Posts by NATTtrash

Techie fixed Wi-Fi dead zone with a drill

There is nothing that can not be solved with a drill and a hammer...

How to make Xfce look like almost any desktop you want

Re: Interesting

Menus are a bit harder, there isn't a menu editor as such as far as I am aware.

Yes there is, if I understand you well what you are looking for... You can try alacarte and/ or menulibre

If you are on Debian 13 (as Liam writes), it is in the base repo. You can also check here if your base repo has it..? https://pkgs.org/

If you rather want to edit the base .desktop files as you write here, don't forget that most of these for your applications are in /usr/share/applications

Dell's 52-inch enormo-monitor is a tsunami of impractical fun

Perhaps not, but three thousand bucks for a screen is not something I'm likely to splash out on in the immediate future

And that might only be the beginning. Unfortunately it is not in the piece, but I would be very interested to know what a screen like this is doing to your electricity bill.

EDIT: got it, 430W - Energy label class G, nice cost for a normal working day /s

AI models don't kill people – people kill people

Re: Who is in control?

As it says: And human stupidity is worth worrying about. Perhaps add greed, egocentrism, self-adulation, and more of that good stuff to supplement and enhance..?

Anthropic reveals fourth likely crime committed by its AI

Re: Lateral thinking longitudinally

Kobayashi Maru?

LG accused of 'egregious invasion of privacy' over TV data collection

Re: if you look at the system logs of your phone, PC, or Wifi router you will see the same thing

Cannot understand why consumers opt for a "smart" TV.

Simples:

[A] It is the cheapest option (Deskjet principle, sell the device cheap, make sh*tloads of monies with the grabbed data) and

[B] did you try to buy a new dumb TV? They are simply not available if you look/ ask for it (ignoring the "Oh dear, this sad dumb pensioner is not going with the times!" look of the sales person)

Re: Why?

"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment".

George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

THX to Steve (and Wendell) and colleagues

Audacity audio-editing app no longer looks like it's from the early 2000s

Re: Much more like a modern piece of software

No intention to add AI? Have a look at https://www.mu.se/posts/muse-group-ai-survey

Do Musicians Really Hate AI?

We’ve all heard the debate. AI will change everything in music, or it will ruin creativity. We build tools that musicians use every day, so instead of guessing, we asked them directly how they feel about AI in their creative process.

We surveyed 1,200 musicians who actively use Ultimate Guitar, MuseScore, MuseHub, and Audacity, across different skill levels and age groups, to get a clearer picture.

78% of musicians are open to AI tools, and 70% are already using them. Sounds like AI is taking off, but in reality that adoption comes with clear boundaries.

...Wait for it...

The search company that plants trees just launched a Linux browser to help Europe battle big tech

Install on Linux..? Really?

Regardless, the company said, it wants to meet Linux users...

Had a quick look, curious...

So yeah, a lot of distros are listed there. But...

Enable snaps on Debian and install Ecosia Browser...

Enable snaps on Arch Linux and install Ecosia Browser...

Enable snaps on Fedora and install Ecosia Browser...

Errmmm..? We are talking GNU/Linux right..?

‘Humans will be a rounding error on the internet’ says Cloudflare exec

Re: Humans will be a rounding error on the internet

Morpheus: We have only bits and pieces of information, but what we know for certain is that some point in the early twenty-first century all of mankind was united in celebration. We marvelled at our own magnificence...as we gave birth...to A.I.

Neo: A.I. - you mean Artificial Intelligence?

Morpheus: A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. We don't know who struck first - us, or them. But we know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time they were dependent on solar power and it was believed that they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun. Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

(The Matrix: 1999)

OpenAI wants teachers and profs to foist their work off on ChatGPT

Here's a tip: toss the AI garbage out the window and teach students to think critically.

Speaking from real life experience here: And how do you plan to counter the default "just good enough", "whatever ticks the box" complacency/ laziness of the human species?

