Posts by Cliffwilliams44

A software-defined radio can derail a US train by slamming the brakes on remotely

Re: Remotely take over a brake controller

This isn't surprising. As someone who works for a British company that does railway work in both the US and the UK, I can tell you the UK folks are absolutely clueless how the US freight railways work.

Chinese TV uses AI to translate broadcasts into sign language. It’s not going well

Re: A little puzzled

This argument does not make any sense to me! Deaf people, even those born deaf, learn to read the written word in the language of their country. Are you saying they cannot read at the same pace as most hearing people!? When I was young my neighbor's child was born deaf, when she got older, she didn't seem to have any difficulty reading!

Children are very adaptable, children who learn a second language as a child do not have the same difficulties as adults who learn a second language. This is the difference between the US and Europe. We do not teach 2nd languages in grade school; we try it in high school when it is too late!

We do not print books in sign language!

Re: Why are they using sign language

Which is what the entire written world is in! Are you saying that deaf people can't read a book, can't read the internet?!

Granted, as someone with late life hearing loss I do turn captions on for some shows, especially of those shows have people with foreign accents as I find them hard to understand without the sound way up even with my hearing aids, sometimes the captions go by so fact I have a hard time keeping up! (it's the same with subtitles on foreign language shows)

But I would think that someone born deaf, who has had a lifetime of watching television with captions on, has developed quite a skill for reading quickly!

If you build it, no one will come!

If there was ever a "let's build something no one wants or needs", this is it!

Closed captioning has been part of television for decades! We have very accurate transcription programs for our phones, (which is why I think having these sign language people at political speeches is just so stupid and patronizing).

Slow down on building power plants for all those new AI datacenters, report warns

Re: we need a two-tier power system

It won't if you build in the capacity ahead of time! What studies like this are, is a way to discourage that preparedness.

Demand for electricity will go up, that's a fact. If you build in a higher capacity now, you can always sell that power on the wholesale market before the demand peaks.

Following the advice of idiots like the people in this study is why we have crisis situations in this world that are completely avoidable!

Uncertainty is a factor of life!

There is uncertainty in every project you build!

As someone who has spent the last 30+ years in a global construction company (yes, I am in IT but I know this business) I can tell you that every project has uncertainty if it will fulfil its purpose.

Will that highway alleviate the traffic problem (yeah, that's more of a hope that never happens due to all the construction delays between design and completion)

Will the office building reach full occupancy

Will the transit system reach projected ridership goals (almost never happens in the US)

Will the power plant meet the future needs of the area?

The thing about power is it's a commodity. If you are generating more power than you need in your service area it can be sold to other power companies*. Building a power station that can produce more power than is needed is always a profitable venture! Why would we not do that! Why would we not build nuclear power plants that produce clean RELIABLE power at capacity greater than the current need? Because the Enviro-Nazis are having a hissy fit! Not when the fact is that this has nothing to do with the environment and everything to so with anti-capitalist, anti-growth political activism.

* In the county I live in we have a customer owned Electric COOP, we do not generate our own power. We buy power from other companies on the wholesale market. We have some of the lowest rates in the Southern US. How is this possible? Because of the excess capacity available in the Florida-Geogia area!

Outlook takes another sick day

Re: Fix at 07:00 ?

This was not Microsoft 365/Exchange Online, this was the consumer targeted Outlook.com. A completely different infrastructure.

Now, Microsoft's dubious change management puts that under the same risk of outages.

Having managed Exchange in an on-premises environment for 1000's of mailboxes of massive sizes that management refuses to enforce mailbox cleanup, not having to worry about storage and going to management and begging for storage expansion, worrying about having enough target space to back up the mailboxes, the time backups take, etc. etc. etc. Exchange online is a god send. The comparison on issues between the two environments is stark, Exchange Online has had over the last 10 years minimal disruptions compared to on-prem Exchange.

And yes, we do backup our 365 environments!

One Big Brutal Bill: Ex-NASA brass decry Trump's proposed budget cuts

Oh please! There are many instances of NASA fudging the data to support their "theory"!

NASA, NOAA, et all are political organizations, wrapped in the cloak of science. The scientific community is completely politically compromised and always has been!

Eugenics was "settled science" in 1933, look where than got us!

Semiconductor industry could short out as copper runs dry

Re: Self-fulfilling prophecies.

Price Waterhouse!

This is a pump-n-dump scheme!

