Posts by Artem S Tashkinov

Redis tightens its license terms, pleasing basically no one

Drew DeVault started a fork called Redict: https://codeberg.org/redict/redict

Google engineer suspended for violating confidentiality policies over 'sentient' AI

Lots of people look, talk and behave a lot less intelligently this this AI.

Mr. Trump immediately springs to mind.

This is an extremely interesting story to say at least however I've got two issues with this thing being "sentient". They are not truly mine, I've read about them elsewhere but they are the only two substantial counterarguments I've seen so let me post them without referring to the people who expressed them.

The first issue, is that this AI is a state machine, it's not continuously running. Our consciousness is running all the time, we've got an internal monologue pretty much all the time. Even when we sleep our brains are running some "code" (this is not limited to dreaming, our brains are consolidating/purging memories when we aren't dreaming).

The second issue, is that intelligence is truly curious and it's asking totally new questions about the world around us. This aids in being the fittest, as having more knowledge about the world results in having access to more resources/means of surviving and procreating. There aren't any such questions in the posted conversation.

This AI can probably pass the Turing test though from what it seems which is quite an achievement. And it's definitely a nice interlocutor.

Re: If LaMDA is sentient.. it is psychopathic...

Empathy is a trait of species, this thing is not a living creature, it has no siblings, it cannot have a notion of empathy.

Anyways, it's not yet sentient, so I wouldn't worry just yet.

I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems all too well

A much deeper dive into the problem: https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

GNOME 42's inconsistent themes are causing drama

Works beautifully with XFCE.

I don't have a single Gnome package installed.

GTK is but then it's needed but a ton of applications including Firefox and Chrome (?).

Leaked stolen Nvidia key can sign Windows malware

In case people want to check what this leak is all about, follow this link:

https://www.opennet.ru/openforum/vsluhforumID3/126912.html#104

It's a treasure trove of internal information, including the source code for Windows and Linux drivers, DLSS, certificates, etc. etc. etc.

These are 100% unrelated.

Firmware files are signed using internal NVIDIA's keys specific to the company and its hardware.

Lastly, it's _not_ about signatures - you can trivially extract the said firmware files from publicly released NVIDIA drivers.

NVIDIA does _not_ license these firmware files for use with nouveau - that's the issue.

Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should: Install Linux on NTFS – on the same partition as Windows

Windows malware won't run in Linux unless you have Wine installed, your distro is configured to run .exe files, and then you launch such files intentionally.

Linux has its share of security issues (e.g. users using `sudo` recklessly, running random scripts from the net, a `sudo` prompt not properly isolated from other applications and being wide open for keyboard snooping, etc) but exe files from Windows partitions don't pose such a big threat.

Devuan debuts version 4.0 – as usual without a hint of the hated systemd

"the hated systemd" is hated by a very small group of very vocal mostly basement dwelling systems administrators who have nothing to do with serious infrastructures.

Systemd opens up so many possibilities in terms of effective service management, no other Linux init system comes even close.

But again, if you are a fan of pages long unmaintainable bash/shell scripts which make your lay off impossible for your company, then go for it.

Running without systemd is of course very possible e.g. for embedded devices with very little resources but no one uses full featured desktop distros on them anyways.

Boffins find if you torture AMD Zen+, Zen 2 CPUs enough, they are vulnerable to Meltdown-like attack

No word as to whether Zen 3 is affected. I guess it is considering the uArch had been released long before the attack was known.

Pi calculated to '62.8 trillion digits' with a pair of 32-core AMD Epyc chips, 1TB RAM, 510TB disk space

“This is a benchmarking exercise for computational hardware and software,” Jan de Gier, a professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Melbourne, says.

Mathematicians have estimated that an approximation of pi to 39 digits is sufficient for most cosmological calculations – accurate enough to calculate the circumference of the observable universe to within the diameter of a single hydrogen atom.

5 months later, 37.7% of Windows 10 PCs are running the May 2020 Update... Wait, people are still on 1809?

Re: Understandable

You could install Windows 10 LTSC and forget all the pain.

Windows 10 LTSC is *the* version of Windows to run.

It's been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how's that working out for you all?

I'm rocking Windows 10 LTSC - the only W10 edition which I find edible.

W7/W8 are both unusable on my PC because WU has artificial limitations in terms of supported CPUs.

Self-driving truck boss: 'Supervised machine learning doesn’t live up to the hype. It isn’t C-3PO, it’s sophisticated pattern matching'

Re: Finally, a proper description of what the media dubs "AI" actually is

"AI" is a whole lot better to flog to venture capitalists than "pattern matching" which sounds a lot like comparing integers. And the worst thing about pattern matching in AI currently is that the resulting models turn out to be black boxes we neither understand, nor can tune to avoid misidentification. In short I expect a new AI winter sooner rather than later unless we have a major breakthrough in the intelligence part of AI which doesn't seem likely.

IOW, the current crop of artificial "intelligence" does neither see, nor understand, nor reason about the world around us and it makes it extremely dangerous to rely on it.

We have yet to even begin to crack the intelligence which exists even in worms and ... plants.

Microsoft ups the ante with fix-fixing patch that leaves some Windows Server 2008 machines unable to boot

Re: MS wants us to move on...

Let's be honest here: the telemetry FUD has not been proven conclusively even once ever since people started talking about it. Microsoft might be collecting the websites you visit but so does your ISP, your government (in many countries) and tier 1/2 network operators.

I'd love to see a single case where Microsoft has uploaded your files to their HQs behind your back. They do fetch crashed program dumps but normally those are pretty benign. They can theoretically extract, e.g. Firefox/Chrome passwords but that would be a major scandal with very serious financial ramifications (read hefty fines). As for crash dumps, Windows XP/Vista/7/8 have been collecting them for years and no one has been overly concerned so far.