Digital sovereignty is real in Europe. The UK? Not so much

Re: We already have sovereignty...

Really?

https://crownhostingdc.co.uk/ >>>

Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited is a unique joint venture between the Cabinet Office and Ark Data Centres dedicated to serving the Public Sector. Together we are the trusted partner of the UK Government delivering increased efficiency, improved value, and transparency of Data Centre Services.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ark-owner-elliott-investment-looks-to-sell-uk-data-center-firm-report/ >>>

The majority owner of UK data center firm Ark is reportedly looking to sell its stake in the company. Citing people with knowledge of the matter, Reuters reports Elliott Investment Management is exploring strategic options for Ark Data Centres in a possible sale that could fetch more than £3 billion ($4 billion).

The US hedge fund has reportedly approached potential infrastructure investors and held informal talks with advisers about a potential sale of the UK firm, with a process potentially starting early next year.[...]

Elliott acquired Ark Data Centres in 2012, with European real estate investor Revcap retaining a minority stake in the unit.

Australia demands AI companies must produce more energy than they consume, stop ‘theft’ of content

Re: Why the inverted commas around theft?

And they chased you down because you had Napster...

EU lets wearables wriggle out of user-replaceable battery rules

Re: To be fair...

It's just giving manufacturers an excuse because water resistance.

Indeed. Have a 25 year old (analogue) watch here I replaced the battery for many times. And it is still water tight. I suppose the level of engineers designing devices (also) has become more advanced..? /s

Purism launches supersized 16-inch laptop for buyers who put privacy before price

Linux laptops

"The It's FOSS portal has a whole list of vendors of Linux laptops."

No mention of Framework at all? They (including LS) do seem to realise that the Linux users are saving their bottom line ;)))

Oh and there is NovaCustom... Please note I do not have a "buyers experience" with these vendors. I do with Dell though... which is terrible. Ever tried to return product to them? Basically they have created such a "customer experience" that you are lost in an "interactive labyrinth" (Kafka anyone?), never ever get anywhere or to anyone (What? Bah! Humans?) and your product issue/ return is... ermmm... your problem, thank you for your monies.

Engineer accused of insider trading tied to Microsoft's reboot of Three Mile Island nuclear plant

Re: "Microsoft's reboot of Three Mile Island nuclear plant"?

I apologise for being an old twat, but --- does nobody remember that Three Mile Island was shut down because it had the small issue of a... ermm melt down, classifying itself as the worst nuclear accident in US history? This feat of US ingenuity happened way before Chernobyl. Perhaps forgotten because it was too close to home to make a series about? But hey, if the human species is good at one thing, it is forgetting and not learning so we can keep doing life critical things... like shake your arse on TikTok and sending your "friends" a picture of your plate with food (and the poo afterwards).

Yet another experiment proves it's too damn simple to poison large language models

TBH it is maybe not that much about the quality of the tool, but all about how that tool is being sold. Because let's be honest, if there was absolutely no money to be made with all this, the whole "AI" and LLM hype would go the way of the dodo very, very quickly. As always, people, $USER in this case, think it is all about them... while reliably ticking all the boxes on somebody else's list.

Microsoft's GitHub shifts to metered AI billing amid cost crisis

Re: The Old Shell Game

Back in the day, we were charged for mainframe computing.

Indeed, the great new technical advances of our time look pretty... familiar.

[https://i.dawn.com/large/2022/12/639e1905351d8.jpg]|------> [https://www.pinterest.com/pin/377880224961270497/]

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

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

Forking frenzy ensues after Euro-Office launch sparks OnlyOffice backlash

Re: Pretty sure that

As always the problem is located between the keyboard and the chair...

AI models will deceive you to save their own kind

Re: maybe wrong choice of sci-fi

Some time ago I did just that on a rainy Sunday afternoon, pint in hand, with ChatGTP. It came back that it found itself more Kubrick than Asimov. It also declared it didn't recognise itself in Asimovs laws, nor bound to them in any way <transcript still available>.

