Posts by richdin

Claude Code source leak reveals how much info Anthropic can hoover up about you and your system

Re: "If it's seen a file on your device, Anthropic has a copy."

I thought that it was Palantir doing the hoovering...

Microsoft yanks Windows 11 preview update after install failures

Re: Another FootGun moment from Microsoft

Flies like a turkey (reference to WKRP in Cincinnati for the clueless)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiSkjcl9yW4

IBM CEO pay pack jumps 51% for 2025 in target smash and grab

Re: How does he manage?

Like the farmer who was weaning his horse from food to cut expenses... and was nearly at his goal of zero food when the horse died on him...

Microsoft kicks new Outlook opt-out deadline down the road to 2027

You mean the [free] outlook.com that occasionally decides someone is actually a spammer and blocks itself from sending and/or receiving legitimate emails - so you'll consider moving to a paid 365 subscription?

Harvard boffins finally crack the mystery of squeaky sneakers

Like rubbing a wet fingertip around the rim of a wineglass to make it sing...

GPT-5 bests human judges in legal smack down

Jury of your peers?

Just wondering whether this will become a tool for juries to use during their deliberations over a verdict... The presiding judge is human (to err is to be a judge), but the jury, having heard the evidence, still needs to reach a decision.

On the flip side - can 12 different LLMs debate the results?

OK, so Anthropic's AI built a C compiler. That don't impress me much

Almost, but not quite entirely unlike tea.

There's nothing micro about this super-sized Arduino Uno

These are also fun - XL sized 555 and 741 chips -

https://shop.evilmadscientist.com/tinykitlist/652

(disclosure - I bought them... a "drop-in" substitute)

Trump promises nuclear datacenter permits in 3 weeks, calls Greenland 'big beautiful ice'

Re: Truth is a malleable thing :o

a nod to DeGaulle and Churchill?

New Linux malware targets the cloud, steals creds, and then vanishes

Re: Pride in workmanship?

Wasn't that a movie with John Travola & Hugh Jackman?

How Microsoft gave customers what they wanted: An audience with Bill Gates

It WAS Bill

Back in the 90s, I was attending a demo at the Israeli Microsoft branch office, and the person running the demo (who thought he was offline) send a message to billg.

About 10 minutes later a reply popped up from Bill, asking to repeat the question in English and he'd be delighted to respond. Someone went beet red, but no repercussions happened as far as we know.

What the Linux desktop really needs to challenge Windows

another reason not to

Just ran Windows update on my dual boot daily driver.

GRUB is gone and I am forced to reinstall Linux as nothing I have tried to fix the problem has worked. (...and it also killed the sleep function on the Windows system).

Luckily I run Windows in VirtualBox on my LT, so the update didn't trash anything.

Warning to the wise - keep your data on a separate partition or NAS (luckily I listened to myself for a change).

Frustrated consultant 'went full Hulk' and started smashing hardware

In case of Emergency

Recalling a departed friend - Mendi, RIP.

Mendi had a short fuse. Multiple times he'd throw his desk phone across the room and storm out...

At one point in M's career, he was sent "on assignment" to a US site where that behavior would be frowned upon.

We had recently replaced our old analog phone system with one of the first IP phone deployments in the company.

So we packed up a few old extensions and sent them to him in a box marked "in case of emergency".

We heard that these were put to immediate use...

Thanks for bringing up the memory.

Company that made power systems for servers didn’t know why its own machines ran out of juice

I had a customer that suffered from power outages crashing their system. After a couple of rebuilds of their DB, I convinced them that they had to buy a UPS (this is in the 80s). So they told me that they bought a UPS... until the next power outage when they called me again to repair the system. They were adamant that they bought a UPS and it must be something else.I got to their site to discover that they indeed purchased a UPS - which was plugged into itself and the server plugged into the wall socket. NEVER underestimate the problem between keyboard and chair.

SIM city: Feds say 100,000-card farms could have killed cell towers in NYC

Re: "a pair of European youths"

I'm partial to Tar & Feathering!

Brit scientists over the Moon after growing tea in lunar soil

Ignoble award worthy

Two wrongs don’t make a copyright

Reader Mode

If you accept that logic, the next step is to ban "reader mode" (reader view in FF) because it changes the way the page is fed to the viewer... in the end they will zip tie our arms to the chair and tape our eyes open...

Microsoft keeps adding stuff into Windows we don't want – here's what we actually need

Plus (+)1 for the Audio Firewall

As a ham radio operator, keeping all the sounds being blasted over the ether would be a major improvement...

