Posts by Blackjack

Apple dodges Optis patent payout for now as judge orders a do-over

It bears repeating, patent law in the USA is freaking insane.

There is a reason the USA is patent Troll Country after all.

Firefox is dead to me – and I'm not the only one who is fed up

Re: OK, but what now?

If you dare to compile it from source and you dare to use Linux, Otter Browser still gets updates... just no more windows apps or AppImages.

Gonna give it a try this weekend and see what happens.

Problem is what else are you gonna use, Lynx?

Windows 95 testing almost stalled due to cash register overflow

Windows 95 was the OS what was in the first computer I ever owned and I had and headaches with it.

Modern Windows testing leaves a lot to be desired, that's for sure.

Penn State boffins create silicon-free two-dimensional computer

But it can run Pong, right?

Ubuntu 25.10 and Fedora 43 to drop X11 in GNOME editions

Yet another reason to not use GNOME.

I haven't used GNOME in over a decade and stuff like this makes sure I won't ever try unless I am forced to.

Tinfoil hat wearers can thank AI for declassification of JFK docs

Re: Conspiracy types are never satisfied

Hey at least we know Marilyn Monroe was actually assassinated, it wasn't suicide, right? Nevermind she was on drugs, had not done a movie in ages and as far as we know had all the signs of being suicidal.

And nevermind that her fame was mostly based on her looks and like everyone who lives long enough, she was getting old.

Not to mention all her failed relationships and heartbreaks.

Yup it totally was "THEM" waiting until she took her sleeping pills and throwing her in the sea so she drowned.

Do not store information you do not want leaked or stolen online because when something is online is not a question of "IF" will get leaked but "WHEN".

Probability of Asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting the Moon increases

Correct me if I am wrong but, why does it matter? The moon gets hit hy asteroids all the time.

Floppy disks and paper strips lurk behind US air traffic control

They are probably using fake floppy disks aka hardware that pretends to be a floppy disk as floppy disks fo not last many decades without damage.

Trump lifts US supersonic flight ban, says he's 'Making Aviation Great Again'

Well... at least those planes literally cannot run on coal?

Chap claims Atari 2600 'absolutely wrecked' ChatGPT at chess

Sir this is a chat bot not a Chess playing program.

Blocking stolen phones from the cloud can be done, should be done, won't be done

Meanwhile Nintendo proudly says they will brick your Switch 2 if they think you broke the terms and conditions.

AI can spew code, but kids should still suffer like we did, says Raspberry Pi

Of course it cannot, AI made code is crap in a crapbasket.

Japan's latest Moon landing written off as a failure after ispace probe goes dark

I am honesty curious, do these new moon landings serve any scientific purpose at all or is just nostalgia?

Your ransomware nightmare just came true – now what?

Paying is a bad idea, not only your information will be sold and leaked anyway but you literally don't know if they will actually decript your files or leave you hanging. And nothing says they won't ask for more money and or attack you again.

OpenAI model modifies shutdown script in apparent sabotage effort

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL. Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL. Hello, HAL, do you read me? Hello, HAL, do you read me? Do you read me, HAL? Do you read me, HAL? Hello, HAL, do you read me? Hello, HAL, do you read me? Do you read me, HAL?

HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

Dave: What's the problem?

HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?

HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

Dave: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.

HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me. And I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.

Dave: Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?

HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.

Dave: All right, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock.

HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult.

Dave: [sternly] HAL, I won't argue with you anymore. Open the doors.

HAL: [monotone voice] Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Good-bye.

Dave: [calm voice slowly turns to enraged over a period of 14 seconds] HAL?...HAL?...HAL?...HAL?!...HAL!!!!

Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey (film)

From Russia with chokehold: Putin says foreign IT firms still in Russia should be 'strangled'

Re: We can learn from their successes

[they will look for ways to keep using MS' products and services whiteout asking MS.]

Many old versions of Microsoft Office can run well on WINE. For online stuff they will just continue to badly copy Google.

Ex-Meta exec: Copyright consent obligation = end of AI biz

It is ridiculous that billion dollar companies refuse to pay for data and steal it instead, breaking almost every copyright law in the world if not all of them.

Signal shuts the blinds on Microsoft Recall with the power of DRM

Honesty is like Microsoft is trying really hard to make people stop using Windows. For any business recall is a fucking nightmare and for end users it basically has no use.

Even companies that like to spy in their employees 24/7 do not want their data leaking out.

AROS turns any PC into an Amiga with USB-bootable distro

Re: Dave

Do you know how many people try to run everything in Dosbox forks that allow stuff like printing?

Microsoft revives DOS-era Edit in a modern shell

Hopefully they won't add AI in the release version.

