Posts by Rahbut

Starlink speeds past terrestrial networks – and regulators

Re: Not a fan

I've been mightily impressed with starlink. It has been quick and reliable, if a little pricey. But seeing as noone can readily give me similar speed/latency, that's the price I will pay.

The lack of IPv4 made me look at IPv6, but even that isn't for everyone. Tailscale, Cloudflare and Mullvad come in handy.

I had more problems with Plusnet thinking I was in America than I've had with Starlink.

I've noticed the recent release of the lower price tiers has dropped the speed at peak times.

Claude Code's prying AIs read off-limits secret files

Re: No

"unless the article in question is about why the human race is so keen to believe and anthropomorphise a bingo machine."

thank you! that is superb - i'll have to pinch that for my next 1-1!

Just because Linus Torvalds vibe codes doesn't mean it's a good idea

Re: Synthetic Take: Why Vibe Coding Isn’t “Just for Toys”

You can do plenty of useful work using some of the new tools like Antigravity or Opencode. And you absolutely can put the output into production assuming the appropriate level of testing.

Is it better or faster than a human being? It's different. And it still requires a human being.

The experience/output is improving very quickly.

There are problems with it like the monoculture/feedback loop, what it might do to careers longer term and the need to rabidly consume the earths resources at an alarming rate, but I'm sure that'll get figured out at some point because "capitalism".

UK backtracks on digital ID requirement for right to work

Re: We already have National Insurance numbers.

I don't want to be "that guy" but it looks like we're going to use NHS numbers (and their regional variants) for public services etc, since they're given out by GPs to "everyone" and would be required for school, social care etc. and would remove the right to "opt out" of certain types of monitoring, because "safeguarding".

(see Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 - specifically the use of a Single Unique Identifier (SUI))

There's legislation going through for that right now and it has nothing to do with Digital ID, which would appear to be a smoke screen.

Re: alternative solution to the so called small boats issue

have you seen the price of Dettol?! :)

Ofcom officially investigating X as Grok's nudify button stays switched on

Re: Consent and legality

The anti-censorship thing winds me up - Musk is OK with the creation of sexualised images of children or women and the harm that potentially causes, but he's *NOT* OK with a Twitter account that publishes the location of his private jet?

Free speech is free speech, surely?

HSBC app takes a dim view of sideloaded Bitwarden installations

Re: NS&I too

it didn't dawn on me they had an app, given how bad the onboarding process was to setup a new account on the web.

[i always enable dev settings - i don't see how that's less secure than when NS&I SMS you a TOTP]

Re: So is anyone actually happy with their bank's digital offerings?

In the UK Starling and Monzo have good apps. Chase isn't bad either.

Starling also has good website banking (requires the app though to login).

(big fan of Starling if I'm honest - think it's less cluttered than Monzo, but ymmv)

Lloyds and HSBC/FD are probably the better of the older banks, but that's hardly a glowing recommendation - TSB were dismal when I switched into them for the free cash last year. The others are all pretty meh.

Re: Not just bitwarden

The same HSBC who were keen on "my voice is my password"...

Re: Banking App Developers should be shot

Not seen the facial recognition stuff; my patience runs out when someone like Santander decides I need to use their stupid pretend keyboard instead of the one I want to use.

Rather than make something more secure, I always feel they're introducing an additional weakness.

Microsoft wants to replace its entire C and C++ codebase, perhaps by 2030

Re: “Our North Star is ‘1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code.’”

I think you're onto something. Take it to its logical conclusion and add enough developers and you eventually create some kind of coding time travel paradox...

Memory is running out, and so are excuses for software bloat

Re: Lovely idea - no chance of it ever happening

Like you, I think the articles sentiment around memory should just be extended to software efficiency in general.

You only have to look at Notepad.exe as a good example of something that's now considerably larger and slower, and delivers little benefit for the bloating (perhaps we didn't need to rewrite it to require a .NET dependency to get tabs? etc)

I grew up trying to get a program to fit in the boot sector on an Amiga floppy disk - an era when people tried to wring ever last ounce of performance out of a system.

