Posts by willyslick

Signalgate storm intensifies as journalist releases full secret Houthi airstrike chat

The incompetence on display is breathtaking

US stocks slip as Trump pulls trigger on Canada, Mexico, China tariffs

In fact, its a real rarity that the Orangeutan would actually to something he promised to do. I don't expect that these tariffs will last for long - when he or his cronies notice they are destroying the economy, there will look for a quick exit - most likely once again in exchange for not much from Canada, Mexico, etc, followed by loud crowing about how brilliant his move was: Thats "the art of the deal". What a genius.

Mostly I think he would sacrifice most anything to continue to keep the attention on his person - thats our cross to bear for probably the next 4 years.....

Tech jobs are now white-collar trades that need apprentices, not a career crawl

Re: Experimenting with a home lab or acquiring vendor certifications

One can learn plenty using virtualised switching/routing infrastructure which can simulate real networks - no need to run up the electricity bill too much.

Palantir designed to 'power the West to its obvious innate superiority,' says CEO

Re: Heil Palantir! Heil Tesla!

These loud shouts about taking over this or that land will come to nothing - are you not familiar with Rumps MO by now? These grand pronouncements are merely decoy - the real damaging stuff is going on while you are distracted by this stuff which is never going to happen - the louder it is, the more crime is happening in the shadows.

Trump’s tariffs, cuts may well put tech in a chokehold, say analysts

Re: I'm Not a Fan of Tariffs, But

Indeed, income from tariffs will flow from the affected companies to the US government, with the US consumers paying higher prices which will get passed on to them due to the tariffs.

So this looks to me like just another redistribution of the welath towards the oligarchs.

With this in mind, its seems clear why Trump is such a fan of tariffs - that he will sink to any depths to grovel for a few more dollars in his pocket is certainly readily apparent to anyone following his career.

Musk and Trump to fall out in 2025, predicts analyst

One is assuming here that tRump will fulfill any of his promises at all - just as he failed to do in his first term (except tax cuts for his rich buddies). With this in mind, I would rather expect tRump to just forget his promises now that they got him elected, and defer to Xitler.

Altman to Musk: Don't go full supervillain – that's so un-American

appealing to some kind of morality , decency and fair financial play?....considering the protagonists this must be some kind of comedy routine.

Woman uses AirTags to nab alleged parcel-pinching scum

Bike theft seems to be a huge problem owing also to the increasing worth of the bikes, and not even keeping them in your premises will necessarily help.:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-08-27/police-brushed-him-off-so-he-exposed-an-international-bike-theft-ring-on-his-own

The authors site, Bike Index (https://bikeindex.org/) is a response the to this increasing problem - it give at least a chance that if your bike is found in a raid done on one of these international theft rings, you could have a chance to get it back.

Interesting to see that even on this level of high-value bike theft - the police continue to profess a lack of any interest whatsoever.

Intel's processor failures: A cautionary tale of business vs engineering

Re: Shareholder Value

agreed - no longer about the customer, either. Just the shareholders matter.

'One Less Car' Uber bets a grand you'll ditch your wheels

So lets see. The USA suffers from absolutely disasterous city planning which is based on almost complete reliance on cars outside older urban centers. The cities are planned wrong from the ground up, with separation of commercial and residential areas and a mandate for single-family homes on huge lots in suburbs rather than mixed-use communities with multi-family houses. If if you try to plan something else you will find your "freedom" to do so in USA immediately running into serious roadblocks.

The tech bros over at Uber are working at milking this poor planning to thier advantage to generate some actual profits. Thier deregulated taxis may be dangerous and expensive due to strategic price hikes - but, yes, give up your own vehicle to rely on ride-sharing which may not be avialable when you need it, especially in remote areas. If in fact if lots of people followed this ride-sharing shift combined with the use of the (non-existent) public transportation - then there would be less Uber drivers to be exploited.

In sum, it doesn't add up in the least and is just another techbro ploy to divert the salaries they are reducing though the "sharing economy" in to their own pockets for helicopter and private-jet commuting to their superyacht.

What is needed is a complete re-thinking of the city planing for new communities with a focus on public transport, biking, and enabling people to go about thier work and play without needing to climb in thier car every single time they leave the house. And think of all the water that could be saved for all those lawns.....

Airbn-bye: Barcelona bans short-term apartment rentals for tourists

High time that the farce known as the "sharing economy" is prohibited. Back when Airbnb was really a couchsurfing outfit there was little to take issue with; but what they have eveolved into is a true monstrosity of social damage:

They compete directly with hotels but are subject to practically none of the associated regulations on safety, tourism taxes, privacy, etc - so they can offer cheaper rates than hotels while exposing the guests to unsafe and dangerous conditions and deflecting any blame to those offering flats.