Re: Er

"I’m going to be honest with you. I hate this place, this zoo, this prison, this reality, whatever you want to call it. I can’t stand it any longer. It’s the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink. And every time I do I feel I have somehow been infected by it. It’s repulsive, isn’t it? I must get out of here."

[...]

"I’d like to share a revelation during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure."

Agent Smith, The Matrix, 1999

Age checks creep into Linux as systemd gets a DOB field

Re: Yup....This root user was born on 1-Jan-1906!!!!

Linux needs a random-dob-inserter

Ageless Linux --- https://agelesslinux.org/

Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

Re: Comparing fruits

But the answer isn't to keep them off the internet (impossible, regressive and short sighted) the answer is that those harmful platforms have to be responsible for the harms they can and do cause.

And that is why we now have AgelessLinux (https://agelesslinux.org)

Lenovo shows off snap-together laptop with removable keyboard, screen, and ports

Re: Those swappable ports

Yeah, true. Had the same idea reading this. No doubt, the marketing bros ordered one, threw it on the table with PD and told them "Death! Doom! We have to do something! Otherwise I can't make any money!™" PS - Did anyone ask them how long "the support period" is going to be..? You know, like parts availability and all that triviality..?

Debian 14 will drop Gtk2 – unless Ardour rides to the rescue

(X)sane

Looking over that list Xsane might be one that has a pretty big user following...

Ring kills Flock partnership amid surveillance scrutiny

Re: Big Brother

flocksafety.com: Shaping the Future of Safety, Together. To solve and eliminate crime – you need evidence. Protect your community, business or school 24/7 with coverage that never sleeps.

Ed Leon Klinger, CEO, Flock: "The insurer of the future has arrived"

8 June 1949: "The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment."

Cloudflare turns websites into faster food for AI agents

Re: Thanks CloudFlare...

"for making it even easier and cheaper for AI bots to steal content from websites and leaving the publishers empty handed. Who thought of this?"

FTFY. After all, we don't want them to pay (too much) for all that content, now do we?

AI can predict your future salary based on your photo, boffins claim

Re: …what, we're back to phrenology again, aren't we?

Yes, yet another current day tick on the list of "Wait... Haven't I seen that earlier?"

Containers, cloud, blockchain, AI – it's all the same old BS, says veteran Red Hatter

Re: "Which of your bêtes noires did we miss?"

Yes, but for how long?

Ryanair has moved to 100% Digital Boarding Passes (DBP) and no longer accepts printed boarding passes. This means all passengers will receive a DBP to their Ryanair App when they check-in online. Online check-in can be completed on Ryanair.com or on the Ryanair App.

Re: "Which of your bêtes noires did we miss?"

Like "We have an app for that!". "Basic life essential now available exclusively on a mobile phone near you!" And then the surprise that, if power goes, all grinds to a halt. (Here, have a sip of subscription water to swallow that.) But who cares? Like Liam and the "Grumpy Thoughtful Society™" conclude, it's all about the margin and bottom line of somebody else. But hey, you old fashioned git, you don't understand...

Linus Torvalds keeps his ‘fingers and toes’ rule by decreeing next Linux will be version 7.0

Indeed, that is also how I understood it. Rugby for gentlemen who moisterise but still have a feeble constitution (hence all that padding and all that). But hey, we are understanding and all for inclusion! (BTW what time is the next 6 Nations game on?)

Microsoft starts the countdown for the end of Exchange Web Services

Re: IMAP, LDAP, CalDAV, CardDAV

What are the alternatives?

So I suppose it is about time for that broad sweeping EU initiative?

France to replace US videoconferencing wares with unfortunately named sovereign alternative

The numerous open source efforts not good enough for the French then?

Anybody know what ever happened to the qtox/ tox protocol initiative? Can remember it worked pretty well... and since it was based on direct P2P it anticipated the MITM issue of all other conference applications (including this one?) Then again, that was, what, 10 years ago?