Some of that still goes on in certain circles - like where there's a cost saving to be made (many years ago Google did a decent bunch of work around optimising webpage efficiency, reducing bloat, best practice for images etc - I guess the result is that the "cost" was shunted to the client, but serving the content at scale became significantly cheaper). More often than not the general idea is to do something good enough more quickly so that revenue can be recognised. Compromises are made so that things can be delivered at scale more quickly - e.g. microservices can be seen as a way to manage people.

Ignoring what we might think about AI - a lot of the code it produces is inefficient and usually benefits from significant refactoring (which you can get use AI to do, but I digress) - AI slop does fall into the "good enough" boat in order to get that precious revenue.

All of that is to say that software inefficiency is not a technical problem, but a management issue.

Reddit sues Australia to exempt itself from kids social media ban

Re: since when?

But it also has a lot of other stuff on it that is not vaguely political, nor useful - and some might argue harmful - so unless there's a way to access the good bits without accessing the bad bits, some carefully considered regulation wouldn't be a bad thing, because these companies aren't going to regulate themselves.

Vibe coding will deliver a wonderful proliferation of personalized software

Things like Claude, OpenCode and Antigravity are quite impressive. They can do a fair bit really well when used correctly by the right people. And they're getting better.

None of that is contentious.

But let's be honest, they're best at things that have been done a gazillion times before - the average CRUD app in the enterprise is surprisingly easy to churn out, because that kind of work is fairly formulaic. Whether we like it or not, not every developer is working on something as complex as the control plane for the Large Hadron Collider, even if some will make it look as if they are.

The VRML example given has plenty of specification to help guide development - so it didn't shock me that this was easy to prototype etc.

Where things come tumbling down is where we have Full Stack Salespeople - with all the gear and no idea. They can now produce something that _looks_ like the real deal, but probably isn't sanitising inputs or any of the other "non-functional" aspects of development.

There's going to be work for people in the development/engineering space for the foreseeable future - it's just going to get a bit more niche/specialised and ultimately more expensive IMO.

Australia bans teens from social media, but nobody thinks it'll really work

Re: Game over Albo

"only a third of parents plan to enforce it"

isn't that kind of the problem with all of this? Some parents cba or don't feel it's their responsibility, which is why we end up with (some would argue) state overreach. That said, big tech isn't going to do "the right thing" if it means losing potential revenue - it requires some kind of regulation, but it remains to be seen what the most effective approach might be.

Space telescopes are being photobombed by satellites, and the problem is slated to get much worse

Re: How do "long exposures" work for Hubble?

You mean stacking like astro mode on a phone or a "smart" telescope? I'm guessing they can already do that? Presumably that could be done in software on the ground, and they've been doing it for donkeys years... would love to know if there's a limitation in the sensor, like you've suggested, or they do something similar and there's already too many satellites above it. Hubble is quite low compared to some Starlink satellites, isn't it? Fascinating stuff I wish I knew more about.

Microsoft appears to move on from its most loyal ‘customers’ – Contoso and Fabrikam

Re: Zara may want to have a word or two....

When I saw Macrosoft I was reminded of Macrohard - another fictitious AI company, but associated with the Elon Musk Reality Distortion Field.

I'm sure Disney have got bigger problems to worry about :)

From one man band to another, see icon ->

Campbell's CISO canned after lawsuit alleges hour-long rant against staff and customers

Re: He's not wrong.

it went downhill when they stopped making it in Kings Lynn...

...although the Tescos built on the old site is selling some of the cheapest petrol in Norfolk, so hurrah for progress.

AI nudification site fined £55K for skipping age checks

Re: Kids will be going old school

Isn't the problem that kids will use pictures of their peers, which will invariably mean some material will be of subjects younger than the law allows for?

Pop!_OS deejays prepare to release holiday remix along with Cosmic v 1.0

I'm genuinely looking forward to Cosmic v1 - and what that might do for other DE's.

I'm also looking forward to reading Liam's opinion upon the release... :)

[the settings sync service sounds like a useful addition I wasn't expecting]

Arch Linux takes a pounding as DDoS attack enters week two

Re: ELI 5

I wondered if it was related to those dodgy AUR packages that they had to deal with a few weeks back?