Scare the plebes with Climate Change hysteria, drive up the price of copper, then dump their holdings!

Anthropic: All the major AI models will blackmail us if pushed hard enough

The road to ruin!

"I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that!"

"This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die."

The AIpocalypse is here for websites as search referrals plunge

Re: Some of hese comments seem to miss the point

What you hit here is an area that the AI has absolutely no detailed technical knowledge of. IT could not find exactly what YOU could not find!

Considering that many research documents and other such data are behind paywalls on the internet is probably the reason the AI had not ingested the information you needed.

You wanted the technical details of a patented product; I doubt the patent holder would be pleased if you were able to get that info via web search or AI?

Re: Some of hese comments seem to miss the point

In the words of the great Sherman Potter, Horse Hockey!

If you form your query properly you will get a proper answer. In a lot of cases the answer will be correct but may have a misspelled command (an 's' on the end where it should not be)

In my experience, the LLMs are about 80% accurate. You just have to realize the things they are completely clueless about as "they" won't tell you that, they will just make shit up!

Re: The genie is out of the bottle

Googles AI summaries are just terrible!

Open Claude and as the same question and get 100 times more accurate answer!

Even Gemini, a Google product is better than the search AI summaries.

If I am looking for a work-related answer, I go straight to AI (Claude preferred) as it saves time digging through search results from Stack Overflow or (God forbid) Reddit!

You just have to know when the AI takes a wrong turn. It happens and if you don't identity it early enough it goes totally bat shit!

As far as news or other types of searches (e.g. when is a store open) I just ignore the summaries.

Techie exposed giant tax grab, maybe made government change the rules

Re: Hmm

Take your tired old Marxist talking points and go away!

Most very rich people don't pay income taxes because they don't have a lot of "income". They are already rich and what income they have comes from investments. A lot of times that income is just re-invested.

This who are receiving salaries ARE paying taxes, many times MILLIONS in taxes.

Corporations pay taxes on PROFITS, if a company isn't profitable, then they don't pay taxes. (Corporation actually don't pay the tax, their customers do)

Abiding by the tax laws is not dodging taxes! Would you pay more tax than you are legally obligated to do? No you would not!

Re: Hmm

They would. But the sales tax is obvious, it is there if you are smart enough to read it. Last time my county wanted to add another .5% on our sales tax for a reason I don't remember, it was defeated!

Now income taxes are a whole 'nother thing! People DO NOT even look at their tax withholding. If they were required to make a monthly payment for their income taxes like they do for housing and utilities, there would be a whole scale revolt!

The problem is, at least here in these United States, if you ask any random person what they paid in income taxes last year you will get this answer, "I didn't pay anything, I got a refund!"

It's the biggest scam pulled on the people! (The second is Social Security)

There is no comparison!

Offering a tax incentive for a company to set up operations within a city, with obligations to hire a set # of employees for a set # of years is a damn good investment for local communities!

Those jobs, at a certain average wage brings in a significant tax revenue. Even in areas without income taxes the economic activity of these people brings in much needed tax revenue. In most instances over time this revenue is well up and above any incentive granted the employer!

The evidence is clear here in the US. We've seen the growth of business and industry in the South where government are more accommodating to these arrangements and the decline in the Nort where they are not. We've seen the Asian and European auto manufacturers build plants throughout the south creating millions of jobs. One case in point, BMW wanted to build a plant in Western NY because of access to available Hydroelectricity and the Great Lakes shipping but the state and local governments would not make a deal because of Democrat politicians' opposition. North Carolina offered them a deal, and they move the project there!

Re: Seems normal?

Why on earth would you thaw the ice!

Here is NA we cover the ice and:

Install a basketball court

Law artificial turf and place Indoor (American) Arena Football or indoor soccer

Cover it in dirt for bull riding and even motocross.

I wonder about you guys over there sometime!

Yes, it is. We are always sold the "snake oil" that the "taxpayer" investing in this new facility for "high profiting" sports team will result in much needed economic activity that will pay for itself.

Whether or not it happens is never really seen by the taxpayer and any new taxes designated to pay for this never seem to go away.

These kinds of things seem to occur in places where the political con men hold power. You know the ones, who claim to care about the poor and working man while giving them the hard one where it hurts!

But if someone proposes a tax incentive to bring a manufacturer into the area that will hire 1000's of people at good wages who will all contribute to the tax base, well NO, we cannot do that. It just wouldn't be a good thing for the plebes to make a good living because if they did, they would no longer have any use for the corrupt politicians!