Long live the nub: ThinkPad designer David Hill spills secrets, designs that never made it

Re: It nearly had a different name.

I was the country Thinkpad Brand Manager - and when doing presentations, I would allude to the fact that women preferred Thinkpad users over the competition. A lot of understanding nods from both genders in the audience. AND yes, I said both.

Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

Re: You missed the point

When I want your opinion - I'll give it to you.

I just deleted my entire social media presence before visiting the US – and I'm a citizen

BS and misleading

Typical leftie-liberal TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) rant.

In order to access a US citizen's gear - ICE / CBP would need evidence of a crime and/or court order. Otherwise it's illegal search & seizure. Impossible to deny you entry.

If you are a foreigner, it's another story - no one said that you HAVE to be granted entry to the USA...

BOFH: The auditor is asking too many questions. We have just the laptop for that

Duck as in...

...the only substitute for bad manners - is good reflexes

Computacenter IT guy let girlfriend into Deutsche Bank server rooms, says fired whistleblower

1st thought

No way Jenny could have been employed by PRC Intelligence? Maybe her backdoor was more secure?

M365 Family users wake up to notice 'Your subscription expired'

Re: And that's why...

Having a local install doesn't help - if Microshaft decides that you HAVE TO install an update and reboot BEFORE you can do anything else on your system.

For no apparent reason, my Outlook 2021 suddenly refused to send mail nor search...

Having a delayed brainfart, I peeked at the settings and discovered that there was an update pending for Windows.

As soon as I updated, everything started working again. Surprise, surprise. Not.

iOS users left refreshing in vain as Microsoft Outlook woes drag on

search field was borked

I had a curious issue - I couldn't search Outlook for 48 hours (resolved by itself)

I was unable to type anything into the search field (top bar)... After typing 3-4 characters, it would eject me from the field. Other Windows search fields (file explorer et al) weren't affected.

Microsoft blames Outlook's wobbly weekend on 'problematic code change'

Re: On the bright side...

Keel-hauling is great, but I'm still partial to Tar & Feathering!

Satya Nadella says AI is yet to find a killer app that matches the combined impact of email and Excel

Dan Briklin invented Visicalc

Then came 1-2-3... Excel was after.

Who remembers Pegasus Mail?

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 cranks up the power – and the heat

Re: Why?

Because paying in cows and making change with sheep and chickens is difficult... they don't fit in your pocket.

Telegram will now hand over IP addresses, phone numbers of suspects to cops

Parrot joke

It reminds me of the joke about the parrot in Moscow shouting anti-regime slogans... and reverting to the party line after being hidden in the freezer when the Commissars come to check out the neighbors complaints. You'd change you mind too, if you were sent to Siberia...

Lebanon: At least nine dead, thousands hurt after Hezbollah pagers explode

Re: Technology question

My money is on a deliberate short-circuit of the battery, triggered by a radio transmission on the pager's frequency - it would be listening all the time anyhow. As for LiIon batteries of that size - the explosive power would be like 10g of TNT.

Brace for glitches and GRUB grumbles as Ubuntu 24.04.1 lands

Fools rush in... and get the best seats

I threw caution to the wind, and upgraded my Thinkpad E14... with nary a scratch. Seems to have upgraded from 22.04 without an issue.

Biden tries to cut through fog of confusion caused by deliberately deceptive customer service tricks

The golden rule, ignored

First fix the GOVERNMENT [web sites et al], before forcing everyone else to fix their processes.

Command senior chief busted for secretly setting up Wi-Fi on US Navy combat ship

Oblivious

A LONG time ago (80's) - when wireless keyboards & mice first appeared - I was called up to the army reserves... When I arrived in station, I noticed that everyone in the office were happily tapping away on their shiny brand-new wireless kit! I went berserk and started yanking away these keyboards with the resulting screams of anguish - until I saw the unit commander, a Brigadier (1 star General) with his. As I pulled it out from his hands I "politely" explained that everyone outside the fence (next to his office) could be reading everything he was typing... he was quick to comprehend and commenced yelling at everyone else while sheepishly asking me to get him a cabled keyboard so he could finish up his writing.

A thump with the pointy end of a screwdriver will fix this server! What could possibly go wrong?

Back in the days

I would never trust a board that didn't have at least one jumper wire... meaning that the tech guys worked it over and it was then guaranteed to be 100%.