I don't really know what motivates people to do things like that tbh; sometimes it's nothing more than "because they can" - vandalism for want of a better word.

End well, this won't: UK commissioner suggests govt stops kids from using VPNs

Another vote for proxies - that coupled with some thought on your wpad.dat and your home network can be in the UK for iPlayer and Ireland(!) for the smut.

We all know this has nothing to do with kids and smut, it's a deliberate invasion of privacy.

Free VPNs aren't much up to streaming pr0n, so that leaves paid-for VPNs...they normally require you to be 18 for payment (there are workarounds to this), so why do they need policing if kids can't spend their vbucks on removing geoblocking?

Mercifully a lot of VPN providers are in locations that are a bit loose with pesky details like complying with UK law.

So that leaves the fairly draconian step of traffic shaping/blocking all VPN traffic which is obviously problematic given how it's embedded within business, banking, healthcare etc.

None of that is not going to stop someone googling and finding croxy proxy (or similar), but it does erode privacy and polices the population which is deeply concerning.

UK unveils plans to 'transform' the consumer smart meter experience

Re: who is it smart for?

"Direct debit means you accrue credit in their account and they make interest off your money.

I got tired of my energy company ducking about with the amount of direct debit they took from me, with wildly inaccurate predictions.

At one point I was £600 in credit FFS."

Yea - that does grate.

I switched to a variable DD - so same rates (because it's a DD and you get a discount for paying it monthly), but I only pay for my usage in that month.

Obviously, that means some months are more expensive than others, but you can sort out the budgeting and get interest on the surplus if that's something you want to do.

I did it with Octopus, but Martin Lewis/MSE will tell you how to get it sorted for a different provider.

I'm not ideologically opposed to Smart Meters like some, but if they're being forced on people they should work as advertised.

We all know significant sums of money are being peed up the wall, with the cost being passed on to consumers that are already stretched. We should be expecting a gold plated service given the cost!

Firefox 141 relieves chronic Linux pain in the neck

Re: I don't use this, so pardon my ignorance, but...

It would seem that UBO/Pihole, or similar, armed with a nice block list should help - I couldn't find anything specifically to block the slurp since a lot of that is already blocked by tracker lists and the like.

It's not what you're after, but I did find this which will block gen AI sites, which is handy if you're trying to improve search results:

https://github.com/laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/blob/main/noai_hosts.txt

If you blend both kinds of host lists, you should be able to get by without too much AI bothering you.

Microsoft finally bids farewell to PowerShell 2.0

Re: Powershell 3.0 = Vista version

I would agree that PowerShell is not that bad - it can be the right tool for the job, depending on the job. It took quite a few iterations to get to that point, if we're honest. PowerShell 7 is fairly decent.

I'm not sure that I'm overly fussed about stuff being Object Oriented anymore, and I'd agree with everyone saying it's verbose.

I suspect my biggest issue with Powershell isn't so much the scripting itself or the cmdlets, rather what people have done with it. It's nearly always PS when I'm presented with an incomprehensible script running into 000's of lines! That said, the fact people can write monstrous scripts with it would indicate it's fairly straightforward to pick and use. I've seen similar in Python and good old VBScript back in the day. I think ease of use could be considered a positive.

These days I'd probably look to use a combo of Bash and Go for things I might have used PS for in the past, but therein lies the issue for MS... there's no real compelling reason to put workloads on Windows these days, and there are plenty of options when you move away from Windows.

China successfully tests hypersonic aircraft, maybe at Mach 12

Re: Quote from the article

Presumably that's why there is also ongoing research into energy weapons?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonFire_(weapon)

Sharks with laser beams don't need to be hypersonic.

Actors' union complains about Epic Games cloning Darth Vader

Odd

It's one thing to be looking out for real people potentially losing out to AI, but to interfere in a dead person's estate from exercising their rights to do whatever is "odd".

Asia reaches 50 percent IPv6 capability and leads the world in user numbers

Re: ip6 invented by nerdy idealists....

In the article it says "China 45.28% 810,519,875" - 810 million is more than 5% of China's population; 45.28% apparently according to the article.

TSMC blew whistle on suspected verboten exports to Huawei – that may cost it $1B+

Question...