They remove massive amounts of housing stock from the market and force locals to move ever further away to afford housing. Many newer Airbnbs are even purpose-built to sere this market - no chance to find a place if you are just working a normal job.

Airbnb has steadily increased thier cut with "service fees" (so in many cases almost eliminating the discount over hotels) - but should there be any problem with the booking or complaints from the nieghbors due to parties or noise disturbance, you won't find Airbnb anywhere to be found. The customer service is non-existent. Effectively they push the risk down to those offering the flat, much as Uber does for taxi rides.

So these sharing companies essentially make huge revenue without taking any risk or any responsibility for the social problems that arise due to thier business- described often as "disrupution" but really more accurate to describe as "online robbery with no consequences".

The sooner the market boycotts these services the better - and any help from politics is IMHO extremely welcome and will have my vote.

Tesla sued for 'systemic' racism at its Fremont, California plant

Re: Fourteen black, Hispanic and Latino plaintiffs

>I know Brazilians who speak Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and English. The language you speak doesn't define your identity any more than the country you're currently living in (or were born in).

>The terms Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx are all American constructions anyway. Go to Honduras or Chile and ask someone to pick a name from that list to describe themselves.

I am quite sure they would refer to themselves as "Americans"

>The real question is why are Americans so obsessed with putting labels on people?

US Americans are as a whole a simple folk that deals primarily in simplifications of reality to get along.

Twitter's ex-CEO, CFO, and managers sue Elon Musk for $128M

So Musk has a verbal agreement with the management of the company he is buying on how they will leave the company, and as soon as they turn their back he completely reneges on what was agreed on so he can avoid paying some severance? Not really empathetic to the others involved....How does this mind work? I suppose this A***hole really thinks normal human rules and decency do not apply to him because...????

Hands up if you want to volunteer for layoffs, IBM tells staff

>Why anyone would still invest their hard earned dollars in IBM stock is beyond me.

Not related to products or services - but rather to stock buybacks

Missed expectations, zero guidance: Tesla's 'great year' was anything but

Re: Right

So Apple is OK, from your point of view? As its designed in the USA....

Trump-era rules reversed on treating gig workers as contractors

The gig model is all about shifting the financial risk to the workers, while taking a cut of each transaction. Great deal for these "sharing economy" enterprises and the tech bros that run them, not so good for the rest of us as quality generally suffers and safety is sacrificed.

Official: Hewlett Packard Enterprise wants to swallow Juniper Networks in $14B deal

I have noticed that Juniper's intent-based networking technology, Apstra, getting good reviews in the enterprise space these past couple of years - so no doubt thats a target as this intent-based system has and will incorporate a lot of AI functionality that can be applied to the entire networking, and also server and storage offerings. Also Juniper has a good footprint in Telcos, which would benerfit HPE in that space. Seems expensive, but then so do most things these days.....

Elon is the bakery owner swearing in the street about Yelp critics canceling him

Re: It's a conspiracy!

Is there not serious middle east money financing Elon's purchase of Xitter?

The argument that there should not be a repeat of the Arab Spring which was to some degree enabled by Xitter seems not too farfetched in this context.

What's a few billions in losses to Musk when he has the financial support of these autoritarians behind him???

Binance and CEO admit financial crimes, billions coughed up to US govt

Sorry, but how stupid can one be to write this in a chat:

""Better to ask forgiveness than permission."?

This is the attitude; move fast and break things - the consequences will rarely be applied to the perpetrators - which shows here again in that there is no jail time end the company is allowed to continue on with the same business model and habits.....

X fails to remove hate speech over Israel-Gaza conflict

Re: Mr. Elon Musk doesn't budge

Serious username and message alignment vibes on this one

Musk's first year as Twitter's Dear Leader is nigh

Re: Twitter^h^h^h^h^h^h^hX

Xitter

Teardown reveals iPhone 15 to be series of questionable design decisions

Re: They want how much for one?

They are just phones - agreed.

But lets give Apple credit for doing something no-one else has achieved: creating a mass-market luxury product. Until Apple such terms were a contradiction....

What does Twitter's new logo really represent?

Re: Let's hope it stops the hate comments

Seems to me that Elon is trying to muscle in on some of the unbroken attention given to the orange-coloured ex-president by throwing out similar provacative "own-the-libs" banter which he is sure gets a headline . Sort of like a summit meeting of the narcassists where neither one can stand the attention the other one gets.

That said, its up to us to pay attention or not - but pretty hard to avoid them when one is running for president an the other is most publically running a prominent socal network platform into the ground. We say we we enjoy watching them fail; for them its all about the daily attention and nothing else....have to grudginly acknowledge thier success in this goal.