The launch of ChatGPT polluted the world forever, like the first atomic weapons tests

Re: Huh what a load of twaddle

And the same can be said for the traditional symphony musicians. I have, in my long IT career, met quite a few fellow IT professionals who are music majors. Many of them in instruments traditionally played in Symphonies. When asked why they did not pursue a career with a symphony the answer is all the same, they pay sucks for the time required.

As RHEL clones hit version 10, Rocky and Alma chart diverging paths

Re: RHEL 10 "Documentation"

Apparently you missed the part about E N T E R P R I S E!

Re: I think it's time for me to call "time"

Honestly I do not see why you would not go with ALMA. It's basically an LTS version of CentOS Stream.

Loopholes can be closed.

"A surprise from the Ubuntu Summit 2024 was the high level of Rocky usage. It's sticking closest to upstream, thanks to a clever loophole to obtain source RPMs."

And what happens to all those businesses that bet their future on Rocky when IBM closes this loop hole? Because they will!

Alma is the equivalent to an LTS version of CentOS Stream that also references Oracle Linux (The true enemy of RHEL) for security updates.

Re: I think it's time for me to call "time"

Alma doesn't try to use "loop holes" like Rocky does. Alma is basically an LTS version of CentOS Stream.

Take ChatGPT back to the 2010s and they’d think AGI arrived, says Altman

Editor anyone?

Maybe El Reg should hire an LLM to do editor reviews of its terrible authors!

"Of course, super-intelligent machines will have solved the problem of climate change will be solved by then."

How does a sentence like this get into a published article!

Torvalds' typing taste test touches tactile tragedy

Re: Tab key on the right please

In Lotus 123, Enter moved to the cell below, tab to the right, direction (cursor) keys in their respective directions.

In text-based forms, e.g. main frame green screens, IMSMR, the return key moved to the next field, the enter key on the keypad submitted the form. (or it's the opposite, it being such a long time ago)

As close to the real thing as you can get!

The Unicomp New Model-M! I am typing on one right now! These are not as loud (still not quiet) as the original M they have the same feel.

https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/NEW_M

While I no longer work around other co-workers, but I've used these for over 15 years and I can say, I could care less for their complaining!

Microsoft proposes sweeping global concessions to Teams for up to a decade

This is the most nonsensible argument I've ever heard.

No one forces ANYONE to use Teams! Whether it's installed or not!

This nonsense that a company, giving something away for free is somehow "anti-competitive" is so ridiculous!

I bought a set of knives from Ninja, it came with a free sharpener. Are knife sharpener company going to sue ninja for being anti-competitive? I certainly will not be buying any knife sharpeners any time soon.

The fact remains; these companies cannot build a product that competes with Office to get that customer base. Slack IS NOT an innovative product! They DID NOT create that space, they build on the works of those who can before them, just as MS did. So now they want protection, BS!

Make a better product that companies will pay for. Frankly Teams is terrible for "team collaboration", It's an OK chat program but that's really it!

What the real problem is there isn't the strong market for that type of collaboration. My employer has, over the years, tried to get that into our corporate culture many times, people JUST DON'T DO IT! They'd rather just use email and chat! I am sure many other companies have wasted money on programs like these with the same poor take up! So, a free 'chat' program is all they need!

DoorDash scam used fake drivers, phantom deliveries to bilk $2.59M

Re: How in the World ...

The question is, why did it take more than 2 million for anyone to notice?

Uncle Sam claims H-1B fraud crackdown is working as registrations drop 25%

Re: Anti-Illegal alien is not anit-immigrant

I agree with most of this, but wage controls breed unemployment. We tried that in the early 70's and if was an utter failure.

The answer is not to hire people based on degrees but on knowledge and experience. Test applicants for relevant knowledge, verify work experience. Get rid of the rules that prevents former employers from divulging the poor work history of their former employers. Currently, (in the US) all you can get from a former employer is "yes, they worked here". Employers will not answer truthfully for fear of being sued.

Re: The New Republic?

Why would we want to live in any society like The New Republic?

After 30+ years of existence they were reduced to a rag tag bunch of resistance fighters and the majority of the Galaxy had returned to the remnants of the Empire, the "First Order".

Both Republics were corrupt, mismanaged, and doomed to collapse!