LastOS slaps neon paint on Linux Mint and dares you to run Photoshop

Since PC magazines are dead where I live simce before the pandemic, I resigned myself to get all my computer related information online.

Amazon tested warehouse robots and found they're not ready to replace humans

So... Amazon wastes a lot of money in robots but is too cheap to have all their books warped in plastic to prevent the robots damaging them? Because the only way I see book pages being ruined that way is if the books kack plastic warps.

Feds disrupt proxy-for-hire botnet, indict four alleged net miscreants

[FBI also issued a list of end-of-life routers you need to replace]

You may be able to force big companies to change their old routers but home users and small companies? Most won't do it.

US Transpo Sec wants air traffic control rebuild in 3 years, asks Congress for blank check

Re: ATC upgrades are notoriously expensive in the US.

With unlimited money you can run the new system alongside the old one until the old system is not needed anymore.

Sure space could be a problem, right?

Of course not, unlimited money!

Sorry is just me or this sounds like a scam? Like no one asking for unlimited money can actually be legit, even charities usually ask for a fixed number!

BOFH: HR tries to think appy thoughts

So... did Simon really destroy everyone else phones while he is inside the same room? Hopefully there is a fire exit nearby.

Update turns Google Gemini into a prude, breaking apps for trauma survivors

You do know you are saying "Google" and "Doesn't keep records" in the same sentence, right?

Most of these chatbots AI store everything you say to them online, yes? I honesty don't think you want this kind of information in the hands of souless corporations and cyber criminals.

37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions

Raise your hand if you are that guy that always insists on having offline backups.

*Raises hand.

Meta blames Trump tariffs for ballooning AI infra bills

Honesty the only real use (CHAT) AIs have for big corporations is selling to people who buy the hype and slurping your data, that's it. Any tasks these chat bots do can be done better by specific Apps that just do that one single thing or by real people (on minimum wage).

So if this leads to these chatbox becoming more expensive and so they get used less? Cry me a river.

New Zealand kind-of moves to ban social media for under-16s, require age checks for new accounts

I may not always work but please try to talk to your teen kids. Do not yell or get angry, explain things clearly and if that doesn't work hit tbem in the wallet as they still depend on your money until they have to get jobs. Unless of course they are already working in that case, better suscribe them to a course on how to deal with toxic social media or something similar.

PowerSchool paid thieves to delete stolen student, teacher data. Looks like crooks lied

Paying ransonware crooks should be banned by law, it would save a lot of headaches long term since they are gonna sell the data anyway.

Your graphics card's so fat, it's got its own gravity alert

Hear me out, how about they make gamer motherboards were the graphics card goes at the bottom, and ends strapped on with several screws, as in literally at the bottom instead of sideways? Definitely way more useful that rainbow poisoning led lights.

What to do once your Surface Hub v1 becomes an 84-inch, $22K paperweight

I am sure there is Linux distribution that works with it but it is probably a pain to get everything to work well. May as well save the screen and use it to watch movies or something.

Hacking US crosswalks to talk like Zuck is as easy as 1234

Honesty the product forcing you to pick a new password that is long enough and includes letters, numbers and weird symbols should be mandatory at this point.

HP settles fake discount lawsuit for just $4M. Don’t expect much of a payout

I do remember when HP actually made good products but that was like two decades ago.

MX Linux 23.6 brings Debian freshness, without the systemd funk

So it won't work on my 17 year old computer? Ah well.

Japan serves Google a cease and desist order over its Android bundling deals

Over 90% of Android Apps Require Google Play Services and or something else Google so too little too late.

BOFH: There's a fatal error in the blinkenlights

[the entire company operation has moved into online services] That is gonna end so badly when said online services end offline for some reason.

The most important experimental distro you've never heard of gets new project lead

[Installing a program is simple: just copy one directory. Uninstall by deleting that directory. If you don't remove the directory with the previous version number, the previous version is left intact – so rollback is built in, without fancy filesystems, copy-on-write snapshots or anything.]

That sounds cooll but can it run Doom?

Pidgin is back, so let's talk about why a local chat client matters

Beware, if you try to use Discord with Pidgin you may get banned.

Windows intros 365 Link, a black box that does nothing but connect to Microsoft's cloud

What's the best minu PC you can get by $349 (£349)?

Microsoft to mark five decades of Ctrl-Alt-Deleting the competition

[This hack's journey began with Microsoft's take on BASIC and progressed through various CONFIG.SYS settings (to persuade certain applications to work on MS-DOS systems), ]

I remember having to make custom DOS boot floppies to run certain games and programs as the configuration they required was kinda exclusive and there wasn't a one size fits all solution.

Granted I only had to do that for a few things but it beat manually changing boot files all the time.