NOT using Excel as the DB.

I'd say that's OK, as it lets you "do them one column at a time, quickly, and dump them in Excel and connect them with an easy vlookup".

It also gives you options like "Graphs and simple statistics to be added next week". I don't see anything wrong there.

No more waiting for lines: New Windows keyboard shortcuts output em and en dashes with ease

Re: Dashes

I call it Autocorruptor. I think it fits.

Techie fooled a panicked daemon and manipulated time itself to get servers in sync

Re: My NTP-AD default...

Loved the "Funs fine. Until it doesn't."

I'm assuming guessing it's a typo, but I'm stealing it anyway. With your permission, I hope.

FBI cyber cop: Salt Typhoon pwned 'nearly every American'

About that data only SIM...

I have one for 1€ a month as a backup. It has (or had, don't know, they keep adding MBs) about a 200MB per month (though the unused allowance goes to the next month's, up to 6 or so). Of course, you can contract for XXGB a month, and the price goes up.

If you are in Europe I'm pretty sure you can find something similar.

As for android misbehaving... I didn't have a problem with it, but haven't tried it in one of the recent versions.

Classic Psion fan releases proof-of-concept language server for OPL

Re: Impressive

Upvoted for the "Yet."

AI models just don't understand what they're talking about

Re: Cited LLM test invalid?

And, unfortunately, we haven't got to the ex-parrot part yet. Though one can't but hope...

Microsoft's next Windows 11 update is more 'enablement' than upgrade

I dunno... Windows the 13th sounds fine to me.

Re: Unexpected?

Daily?

AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time, and a lot of them aren't AI at all

And I totally agree with you. Comparing Data to an LLM would be insulting. That's why I said AI (don't think I've seen one of those yet) ;p

Not much different, I guess. Though DJT's algorythm also needs access to an API to post to Truth Social.

Except a 3-month old baby has a certain level of reasoning (even if it's just a simple algorythm based on a bunch of internal sensors):

- I'm hungry > I cry (repeat till get fed) > I get fed.

- My bottom parts are itchy|wet|smelly > I cry (repeat till solved) > I get cleaned.

What passes for an AI nowadays... Not so much.

I'd say that Data (him|it)self would be a perfect (for certain values of "perfect") example for an AI at work.

The year of the European Union Linux desktop may finally arrive

Re: Autodesk

Reluctanctly upvoted because, much as I don't like it, you're right.

Now I'm going for one of these. Grab another one if you feel like it, it's on me ----->

There's no international protocol on what to do if an asteroid strikes Earth

Re: There's no protocol needed on what to do when an asteroid/comet strikes earth

Chance in a million

You had to say it, dintcha?

BOFH: Peeling back the layers of the magic banana industrial complex

Re: And then...

Obviously, with Magic and Linux nerds involved, some of the forks will be named Bananana, Banananana, and so forth, adding to the confusion and increasing the chances of a na in the middle attack.

"Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling 'banana', but didn't know how you stopped."

GNU TERRY PRATCHETT

Windows 11 migration heats up... on desktops

Re: Where am I ?

Have you tried printing your files to .PDF from YOUR copy|SaaS Licence|whatever of MsOffice and bringing those to the library? I mean, if printing is all you need...

China just two years behind USA on chip design, says White House tech Czar

As Meat Loaf said: "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are"

SpaceX's Starship explodes again ... while still on the ground

Re: Naming convention

Like fsck he is! Mr Leonard of Quirm was a true genius and a brilliant engineer (if a tad naive). I'll admit that his creativity didn't extend to the naming of his creations, but at least those where descriptive and accurate.

Maybe you were thinking of Bloody Stupid Johnson?

Danish department determined to dump Microsoft

Re: Replacing Office is the easy part

A sledgehammer. No elecktricity required.

It works wonders with "modern" hardware (printers, mostly).

Just don't try it with a LaserJet 4L or similar, you can end with a face full of hammer (I was the one screaming "NO, DON'T!!!")