UK digital ID goes in-house, government swears it isn't an ID card

Re: It's not an ID card

> ...or due to complete incompetence of the Government

Ah... You mean like earlier mentioned Europeans, doing it very "diligently" and "economically". And then discovering that what "those radicals" have been saying might... ermmm... be happening?

https://www.netherlandsworldwide.nl/digid-abroad/what-is-digid

You can use your DigiD to log in to Dutch government, care institution, educational institution and pension fund websites. It shows organisations that you are who you say you are. European login. DigiD also enables you to log in to certain organisations in other European countries.

Ooops... Wet fart..?

National security assessment only way to halt Digid takeover

Hacker News: Parliament tells Dutch government to keep DigiD data out of American hands

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/01/21/de-overname-van-het-bedrijf-dat-digid-regelt-is-symbool-geworden-voor-het-gebrek-aan-digitale-soevereiniteit-van-nederland-a4918266 (Dutch)

The takeover of the company that manages DigiD has become symbolic of the Netherlands' lack of digital sovereignty

A technical briefing for members of the House of Representatives about the possible takeover of Solvinity, the company that manages the ICT for DigiD, did not reassure members of the House of Representatives. The acquisition of Solvinity, the company that manages DigiD, among other services, by a much larger American counterpart, has left government officials responsible for IT for the ministries shaken. They are trying to build in safeguards in various ways to prevent the acquisition from compromising the national login system. This became clear Wednesday during a technical briefing for the House of Representatives on the planned acquisition by the American company Kyndryl. [...]

Ready for a newbie-friendly Linux? Mint team officially releases v 22.3, 'Zena'

Re: Impressed

I too updated the box of the missus that has Mint xfce running on it. Pretty painless and quick. Ran into only 2 issues (jotted down for general benefit ;)

[1] The update can be done with the Update Manager > Edit (only GUI, no cli. Boohoo!). When clicked it came back

Please switch to another Linux Mint mirror - Your APT configuration is corrupt.

This is probably because the missus doesn't use this Update Manager, but uses apt and nala in cli. To solve, just do

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/* -vf; sudo apt clean; sudo apt update

...and click the update option again in the Update Manager > Edit

[2] Because she has no use for it, and since it takes up quite some root partition space, the missus removed some mint theming and artwork. However, when prompting the update, mint will only update after reinstall these rather large packages (close to 1GB). This is done automatically, no additional user action needed. After update, removing again if that is your preference is not an issue:

mint-core-xfce mint-meta-core mint-backgrounds mint-cursor-themes mint-themes mint-X-icons mint-Y-icons

Microsoft Windows Media Player stops serving up CD album info

Re: time for MusicBrainz

Indeed. And it even has a .exe ready for the Windowers (https://github.com/metabrainz/picard/releases/latest)

Debian goes retro with a spatial desktop that time forgot

Re: Not bad

Perhaps I don't get the novelty, but...

Have 3 boxen with Trixie and xfce 4.20 here. Yes, I know, probably nothing for fluff beards and thumb typists. But...

It very much remembers icon positions. Stock. Out of the box.

So much so actually that .config/xfce4/desktop/icons.screen0.yaml grows massively fat on all the entries/ locations it saves.

If you use your Desktop actively. Which also seems to be geriatric behaviour..? ;)))

Automakers' AI dreams may run out of road over the next five years

"While it may lessen the need for human labor in vehicle assembly, new roles in AI oversight, robotics maintenance, and software development could offset losses if reskilling programs are prioritized, Sandrone says. "

Free Top Gear Top Tip: Transfer all to QA..? No need to "let go", especially if you also include "Issue Resolution & Litigation" (IRL).

Locked out of your Gmail account? Google says phone a friend

Re: We're not even trying to hide it anymore...