TR-069, a protocol that made broadband manageable, turns 20. What's coming next?

Now I am running only my own gear

I discovered TR-069 by accident when the ISP had removed the WiFi password on my box. Took hours of yelling and escalations to have them restore the greyed-out option. Two weeks later they did it again. Dumped that ISP and now only use my personally owned hardware. In retrospect I guess they did me a favor.

Protest group says Google has fired more staff over sit-ins opposing work for Israel

Re: shrug

Out of 100,000 Arab residents left in Gaza in 1948 - ONLY 2,000,000 were there in 2024. Where EXACTLY is the ethnic cleansing / genocide? But don't confuse me with facts.

ChatGPT starts spouting nonsense in 'unexpected responses' shocker

Re: I blame the trainers

Nor Kamala Harris (or Biden for that matter)

WTF? Potty-mouthed intern's obscene error message mostly amused manager

ThinkPad users made the best lovers

My go-to nickname for the ThinkPad tracking device - was always followed by the above explanation...!

Office gossips beware – chitchat could choke your career chances

Print Queues

Corporate Mainframe would print the monthly salary run on sealed paper with the figures only viewable when the packet was peeled apart. But the print run was editable/viewable until purged from the queue.

COVID-19 infection surge detected in wastewater, signals potential new wave

Fallback plan

The US election cycle has kicked into high gear heading towards November. Having a renewed pandemic break out in time to justify having everyone mail in their ballots instead of voting in-person is a repeat of 2020. My parents were Republican voters their entire lives. Ever since they passed away, they have been voting Democrat.

Firefox slow to load YouTube? Just another front in Google's war on ad blockers

Re: This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened

...and add PiHole to your network!

Telco CEO quits after admitting she needs to carry rivals' SIM cards to stay in touch

Re: DR Strategy

Exactly right. I deliberately make sure that my cellphone and my wife's are always on different networks just in case one fails, we should still have phone service. (I also pay for a landline JIC).

Ex-GCHQ software dev jailed for stabbing NSA staffer

Re: Stabby stab

When seconds count... the police are but minutes away!

Re: Stabby stab

The states with the STRICTEST gun laws - have the highest statistics of gun crime.

Maine on the other hand passed a law allowing permit-less concealed carry... and for the last 4 years, no gun crime.

Australia forced the people to give up their weapons - and gun crime has SOARED.

Switzerland has an assault rifle (a real one, not a scary lookalike) in every home - yet no one is being gunned down on a daily basis.

Ask the REAL reason why they are trying to take civilian guns away...

FBI boss: Taking away our Section 702 spying powers could be 'devastating'

Re: Real stats

...and 97% of scientists claim that man-made climate change is real...*

* 97% of the 100 scientists in that room (IPCC) at that time.

Winklevoss twins back in hot water after NY AG sues over $1B cryptocurrency fraud

My grandfather always said that there were three kinds of markets

Bull Market, Bear Market and PIG Market

Israel and Italy have cheapest mobile data out of 237 countries

Costs in Israel

Living in Tel Aviv - I pay NIS 60 (US$ 15) for 2 x phones each with 50GB/month, NIS 109 (US $28) for 200/200 Mb/s fiber (copper) to the home. And most of the country there is free public WiFi available.

The FBI as advanced persistent threat – and what to do about it

Re: Assigning Traffic To A Real Person Can Be Made Difficult.....

The man [just needs to] filter all the known phones from their current list and then track the unknown phones to see if there is any of them doing something interesting... and then follow that one around.

Microsoft decides it will be the one to choose which secure login method you use

Annoying as my bank (if not more)

My bank (nameless, not blameless) has an annoying habit of "suddenly forgetting" my password every 60 days... forcing me to create a new one thru a torturous process of 2FA and thinking up something clever. They don't say it out loud, but no matter what you try, you can't get in unless you "decide" to request a new password.

Needless to mention that forcing users to change their passwords often only makes them come up with easier ones - but only allowing English letters and numbers without symbols makes the process worse. Better to stick with a more difficult password created once.

As they say - more security theatre.

Cops crack gang that used bots to book and resell immigration appointments

No passports in Israel

We have the same issue in Israel - a group of [Russian] hackers have hijacked the appointment process for getting passports - they grab all the open slots and charge 500 Euro to get a near date/location. The MoI had to open up 4 bureaus that you can walk in without an appointment (although some people have waited 12 hours in line w/o bathroom breaks etc.) just to clear the backlog. Seems to be working. No one arrested... yet.