Microsoft's plain text editor gets fancy as Notepad gains formatting options

Re: it doesn't play well (read: at all) with the clipboard

I tried [Highlight] > [Ctrl-C] > [Ctrl-v]

Didn't work.

I tried [Highlight] > [Alt-E] > [Select Copy] > [Ctrl-V]

Didn't work.

I tried [Highlight] > [Alt-E] > [Select Copy] > [Right-Click] > [Paste]

Didn't work.

I tried [Highlight] > [Right-Click] > [Copy] > [Right-Click] > [Paste]

Didn't work.

I can be a stubborn barsteward, but even I know when to give up. So I just saved the file, opened it in Notepad++ and just Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V into the comment editor.

Though I'm not giving up. I still think EDIT.EXE could be a nice addition to my toolbox.

Maybe I was just using it wrong.

Micros~1: We're adding 'dark mode' and multi-level undo to Notepad.

OK, that's nice? I guess?

Micros~1: We're adding tabs to Notepad.

Mmmmkayyy... Could be handy. Should anyone need it...

Micros~1: We're adding spell checking to Notepad.

Errr... Why?

Micros~1: We're adding AI to Notepad.

NO! ARE YOU FSCKING INSANE? BAD MICROS~1!

Micros~1: We're adding formatting options to Notepad.

AW, FSCK OFF! Just resurrect Wordpad and leave the poor little tool alone!

By the way, I decided to use their new edit.exe to make a first draft for this comment (and check it to see if it can be a useful tool in these crAIzy times) and when I tried to copy/paste it seems that it doesn't play well (read: at all) with the clipboard. At least in Win10.

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

Re: It is problematic.

Thousands die in road accidents, but one accident with a driverless car could end it as a technology. Which is daft. We shouldn't have an expectation of perfection.

Yeah, well... What I expect is to see hard-braking rubber marks in the asphalt prior to the hit. And then the car stopping and alerting the emergency services and not moving from there till they arrive and then give them a full report of what happened.

Not doing that is illegal for meatbags, why should a machine get an exception?

The 'End of 10' is nigh, but don't bury your PC just yet

Re: Not obsolete if you monotask singlemedia

I have Q4OS running in an old (I'm pretty sure the thing can legally buy alcohol in the USA) "el cheapo" netbook with a VIA C7 1GHz and a whooping 512MB of RAM. Admittedly it had A TON of storage space for the time (specs said 40GB, the HDD is actually 60GB).

Used it mostly for remote connections, mostly TMUX and VNC/Remmina, and to read The Register using Lynx (not a good idea now). Now acts as a decoy for one of the cats who fancies herself a technomancer.

From their download page:

The minimal hardware requirements:

Plasma desktop - 1GHz CPU / 1GB RAM / 5GB disk

Trinity desktop - 350MHz CPU / 256MB RAM / 3GB disk

Microsoft to mark five decades of Ctrl-Alt-Deleting the competition

Gonna need a shovel for that.

Microsoft tastes the unexpected consequences of tariffs on time

Re: It is unclear.. what problem the video was intended to fix

What you describe sounds more like a helldesk ticket than a bug report to me.

OpenAI asks Uncle Sam to let it scrape everything, stop other countries complaining

What does the "P" stand for?

Porridge?

Windows 11 24H2 strikes again – Outlook might not start with Google Workspace Sync running

Basic home use

While I agree with you, Doctor, we both know that the garden variety basic home user doesn't even know what the fsck you are talking about.

And unfortunately we are massively outnumbered, and the Big Houses know that.

The dumbing down of computer users is accelerating.

Tesla's big reveal: Steering-wheel-free Robotaxi will charge wirelessly

... its passengers will be drained of energy to charge the vehicle.

A "robotaxy" with seats for two and no steering wheel...

That really sounds like a (sorta) king-size Matrix pod to me.

Heart of glass: Human genome stored for 'eternity' in 5D memory crystal

Re: Bug

Wait. Wasn't that Apple?