I get that the US has sanctions against China. What I don't get is how a Taiwanese company using Dutch equipment to make a Chinese designed chip is compelled to comply with those sanctions - what bit of that is American?

Are we talking patents or some kind of IP that isn't immediately apparent?

Stuff a Pi-hole in your router because your browser is about to betray you

Re: Evil Browsers?

Hadn't thought of blocking DoH, so thanks the nudge and the block list :)

Type-safe C-killer Delphi hits 30, but a replacement has risen

Re: A colleague of mine uses Delphi/Lazarus

It's fairly noddy tbh - it was easy to pick up, and produce things quickly, hence it's popularity back then. If people can read Javascript and/or Python, there's not much to worry about in Delphi or equivalents - it's just a bit more "wordy".

GNOME 48 beta is another nail in X11's coffin

Re: I can feel the downvotes coming! Be gentle.

Have an upvote :)

I've tried a bunch of things and Gnome is fine - it gets out of the way and lets me do stuff. It's the default on some distros and I don't have a problem with that. It's opinionated, which can work both ways. I don't have nvidia, so my desktop experience isn't dictated by whether a driver is working properly or not.

That said, you don't have to look too hard to see some obvious bugs/features like how it steals focus when there's a pop-up/toast visible - which is crap when you're on a big screen.

KDE is also OK.

Cosmic looks interesting...

I quite like ChromeOS, so I know that makes me a bit odd - it sits in a middle ground between Windows and Linux from a UX perspective.

I think most people here can agree that Windows is getting worse, not better.

I should probably also mention that I really am not a fan of MacOS, despite loving the hardware and some of the other software - it would be far better WITH gnome! :D

It's nice to have choice on Linux, because ultimately we're all different and like different things.

Google: How to make any AMD Zen CPU always generate 4 as a random number

Re: In the Olden Days, Microcode

DNS I get, but that's another reason for using HTTPS because you're less likely to have the matching cert.

WFH with privacy? 85% of Brit bosses snoop on staff

Re: Confusing activity with productivity again

I tend to mark myself as offline (grey - as if the computer is off) and then make a point of messaging and responding to people and joining meetings... since setting your status to "Do not disturb" appears to mean "Please disturb me", and status will turn orange in a heartbeat even if you're on the computer, I think the Teams status indicator is invalid and treat it as such.

I also used to enjoy clicking "Meet now" and doing a quick screen share, with just myself in the call...

Fedora Asahi Remix 41 for Apple Macs is out

Re: Mmmmmm

I'm also interested in an M4 version - I suspect the limitation is down to GPU drivers, but there's bound to be other things as well.

I seem to recall watching a video about "device trees" that explained a lot of the difficulties - still, I suspect there will be support at some point in the future.

China's homebrew Bluetooth alternative is on the march as Beijing pushes universal remotes

This sounds interesting.

Ignoring any of the conversation around who's spying on what, this sounds quite interesting.

If you could create something "new" to do what Bluetooth does now, and could jettison a bunch of legacy backwards compatibility, you might have a fighting chance of creating something a bit more reliable.

Presumably this sits on 2.4GHz?

Can we assume it's less onerous from a patents/licensing perspective?

Raspberry Pi 500 and monitor arrive in time for Christmas

Re: Keyboard layout

I always thought "bang" an exclamation mark ("!")?

Northern Ireland schools ditch £485M Fujitsu deal after less than a year

There's obviously a lot more to this than a School MIS

My understanding is that Bromcom's MIS is being deployed across NI schools - but that would be a fraction of the 485 million over how many years.

I'm fairly familiar with the software they'll use at the EANI side to aggregate school data.

Where is the rest of the money going? Consultancy? Equipment?

Will passkeys ever replace passwords? Can they?

Re: Authentication is hard

I notice that PayPal will let my PC login using a Passkey on my phone... and I have to type in a TOTP as well (with the authenticator also on my phone).

Whilst still having MFA, this feels more convoluted than just using a password manager to me - which I guess is the main thrust of this article.