Bosses face losing 'key' workers after forcing a return to office

Re: Exasperation

>Instant messaging and its unspeakable offspring - social media - is mostly a void filled by the vacuous who are unable construct an intelligible utterance let alone a coherent sentence.

You prove your own point about being vacuous most excellently - congratulations!

Welcome to Muskville: Where the workers never leave

Re: I have some sympathy for the idea..

Seems to me the main attraction for musk is that which many of his billionaire peers strive for - to be above the law. These guys just think the law is for poor people and they just want to demonstrate to everyone that thy are in fact "above the law". What better way to do this than move to some remote area, get the local authorities to look the other way regarding any standard legal requirements for development and later for actual legality in the settlement. Some sort of prepper's utopia which musk can rule over and make his own laws in.

What a nightmare.

Musk said Twitter would open source its algorithm – then fired the people who could

If anything, its a confirmation of the old IT adage "never touch a running system" - but I suspect this has more and more drawbacks as time goes on and things get antiquated.

Twitter rewards remaining loyal staff by decimating them

Re: It just got worse (again)

Rather strange perception of the meaning of woke you have there.

People speaking out against percieved discrimination (racist, male, cis, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, boomer, descended from slavers and probably much more) don't I think refer to themselves as woke nor do they feel it grants them any permission to do anything. They are reacting to an injustice they percieve.

Are you saying that "nice behaviour" means they need to keep their opinion to themselves and not call it out? Ever heard the saying "silence is consent?

Google's AI search bot Bard makes $120b error on day one

"The above error somehow made it past Google's various engineering, legal, PR, and marketing depts, and found its way into a demo of Bard, right when issues of accuracy and trust are at the top of everyone's minds."

The level of incompetence is mind-bending..I thought at first this was a live demo, but in fact it seems to have been a pre-made video presentation, thus implying that all of the above had a chace to review it before it was published. And not a single one of them felt the need to sanity-check the information??? Youn can't make this stuff up.....

As Apple sales slide, Tim Cook says fanbois will tolerate higher iPhone prices

Apple seems to have solved the riddle of creating luxury products that sell widely enough to be considered mass-market. Their strength is their brand.

They will no doubt extend this brand power to other products like cars, household goods, etc in the future where - even a fraction of the success of the iphone will bring them a windfall. The market was highly skeptical before the launch that Apple could extend thier prowess from computers and tablets to mobile phones - 2.24 billion units later, I would think there are not too many skeptics left. Whether you love or hate the products - it seems foolish to bet against Apple's continued success in the future.

Canadian owes bosses for 'time theft' after work-tracking app sinks tribunal bid

Re: Thinking Time

This was why I always tried to join the boss on a cig break - and I don't smoke! This was where the most important discussions took place....

These days with 100% WFH this is proving more of a challenge ;>)

Elon Musk to step down as Twitter CEO: Help us pick his replacement

Needs a strong team of co-CEOs:

Beavis and Butthead

or

Laurel and Hardy

In praise of MIDI, tech's hidden gift to humanity

Hi - are there any practical uses for the midi web browser extension for FF now? Or does this just open the door to future use cases using the browswer which have yet to be developed.

I have a midi controller that looks like a sax (WX-7) and sound source from Alesis (MIDIverb) and a USB to midi interface for the laptop - which I used with sequencer programs in the past.

Does downloading the midi extension enable some kind of control or visibility from the web browser now??

OK, we know iPhones are expensive but... $11 a month for Twitter Blue on iOS?

Re: Apple users can afford it

Apple has cracked the seemingly impossible task of creating gizmos that are both luxury and mass-market.

People pay for the brand, and Apple makes a profit.

My personal experience with Apple products has been mostly positive over the years; in most cases the premium payed has resulted also in longer usage - sure it costs double of another PC but if it runs 3 times longer.....just need to stop updating the OS after a certain period of time.

How do you solve the problem that is Twitter?

Re: Unpopular opinion incoming...

I suppose Twitter is getting so much attention because everyone basically can't look away from what seems to be a train wreck in progress....thats captivating content, escpecially when the main protagonist is an extremely devisive character with extreme views and behaviour. Its not really suprising - in fact, that may be the main motivation for it all - "look at me!!".....

Musk sells $3.95 billion in Tesla shares, paid eleven times more for Twitter

Musk is a a good engineer...negotiator, not so much

One thing I have not seen mentioned much in all the chaos is the way Musk seems to have been completely out-negotiated by his counterparts at Twatter.

