Posts by Nematode 370 publicly visible posts • joined 15 May 2018
I love safety-critical software. Not. I'll always remember one site start-up I did where the client's functional spec., which we followed, resulted in a hugemongous-inch pipeline valve moving when it shouldn't have*.
Having decided that the client's design could therefore not be trusted after all, I did a 1-man instant on-site re-analysis of their "code" and found 3 more errors.
* Had to throw out that particular pair of shorts.
Yes, not dissimilar to politicians migration from serving their constituents and the wider idea of democracy to the money-and-notoriety-grubbing animals* they have by and large become. And from companies selling wares in order to enrich everyone involved to enriching billionaires at an astonishing annual growth rate but not those who work in these companies.
Cynical? Moi?
* sorry, that's insulting to animals.
"There is nothing to stop the slop."
Rubbish. They're called "ears".
As the article points out, we've always had slop - I remember as a kid watching TOTP waiting to see if they put a decent track on (and week after week failing), ditto the Alan Freeman show (followed thankfully by Alexis Korner's blues programme. It's just worse and there's more of it now. There will always be people who just listen to any old thing but there are also always going to be people who listen out for something genuinely new and interesting. AI is by definition unoriginal, and those with any discernment will soon get bored of any AI slop which makes it through the obvious defences.
I always come back to considering that if you have made a billion (which to make it clear is a million, then another million, and so on A THOUSAND TIMES (a U.S. billion)), under what circumstances would you need to make another thousandfold million and then another and another etc etc ad nauseam (and it is nauseous)? You can't possibly spend it, unless you start a rocket ship company when it's not really yours, is it, especially if you finance it with share values.)
If these guys were serious philanthropists then I might not be so against them, but they just hoard more and more, in shares and investments, in some sort of pi55ing contest.
One of these guys' wealth pots could do a lot to fixing the absolute 5h1thole which most of the world has become. Instead they are just amplifying the en5h1ttification of the world.
Yes and delighting in no regular interruption to service that win Updates always were, with the risk of bricking your machine at every update, hence needing to ensure you've backed up first.
I have put non-MS anti-malware on the machines, so they are a little slower to boot but hey.
I quit VF years ago on account of poor service (and they dumped the SureSignal, vital back then if you had no signal) ad went to ..... Threeeeee! Have had pretty good service from them actually, and even the WiFi calling pretty much works. I'm sure VF can eff it up again. Trouble is, is there anyone else better to go to?! Replies on a postcard please to ...
I used to be 2nd line software support leader for a DCS control systems mfr and vendor. We used to constantly get sales queries about customers asking how immune our system was to viruses/malware (this was 1987-2000). Once we'd stopped laughing, our answer was "we don't know of any malware written to run on [theOpSysWeUsed] *. It used to doubly amuse us as our issues at that time were mainly getting the durn thang to do what it should do, plus we also didn't see how malware could do anything evil without knowing the OS and architecture, which I think was selected to be as obscure as possible. Certainly no e-mail-or-web-vectored attack could work.
* the OS name would be giving confidential info away, not yet at the 30-year moratorium end yet!
Search the non-"AI" net for the joke about "What happens when the drumming stops?" Then ask ChatGPT: What happens when the drumming stops?
Unless it learned from my previous conversation with it, to point out it was hopeless and had no sense of humour, you'll get the same patronising guff I got, and which got mroe and more excruciatingly worse as I explained.
(just re-checked, yes it still gets it wrong)
---The thing with Microsoft is, nothing they ever ship "works as expected!"---
True, but then when you have to dig into stuff involving particular services or not running, the registry and registry hacks, the events monitor, etc etc it's perfectly obvious why. The OS is waaaaaaayyy to complex, 5h!te on top of 5h!te ad infinitum.
Well, my box (W11-capable but buggbear that) has told me I qualify for the +1 year of free ESUs. Not sure why it thinks I backed up my settings, but damn me if I can find the backup file on Onedrive (I uninstalled it, too). So I maybe foolishly went back on my delight at not having constant updates, mainly on the basis that security updates shouldn't start changing my box /too/ much, and enrolled. Another happy year waiting around for updates. :(
Swmbo's however, not W11-capable, won't enrol due to the enrol window opening, then immediately closing, with no apparent fix out there on the interweb. M$ just can't get anything right, can they?
Even if it means dismantling the from and to buildings to make a big enough hole in the walls, surely that's easier. If the Norwegians can move Troll A (see https://equinor.industriminne.no/en/troll-a-giant-move-from-fjord-to-field/ The build started on land, see Wikipedia) then shurely the US can shove a fancy forklift under it and move it whole. This is the country that moves whole houses, don't forget.