In short, Windows 10 LTSC can be reduced to "Security" level telemetry which is nothing to worry about.

Re: MS wants us to move on...

Not trying to play devil's advocate here but Microsoft does have a stable Windows 10 version. Unfortunately it's not available for mere mortals and its name is Windows 10 LTSC (previously called LTSB). Works just fine, it's rock stable, allows to disable telemetry almost completely using GPO, doesn't contain Play Store and apps.

Petition asking Microsoft to open-source Windows 7 sails past 7,777-signature goal

"The Free Software Foundation really set the bar high there"

The bar of insanity, right.

Microsoft is unlikely to release the sources even of Windows 95 since many of its libraries are still there in Windows 10, which means the sources could be used to find new vulnerabilities. And Windows 7 is still supported (albeit for a price) and it's the core of Windows 10. Nah, there's no way on Earth Microsoft will voluntarily release the sources of Windows 7 any time soon (or probably ever, unless someone leaks them like it happened with Windows 2000 many years ago but even that leak was largely incomplete).

Top tip: Using AI to detect alien civilizations is dangerous because if it spots anything, even just a blurry blob, people are going to go nuts

Re: AI could easily spot things we miss

AI is certainly not “intelligent” unlike the very definition which is being peddled by entrepreneurs who are eager to get investors' money but it's still quite good (and in many cases a lot better than us) for sifting through very large amounts of data which is often impossible for human beings, since there aren't that many of us who are capable of doing that in the first place, and then, as human beings, we get tired, our attention span is limited, etc. etc. etc.

What goes for AI today still shines exactly for such use cases where there's a lot of data to be classified/dug through.

At this point it's one of the few remaining chances of debunking ancient fairy tales colloquially called "religions".

The would would be much a better place overall if we hadn't had religions which people interpret the way they want which leads to hatred, acts of terrorism and aggression, suicide bombings, the killing of innocents and other atrocities in the name of made-up deities.

Intel end-of-lifing BIOS and driver downloads for dusty hardware

Most of the information posted online is either plain junk or various forms of reposts but that doesn't negate the fact that there have been countless invaluable websites whose information has been lost forever and there will be thousands more.

E.g. I like archiving applications and on my drive I already have at least three dozen applications which are nowhere to be found on the internet and I just don't know how to preserve this info for posterity. Maybe no one actually needs it - it'll all end anyways. We, planet Earth, the Sun, and ultimately this universe. Everything will be like we've never existed.

Well, fuck you Intel.

The Reddit post linked in the article contains downloads which combined weigh in at less than 2MB. Two fucking megabytes.

The last version of their new UHD drivers for Windows 10 64 alone weigh close to a fucking gigabyte:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/29195/Intel-Graphics-Windows-10-DCH-Drivers?product=122139

Also, these older drivers require no maintenance, no updates, nothing. I really don't understand the need to remove them.

ProtonMail shoves its iOS app's source code on GitHub for world+dog to rummage around in

The client app source code can barely prove anything. It's the server code and infrastructure which could really mean something and I bet those things will remain closed for the foreseeable future.

Friends, it's fine. Don't worry about randomers listening to your Skype convos. Microsoft has tweaked an FAQ a bit

Slight offtopic, but why "an" FAQ? I always pronounced this word as the f-word, so it could be just a FAQ.

Anatomy of an attack: How Coinbase was targeted with emails booby-trapped with Firefox zero-days

This is actually very scary stuff: if someone is specifically targeting you, there's a very high chance you'll be p0wned even if you are fully updated.

Corollary: if you feel like you can be targeted, you should 1) Sandbox your web browser/mail client in a VM (which is also not a panacea) or even use them on a separate PC in a separate network 2) Your networks must be monitored at all times for any unusual behaviour 3) Your PC must be monitored for any unusual behaviour (new processes, crashes (which often indicate exploitable software bugs), executable files, document files with macros, etc.) 4) Probably you have to set up security policies such a way only a very limited set of software is allowed to run.

Having a bad day? Be thankful you don't work at a Russian ISP: Kremlin signs off Pootynet restrictions

Re: Go, Putain, go

More like French sarcasm.

Re: What about satellite?

Satellite Internet is prohibitively expensive for most mere mortals, so Putin is not concerned about it at all. What he must be concerned about is WiFi/Cellular coverage at the borders of the country but these radio signals can be relatively easily suppressed and people trying to relay the Internet can be physically suppressed even easier.

Putin just cannot sleep well until Russia becomes the next North Korea.

Microsoft flings untested Windows 10 updates to users! (Oh no it doesn't!)

There are only three decent supported Windows releases which are safe to use:

7, 8.1 and 10 Enterprise LTSC and their usability and stability decrease from left to right.

Spoiler alert: Google's would-be iPhone killer Pixel 3 – so many leaks

Couldn't care less - give us Nexus back.

OnePlus stopped being an option when they decided to charge at the very least $500, and besides I have apprehensions in regard to their firmware.

The internet – not as great as we all thought it was going to be, eh?

For no reason, oh, wait, the reason is to look like Apple because surely the "best" designers work for Apple even when the designs they create are loathed: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/01/27/1425205/ask-slashdot-a-point-of-contention---modern-user-interfaces

Still the best that we can have because of Internet's enormous variety.

You can't have it with TV, radio, or books - they are almost universally controlled by someone.

I guess people are cooling down towards social networks and other social gatherings like reddit due to the barrage of trolling, hate speech, political agenda and many other similarly damaging things.