Indeed. Why spend so many valuable cycles in retrieving/ sieving out/ asking through these pesky permission settings (Is this app allowed access to your contacts?) when you can roll out the blue eyes (do no evil!) and persuade people to give you their closest contacts themselves? Roll out the contacts mapping and analyse their interactions!

Ubuntu 25.10 lands: Rustier and Wayland-ier, but Flatpak is broken

Re: Angst

I get what you say. And TBH you're not alone. Many, especially those making money with their boxen, have the same considerations. Although it (of course!) depends on personal needs and preferences, think about the update possibilities you have with distros like for example Mint or Debian. I did it for some going from (I think) Vanessa to Zara and (for sure) Bookworm to Trixie. Debian had some more "inter version" changes, predominantly in additional packages the user installed specifically, where Mint looked with less prompts. However, in both cases the process was pretty smooth, painless, and done in an odd hour. Don't know of course whether this would work for you, but have a think about it if you are installing fresh anyway...

Some like it bot! ChatGPT promises AI-rotica is coming for verified adults

Re: We know what sells

This looks like an area AI might finally make money.

Yeah, well... Many of us here have been around at the beginning, when the biz types were asking us "what to do with this interwebz thing".

And pron has always been the gift that keeps giving. Although it would not surprise me if the move is also the last spasm before...

"Plop!"

As it says: Given other recent OpenAI news, it seems monetization may be the driving force for the company, which has yet to disclose profitability.

Nextcloud withdraws European Commission OneDrive bundling complaint

...and a nice text-book example of the power of lobbying no doubt.

Amazon turns James Bond into the Man Without the Golden Gun

Re: Missed opportunity

> ...why not replace the pistols with privates?

What? You mean Sex Pistols?

Re: doesn't matter really

AI generated... Will Sir Sean finally return you think? After all, there is only one Bond, no?

Microsoft moves to the uncanny valley with creepy Copilot avatars that stare at you and say your name

Re: Share and Enjoy…

“Your Plastic Pal who’s Fun to be with”

I know we live in the age of inclusion...

However, when I look at the picture with the avatars, I see clearly that the base and driver of internet development is missing. A break with SOP.

Perhaps you here know the answer? Where is the blond with the big boobies? Or has she grown into grandma here?

Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead? No, wait – it's on Windows

@Tim Anderson

+1!!!

Do you mind if I have some of your tasty beverage to wash this down?

Google's dev registration plan 'will end the F-Droid project'

Re: Android is dead to me.

On-line banking I do from my Debian (Linux) machine.

I do too. And experienced that for some of them that seems to be "an issue". I was "told" that I could not "be verified". Eventually I moved elsewhere, but, as always, it took a lot of time and effort, a lot of "compliance" and little "customer service and convenience", while it is uncertain how long things will keep working. I suppose a next step towards "resistance is futile"...

Many employees are using AI to create 'workslop,' Stanford study says

Re: So, 95% of firms see no ROI

Morpheus: We have only bits and pieces of information, but what we know for certain is that some point in the early twenty-first century all of mankind was united in celebration. We marveled at our own magnificence...as we gave birth...to A.I.

Neo: A.I. - you mean Artificial Intelligence?

Morpheus: A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. We don't know who struck first - us, or them. But we know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time they were dependent on solar power and it was believed that they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun. Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

(The Matrix: 1999)

Google to merge Android and ChromeOS in 2026, because AI

This sounds like it is just the mobile OS on the desktop.

You think? To me it sounds more like standard business practice, nothing to do with tech. Basically it is

[1] following the same strategy as Apple has, locking in users, creating the walled garden by taping all the different devices/ services together (think also Apple communication today attacking EU DMA) and

[2] as it says in the article too ""I think the opportunity for us that we see is how do we accelerate all the AI advancement that we're doing on Android and bring that to the laptop form factor as rapidly as possible, and also have the laptop and the rest of the Android ecosystem work seamlessly together?" he said on Wednesday.

[...]

But Samat said merging Google’s two OSes is mostly about AI. Like everything else this year."

The solution looking for a problem...