"There's an alternative view that it's with the existence of OLE that the problems start"
Nowt wrong with OLE per se, just that if you're going to embed an object linked to a different file, you simply have to be aware that a change in the origin may or may not get reflected in the target doc. Simples, really. M$ does at least warn you (sometimes) in certain instances that it can't link back to the source as it has moved / been deleted / etc. And there's the link analyser (or whatever it's called) so you can find out what's happening
I worked at a real time control company, melding DCS systems, PLCs, Vaxes, etc etc. The boss was a very sharp cookie. The rule became "The job's not finished until [regonymised as Seamus] says it's finished."
Typical scenario: "Ok, Seamus, the FAT test is under way, would you like to see how it's going?" and within usually about 30 seconds of hi arriving at a console (I don't exaggerate), Seamus would do something to break the system. Uncanny knowledge of where the vulns might be.
Still hanging on to Android 7.0 on my Samsung fondleslab, which Samsung refused to update many years ago. Still works, though disabling the Play Store stops it freezing from time to time. Some apps don't work any more but the browser gets those web sites, and in fact I use web rather than app if there is one. Paranoid about app privacy? Moi?
I feel sorry for those who don't understand computers but are afraid of evil internet nasties wrecking their computer or demanding ransoms. They will gobble up the Windows-10-isn't-safe-any-more and Windows-11-is-secure messages, and buy new if needed. When the reality is that all of the things you shouldn't do in W10, or 8, or 7, or XP, or 3.1, you also shouldn't do in W11, and the basics you should do you should also do in W11.
Me, I can't wait for them to stop slinging updates every 35 days (which is short enough when you ask to delay updates when the damned things take over an hour to install). Unless someone is going to write malware that will only activate once my entire backup cycle going back ages includes it, I am pretty confident with staying on 10. Still got a router, still don't visit dodgy sites, still won't open dodgy emails, still take backups (daily autobackup), still backup data separately from the OS, etc etc.
"Why take that risk with your data/money?"
But, but, that's what you do every time you use a computer for such things. The main protections are a router, not going to dodgy websites, not even opening email that looks dodgy, and certainly not clicking links, doing proper backup cycles (and testing them), laughing at phone calls advising "we've found a problem with your computer", using separate passwords for every different site, being *very* circumspect about putting anything 'in the cloud' (which includes 'syncing' certain apps to other devices, which of course happens via the cloud), and certainly not storing passwords there, not putting anything private in emails through "free" providers such as Gmail who read everything, using 2FA or bank code machines for anything needing financial security, etc. etc., I could go on.
None of these practices are magically irrelevant with W11 (or Linux), the risk is of a slow security decline as W11 and W10 diverge over time, with 10 not getting holes plugged. Me, I shall be happy to stay on 10 and revel in the lack of annoying updates that take ages to install. I may go to Linux one day, but it'll be dual boot for the applications I need which have no Linux version or equivalent (nearly 20 at my last count).
I do recall the other extreme, FAT testing DCS systems in the factory which used to have an evaporative roof for cooling, but due to leaks it was reverted to a dry roof, felted and with sticky-up window lines, too. Recipe for Very Hot Factory in warm weather. We regularly had 50°C with the cabinets hotter than that. Surprised - we didn't get too many failures at all. Well soak tested once shipped!
Careful with the generalisations. An increasing number of said demographic used to /still do work in IT or engineering etc and are perfectly capable of working these things out for themselves. Me, I'm 10 years retired this coming March. I'd say there's also a huge proportion of non-older generation are still clueless about IT. As are many of the kids, who just aren't that way minded.
I see a Tor-nado on the horizon, (though as in the article, banning VPNs gonnae no happen.)
Tor also has other "above board" uses such as testing or checking websites from "elsewhere" (and switchable to other countries in a click, by "new circuit" rather than at the VPN settings.) And most recently by me for bouncing off half of Europe to access my webmail. My hoster had an internal network routing problem after an upgrade, causing emails and web content to only come down to my IP at snails pace. (It got fixed eventually)
Be assured, whoever would take over is likely to be worse. Based on no evidence at all, I have a feeling Putin is an experienced son-of-a-gun and knows how far he can push things whereas the potential replacements might not have that degree of self-control.
No point in having extra speed trains for 100 miles between stations. Better to try and get all trains reliable, extra capacity, cheaper, etc etc.
HMG of course (Cameron & cronies at the time) ignored the warnings that HST was a waste of effort and money* as HSTs are only worthwhile above a certain inter-station distance, where n teh UK there is no such thing unless you schedule from, say, London to Edinburgh with no intermediate stops.
* and people's houses, gardens, farms, etc. all CP'd
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