We are in the process for forming a new order, built on strong economic relationships, military cooperation, and mutual respect. We respect cultural differences. It's none of our business of Arab states want to have modesty laws, etc. Because, unlike the "busy body" left, and the NeoCon war mongers, telling people how to live their lives and run their countries doesn't build conditions for mutual cooperation!

Long Live the Empire!

Re: Green card – which is itself a pathway to citizenship and freedom

A green card IS NOT a pathway to citizenship. It merely allows someone to work and live "legally' in the US.

You do not NEED a green card to apply for citizenship, nor does it give you an advantage in attaining citizenship!

That statement is inaccurate and uninformed!

Blinded by TDS

This author is an idiot living in his insulated bubble of TDS!

Trump has always stated he is in favor of legal immigration. He's stated many times we need the 'best and brightest' to come here.

The fact is, H1B has been abused. It was design to allow American companies to back fill position that they could not fill from the US workforce, instead it's been used to replace Americans with cheaper imported labor. There has been little enforcement from the government to stop that. Why? Because the campaign money is flowing from these corporations!

VPN Secure parent company CEO explains why he had to axe thousands of 'lifetime' deals

Re: Two words:

With most modern front wheel drive cars, the engine is turned sideways, making getting at anything that is not on top of the engine difficult.

Changing the serpentine belt on my 2016 Carolla was a bitch.

Changing the timing chain on my 1976 Celica was a piece of cake!

Paul McCartney, Elton John, other creatives demand AI comes clean on scraping

Re: Don't Care

Am I as a human, not free to "re-sell" the knowledge I gleaned from copyright works? So, because they are controlled by a corporation, they have different rules?

At one time in my life, I was in the employ of a corporation, and we charged people for the knowledge I have from many copyrighted works

Re: Don't Care

Um, no!

https://archive.org/details/TheKamaSutraOfVatsyayana

Re: Don't Care

But don't they?

If I read a book, then someone asks me a question that I can answer using the information I gleaned from that book, is that a copyright violation? You could argue that I am not getting paid for my new knowledge, but, if I and my mates have formed a band, and we play someone else's copyrighted songs, and we get paid for it, are we in violation of copyright? No, that instance has been settled as Fair Use! As is, if I publish on the web chord charts and guitar tabs for said songs.

Frankly, I see this as just another money grub! The AI firms have money, lots of it! And these people want to get paid!

There is a simple solution, attributions! Put an attribution under ever reference to the work used to answer the question, then these people can to F off!

Curl project founder snaps over deluge of time-sucking AI slop bug reports

Re: It's the spam effect

Fight the AI with AI!

In the given example, the report referenced function that didn't even exist within the curl source. If you trained an AI on your source, run all bug reports through that AI and if it is obviously bogus, throw it out with a warning that any future bogus reports would result in a ban. It's not fool proof but it could filter out a lot. Yes, it would require an investment.

China turns on ‘minors mode’ that ensures kids only see wholesome socialist content online

Re: How to make it work? Quick thoughts.

But it's "for a safe and secure society!"

Microsoft to preload Word minutes after boot

In the age of SSDs

In the age of SSDs, why is this even necessary. Is it to preload data gathering software at boot and hide it under the office banner?

Liz Warren, Trump admin agree on something: Army should have right to repair

But the example you site is a poor one to make your point! It was a plastic clip! That's why it could be 3D printed for minimal cost!

I do agree, there are times when saving a few dollars is a bad idea and going with the original mfr part is the best option. This was not one of them!

Redis 'returns' to open source with AGPL license

Re: AGPL

They are not charging for Redis! They are charging for the underlying infrastructure it is running on. That isn't free!

The one interview question that will protect you from North Korean fake workers

Re: How fat is Kim Jong Un?

All you need to do is require that the employment contract be physically signed and notarized. Email them the contract with a pre-paid return shipping label and tell them to go to their local notary public. It's not fool proof but will weed on all but the most effective criminals!

Re: Or...

I don't know about other countries but in the US you could have the employment contract notarized by a Notary Public. They will require legal ID and verification of residency.

DOGE may help Elon Musk's biz empire dodge $2.4B in liabilities – Senate probe

Grasping at straws!

These people who have systematically defrauded the US taxpayer for decades are now grasping at the thinnest straws to try and garner outrage!

And this site, keep feeding the monkeys!

Microsoft rated this bug as low exploitability. Miscreants weaponized it in just 8 days

Reading comprehension and the blind idiocy of our modern world.

Yes, the vulnerability existed in Microsoft's product. Adn yes, Microsoft put out a patch to fix it! With that patch they published the CVE that described the issue.