UK energy watchdog slaps down Capita's £130M smart meter splurge

It is possible to switch to a Variable Direct Debit with most providers - thereby paying for what you use, rather than some daft estimation. There are no penalties for doing so. Martin Lewis/MoneySavingExpert mentions it at least once a year when discussing energy bills.

Octopus would like to charge me £207 per month, but I pay £0 since switching to VDD because I've generated sufficient solar credit over the course of the "summer" to carry me through. Come February the credit will run out, and I'll simply pay whatever I've used In essence I'm receiving credit, rather than offering it against my will to a cash strapped energy provider...

Re: "without the good residents of Norfolk coming out with the torches & pitchforks."

To be fair, it's pretty dead here most Friday nights... :p

...but there are a fair number of people unhappy with the infrastructure projects that are largely to connect London with North Sea wind farms. Especially in an area with frequent power cuts.

A group of those people have valid grounds for concern, and should be listened to, but another group of those people howl at the moon. I don't think that phenomenon is unique to Norfolk...

UK sleep experts say it's time to kill daylight saving for good

Given that midday is supposed to be when the sun is at its highest (not 1pm), I agree that the working day is wrong not the time

Obviously there's a bunch of factors like staring at a screen for a living (which probably does all manner of untold harm), flexible hours and remote working that kind of make the time of day largely irrelevant for a proportion of the population.

Perhaps the Chinese are onto something...

Someone's finally taking on £10M Hull City Council ERP deal to replace Oracle

Re: Utterly crazy!

I work with Local Authorities, and it seems to me that the left and right hand can't agree on the most simple things which is why projects overrun and there's scope creep. I'm not convinced councils are going to agree on how everyone does the same job slightly differently without intervention.

Part of the problem is the history of incumbent IT systems and vendors who don't like to interoperate - and it's not like Councils like change (well, not on the scale required).

There still appears to be a tremendous amount of wastage/duplication in local government, and not be even the slightest intention of doing anything about it. Empires need to be built; it's all about headcount/budget size/"power".

Three, Voda promise £10-a-month or below mobile tariffs in bid to sway CMA on merger

I get the impression the current "cheap" rates are because they have to compensate for coverage/speed - together they'd offer something interesting with their mix of spectrum and 5G SA.

As for the 2 year "promise", I suspect they'll do whatever they have to in order to remain competitive and maintain or improve revenue.

I'm not completely against the merge - I can see some benefits.

250 million-plus unused IPv4 addresses should be left alone, argues network boffin

Re: Elephant

Isn't 240 a /4 though? So about 15 years if we do /8 a year?

Your point stands - you'd need multiple 10.0.0.0/8's or whatever to do CGNAT in India or China, which is a bit of a mess - but not impossible. How many people (residential customers) really need more than CGNAT?

Apple AirPods Pro 2 can be sold as hearing aids, says FDA

Battery Life?

I'm asking, because I don't know, but... how does a "proper" hearing aid compare battery wise with airpods/pixel buds/galaxy buds etc?

Obviously with earbuds you pop them in the case, they charge, then you get a few hours of use - presumably you get days of use out of a regular hearing aid?

If you're constantly popping them in the case, their utility/convenience diminishes somewhat - but then thinking about it, I'm not sure if targeting those at the less severe end of the hearing loss spectrum means that constant use is required?

Google says replacing C/C++ in firmware with Rust is easy

Re: Toxic BS

Agree.

It feels like people are arguing over a "separation of concerns", which requires defining some common ground - presumably, that has not been a requirement until Rust appeared.

And the reluctance to help ("a skilled C developer can just look through the code and work it out") is not the same as defining a contract, or understanding the intention of the code, and points to a problem with people rather than a technical problem.

If it was C talking to C, but maintaining separation, there'd still be issues - it feels like the argument is a C dev can play on either side of the fence to make something work, but doesn't want to sort out the fence. That feels like an anti-pattern.

With an org like Google, people issues can be managed better and projects can succeed - with the Linux kernel, less so.

People aren't keen on change..

Have we stopped to think about what LLMs actually model?

Gartner has declared that GenAI is entering its famous "trough of disillusionment,"

Gartner will declare whatever you pay it to...

[interesting comment section; most appear in agreement that there's no intelligence in AI]