* Posts by Blackjack

1897 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Jun 2019

Microsoft defends barging in on Chrome with pop-up ads pushing Bing, GPT-4

Blackjack Silver badge

[you do, you’ll turn off Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome and lose access to Bing AI with GPT-4 and DALL-E 3.]

That just makes me to turn it off even more.

Exchange Online blocked from sending email to AOL and Yahoo

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People still use Yahoo and AOL emails? I deleted my accounts on those years ago due to safety concerns.

BOFH: I get locked out, but I get in again

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Re: Locales

I am blaming boredom and mid life crisis plus not actually wanting to do tech support if it was a software issue.

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Cheap padlocks can be opened with just a hammer and you don't even need to destroy the lock to do that. Just hit it with a hammer and the lock opens.

Apple's had it with Epic's app store shenanigans, terminates dev account

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Apple fanboys endure so much shit is is unbelievable yet is also true a lor of people buy Iphones second hand.

Tiny Core Linux 15 stuffs modern computing in a nutshell

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Re: Is there an equally tiny browser?

Unfortunately nowadays Web Browsers need regular updates to keep your safer while browsing online. That means you tend to be limited to forks of Chromium and Firefox. Seamonkey is unfortunately a mess and noob unfriendly even it it still has a 32 bit version and does get updates once in a while and it uses less ram that Firefox or Chrome/Chromium.

Basilisk got new owners so you may want to give it a try and look at the source code to see if it fits your needs and it is safe enough. Strangely the source code url still says palemoon despite the change in ownership...

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Re: investigating whether it can turn some geriatric laptops into useful tools once again.

To give you an idea the recently revived Damn Small Linux takes more Ram doing nothing but running the Desktop that the Plus version of Tiny Core does!

Heck in theory Tiny Core should work on a machine with only 256 of Ram but you would be limited on what you can run.

Be aware however that these type of Linux distros are usually no good for being online all day due to updates not being as frequent as other more used Linux distros. Even if you somehow put a modern Web browser that has frequent updates using Flatpak or something like that, that does nothing for the rest of the distro.

Still really useful to revive old machines or machines with pitiful hardware. Any of those "Only 4 GB of Ram" Windows 10/11 deals fly using Tiny Core, just close the window, you don't look respectable chasing after a flying computer!

Fox News 'hacker' turns out to be journalist whose lawyers say was doing his job

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Ehem:

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

Seems digital tulips are idiot magnets.

Greener, cheaper, what's not to love about a secondhand smartphone?

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My first and second Smartphones were second hand and I still have them and they still work. First was a Nokia N8, second was a Galaxy S5, the biggest problem they have nowadays besides being extremely outdated, is battery life.

It is a bird, a plane or a Chinese spy balloon? None of the above

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China insisted was an errant weather balloon

So...did someone do the numbers to show how likely is a weather balloon to survive the trip from China to the USA?

Microsoft trying to stop Copilot generating fake Putin comments on Navalny's death

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Re: The problem with our "AI" systems

At this point they may as well add a disclaimer that "This Chatbot is not a reliable news source, if you want to fack check something use something else" and be done with it. Because AI chatbots aren't made to give accurate information. Even those limited chatbots that use on Whatsapp or company websites end giving away false information. There have even been lawsuits about that!

If we feed Chatbots on Social Media they end with information as accurate as you can find in social media and social media IS NOT a reliable news source.

BOFH: In the event of a conference, the ninja clause always applies

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If you don't mind being a social pariah offline, start to sell however tries to sell you something about "A religious retreat you are going next weekend" that includes such marvels as waking up one hour before sunrise, hard breaking labour, praying for two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, no alcohol or smoking, no tech of any kind and a nearby hill blocking cell phone reception.

Hackers mod a Sony PlayStation Portal to run PSP games

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Let's remember this thing is basically an Android tablet so the fact it got hacked doesn't surprise me. However the lack of even a mini sd card slot means the use it has as a portable gaming device is limited, even if you hack it.

India effectively kills e-wallet used by over 300 million

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shrink India's cash economy?

But India just gave people a reason to use cash!

A visa to fill Australia's empty tech jobs is getting more expensive, but maybe better value

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Even if you are visiting as a tourist Australia can deport you before you even leave the airport and no I ain't joking.

Forgetting the history of Unix is coding us into a corner

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Hope wayland goes the way of PulseAudio and starts getting replaced with something better.

Yeah we need something like PipeWire only as Wayland replacement so not like PipeWire as all.

For a moment there, Lotus Notes appeared to do everything a company needed

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[The publisher's internal photographer (this was the Nineties, when publishers had more money)]

Actually it was because screenshot programs didn't became common until like... windows 3.x? There was probably a DOS screenshot program somewhere but I definitely never used one. Some MS-DOS programs allowed you to take screenshots with the press of a button on the keyboard or a combination of them but not all of them.

Damn Small Linux returns after a 12-year gap

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Ubuntu used to have a install online only minimum install, unfortunately that has been dead for years. I think it even used a lighter that usual Windows manager?

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Yeah but it was text only and umm... early versions of Linux weren't noob friendly.

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Old versions of DSL could run with only 256 of ram but that was a really long time ago.

I am happy to see this back but I will wait for at least a Beta.