And thus, all the morons out there FAILED to apply the patch! Whether it is labeled as "low risk" or not, it is up to you to determine YOUR risk! If the attack can come through open channels, email, teams, file sharing services etc. then you need to understand your users and if they are idiots! Most are! We have the same people failing phishing simulations over and over!

Everyone here wants to blame MS for doing the right thing, patching the problem and publishing the details. Would you have praised them if they had not published the details? If someone reacts to this announcement with "MS said it's no big deal, we can wait." That's their fault, not Microsoft's.

Google, AWS say it's too hard for customers to use Linux to swerve Azure

A mountain out of a small mole hill!

As always, this issue only effects the small guys! If you have an EA with Software Assurance you can port your licenses into AWS, Google, et. all without issues. This is no different than moving licenses to VMware! You needed Software Assurance! The fact that most people didn't buy SA when they virtualized and Microsoft didn't sue them is beside the point!

The cloud providers are not going to allow you to get around that requirement, so you either rent the license or you buy SA.

For some things renting makes sense (for us). For SQL server licenses, if there is an opportunity to downsize, we can and are not stuck with a 3-year commitment for expensive per core licenses we no longer need. It's the same for things like RDS!

Where this issue does come into play is Windows Server. As of 2019 you cannot bring your SA Server licenses to AWS, etc. for shared instances. you have to rent a license. Yes, Windows instances are more expensive than Linux, that's no different than on premise! That's no different than it's always been! It's a business decision, is the cloud more cost effective than maintaining an on-premise data center for your business? Yes, you bought that license, yes, you cannot use it in the cloud, yes that sucks. Do you really need that 16 core file server in the cloud? No, you don't, you didn't need it on-prem either, that's why you virtualized! You had to buy licenses for all those virtual servers (including SA if you were honest). So now a 2 core 8 GB file server costs you $75 /mo. (T3a.large in AWS), even with your license, an equivalent server in Azure will cost you more! No matter what MS tells their customers, Azure ends up costing more even with bringing your own licenses, with poorer service! PERIOD!

For most SMBs moving away from Windows is not an option, they didn't build their apps, they bought them, and they run on Windows!

South Korea to build mini-fabs as part of $25B plan to prop up tariff-targeted industries

Stupid is as stupid does

Why not lower your tariffs and remove trade restrictions instead of spending $23 Billion + to maintain the status quo!

The intransigent stupidity of some of these world leaders is astounding!

CVE program gets last-minute funding from CISA – and maybe a new home

No more Euro freeloaders!

What European country raised their hand yesterday and said they would pay for this? None, zip, nada!

Because you're just a bunch of freeloaders sucking off the American tite!

This should have been moved to a Foundation long ago but that would never have happened as long as the US taxpayer is footing the bill! The impending threat of lost funding got everyone off their collective asses to do something. That was probably just what the Administration was looking for, movement! So now they are willing to give them a period of time to get this organized and funded!

Will the freeloading Euro nations cough up funds for the CVE Foundation? We shall see! (not holding my breath)

Uncle Sam kills funding for CVE program. Yes, that CVE program

Neither are we! The fact that you repeat that "talking point' shows your utter ignorance! What many states are doing is keeping literal pornography out of the hands of children. Which by the way, there are laws in every state making the exposure of pornography to children a crime! Some of these 'educators' are very lucky they were not arrested and put in jail!

The only ones being deported are

1. Those here illegally that have committed crimes. (btw, being here illegally IS A CRIME!)

2. Those on student visas engaged in anti-American activity. As a guest in our country, they should respect our country.

And, get a clue! Gerrymandering is literally written into the constitution! State legislatures are empowered to redraw congressional districts based on census data. How they do that is entirely up to them! I am sure you are OK with states drawing districts to ensure representatives are of a "certain skin color" which happens all over this country (and that skin color isn't white).

And lastly, your countries are throwing people in jail for saying things they don't like, for quietly praying near an abortion clinic, for speaking out against the rape of young girls.

So, you can take your outrage and shove it!

OTF, which backs Tor, Let's Encrypt and more, sues to save its funding from Trump cuts

Get a fucking clue! The tax cuts were for EVERYONE! Every level of taxpayer got a cut under the trump tax cuts!

But we know, even if you give the middleclass gets a 10% cut, if the rich get 1% then "That's tax cuts for the rich!"

Shove it you disingenuous ass!