Miscreants turn to ad tech to measure malware metrics

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Will the PDF format ever die? Most likely not at this rate.

Upstart retrofits an Nvidia GH200 server into a €47,500 workstation

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So... what is the most demanding computer game nowadays? And can this computer run it?

FCC gets tough: Telcos must now tell you when your personal info is stolen

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[Telcos must now tell you when your personal info is stolen]

Mass email to every client with a format that will make it end in the spam folder:

"Estimated Client,

You are using the Internet therefore tour data is likely to have been stolen."

Still no love for JPEG XL: Browser maker love-in snubs next-gen image format

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"compress them further."

That's it?

Considering the increase of bandwidth and internet speed over time, I prefer lossless formats if possible.

Also Jpg 2000 died so...

Windows 10 users report app gremlins after Microsoft update

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Well; while Linux may not be for everyone, it may be an option to keep old hardware working

War of the workstations: How the lowest bidders shaped today's tech landscape

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Lisp sounds something I would have liked to learn if I was born about two decades earlier that I was. Then again my Interest in computers started with Videogames and I think that if I was born two decades earlier I would have got way more into Pinball Machines that computers cause money dear boy.

Unix got beaten by Linux cause you can't get cheaper that free. Oh you can try but actually paying people to use your stuff never works long term.

The New ROM Antics – building the ZX Spectrum 128

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Re: "their substantial egos"

Ego crashes the company? Also Steve Jobs. Microsoft had to basically bail them out. And before that he had been fired for a reason.

BOFH: Nice air conditioning system. Would be a shame if anything happened to it

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["So we're just going to extort money without actually doing anything for it?"

"Welcome to the new age of IT."]

So now BOFH runs a government?

Driverless cars swerve traffic tickets in California even if they break the law

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[Unlike vehicles with human motorists, autonomous cars cannot be punished for breaking traffic laws in California]

That's stupid and dangerous.

Valve celebrates New Year by blowing off Steam support for Windows 7 and 8

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I am using Steam on Linux but unfortunately no matter what I do I can't get Proton to work -_-

NAT, ATM, decentralized search – and other outrageous opinions from the 1990s

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Since I was a kid (teen) what I most remember about 1995 is how 3D gaming was going to be the future, we would connect anywhere in the world to play games online, and that 2D games were doomed to die. Computers? They were just the things not called Nintendo or Sega I used to play videogames and help me with schoolwork, this being 1995 said help came in the form of using Word or a CD based digital encyclopedia.

I did see a vision were we carried portable screens everywhere in the future but it was a PDA like thing of some sort, not a mobile phone.

What worries me the most about the modern internet is all the walled gardens and the fact a lot of people get their news from Social Media.

I miss Internet forums, they barely exist nowadays. I don't want to use Discord and Mastodon is not forum like enough for my taste.

Here's who thinks AI chatbots will eventually be smart enough to be your coworker

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Re: Electricity

Actually they will realise it once the power bill comes knocking.

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[ smart enough to be your coworker] is a very low bar to clear. Not even joking, Ihave seen people so stupid I couldn't figure out how they keep theit jobs besides nepotism.

Windows 12: Savior of PC makers, or just an apology for Windows 11?

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Re: Local accounts

Unless the UK joins back with the EU or you move to the EU, keep dreaming.

Artificial intelligence is a liability

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[UnitedHealthcare is being sued because the nH Predict AI Model it acquired through its 2020 purchase of Navihealth has allegedly been denying necessary post-acute care to insured seniors]

So it was working as intended.

BOFH: The Christmas party was so good, an independent inquiry is required

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Forest Fenn is life lesson why real life treasure hunts are a bad idea.

That being said, it would have been more believable if the BOFH had mentioned a hidden secret mini fridge stashed with ice-cream.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto stolen after Ledger code poisoned

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Re: Money by a long way

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

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What gets stolen more, actual money or crypto?

Is it 2000 or 2023? Get ready for AI-anchored news. Again

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Ir comes down to costs, how many dollars the second of AI news?

Microsoft floats bringing a text editor back to the CLI

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I miss Edit, it was how I made custom boot floppies for some DOS games.

BOFH: Just because we've had record revenues doesn't mean you get a Xmas bonus

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Re: Wow!

They are all rich young people who do not know old foggies like him.

Ex-school IT admin binned student, staff accounts and trashed phone system

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Next time just set Windows to update during working hours, will be quite hard to get jail time for that.

UK government rings the death knell for SIM farms

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Re: Ban banning things

Is actually quite easy to spam calls and texts from numbers that don't exist, it happens in a lot of countries including in Argentina.

Sim Farms use real phone numbers and sim chips are getting passed out of use in many parts of the world.

So they are basically banning something that won't be in used anyway in a decade or two.

Surface Duo crashes the party as Doctor Who celebrates 60th birthday

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Re: Probably get a few more episodes in...

May be used to make the villain waste time maybe?

User read the manual, followed instructions, still couldn't make 'Excel' work

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I remember a case when it wasn't Excel but "something cheaper" so the instructions didn't quite work.

I just needed the sheet printed, for schoolwork, so I figured a way to make it work... by making someone else do it for me.

If I had to summit a file by floppy disk I would have been in trouble since again what we had at home wasn't Excel.