They locked ELON in at a historically high share price and somehow he was pursuaded to proceed without the recommended due diligence, which would have at least bought him some time. After signing, he seems to have had caught a quick case of "buyer's remorse" based on information that would have come out in such due dilligence (fake users, bots, etc) - but in the end decided to go through with the sale; which surprised me.

i was expecting him to tie things up in the courts in a war of attrition to try and claw some of his money back in a settlement.

It feels to me in retrospect that he paid far too much for twatter (which was not making money) - since then he has not done much to instill confidence that he knows what he is doing so I expect that with time, he will get cash flow problems due to the debt and difficulty of monetising users, not to mention the loss of advertising revenue, which will be much greater than any savings from cutting the work force, with the associated risk for operations and compliance with the remaining resources.

All in all, while the previous management is out of a job, they are certainly enjoying a windfall from the proceeds of the sale. Not to mention missing out on all the "fun"/stress/80 hour weeks, etc. In retrospect, seems not too bad of a landing for them....

Elon Musk reportedly outlines horrible Twitter layoff process

Re: The blue bird rises like a Phoenix

Possibly because those on the the left are not preaching hate and racism, trying to restrict voting rights and attempting to incite an insurrection - could it be that?

Not sure whats better - losing one's job, or getting to stay to work for the most prominent t a**hole right-wing billionaires who has known now for a few months that he made a big error on vastly overpaying for a drain-circling, money-losing, indebted venture, and seems likely to take it out on the remining emplyees (80-hour weeks, etc).

Either way its a grim scenario - I predict that in 2 years Twitter will have basically lost all relevance - it's in a race to the bottom with Facebook.

My guess all along was that Musk was using the Twitter investment to diversify his wealth out of Tesla without alarming Tesla's investors (and tanking the stock) - likely scanario for me is that they both tank, as I think the guy, while certainly a clever engineer, has liitle clue about how to actually run a company.

Time will tell - my guess is he bankrupts all his companies, and with this qualification under his belt, goes on to become the Republican candidate for president who will "run politics like a business". Which basically means, for the benefit of the already rich guys.

Moscow court fines Pinterest, Airbnb, Twitch, UPS for not storing data locally

Re: "legalized the import of products without the authorization of the trademark holder"

With respect to the CoCom embargo - while they might have confiscated illegally imported technology from average citizens, the Russian government had an active program to reverse-engineer western technology, for which they needed such computers. Some excellent functioning copies were in fact made, but they were never able to develop the production facilities and produce any volume.

One could argue that CoCom was in fact an effective contributor to the fall of the iron curtain - but things have changed a lot since then and the leverage the west has to sabotage the Russian economy through technology embargos is certainly vastly diminished as in the meantime its so easily attainable most everywhere.

Elon Musk puts Twitter deal on hold over bot numbers claim

Just another narcissist looking for some attention.....nothing to see here.

Russian IT pros flee Putin, says tech lobby group

Re: Anyone else see a problem here??

>Western tech companies should be extremely wary of any Russian ex-pats seeking positions with >access to core technologies.

your point is well taken, but in much the same way the oligarchs prefer the European lifestyle where they have their villas, park their yachts and send their kids to private swiss schools (as seen everywhere in "Londongrad",) do we really think these Russian techie ex-pats are all (or even any of them) agents of Putin? what's in it for them? perhaps they are also happy to just enjoy a better standard of living based on their in-demand skills and also get out of Russia where from a quality of life point of view things will no doubt get harder in the years to come.

That said, nothing more melancholy that a Russian away from the motherland....they really can't win.

Indian government warns locals not to use Starlink's internet services

Re: it does not have a valid license

Musk has the same situation in Germany where he is planning to open a Tesla factory, and where he has charged ahead in construction without having received a final permit to operate the factory. Worst case, he needs to dismantle everything again.....

Perhaps he will need to find out the hard way that the "move fast and break things " credo does not necessarily have many adherents within the German construction ministry....

But probably the loss of face for the German industry to deny the permit would be too much - thats what Musk is betting on....stay tuned.

Google loses appeal against $2.7bn EU antitrust fine for distorting competition in price comparison websites

It just means that while these search companies can track what you are searching for, seeing when (and where) you actually purchase that item is so far not part of the algorithm. Give em time - you can be sure they are working on that.....

Actually if you are against this kind of search tracking, then seeing ads for items you will never buy (again) should give you a good feeling that the company's resources are going to waste.

Thinking about this kind of tracking and profiling of users, one could come to the conclusion that the best response to try to stymy the algorithms is to generate the maximum amount of nonsense data to throw off the profile and fill the data centers with inaccurate data - get enough people behind nonsense information generating and these systems would soon be brought to their knees....

140,000-plus drivers sent $60m in compensation checks after Amazon 'stole their tips'

Re: Once again

As an American living now for over 30 years in European exile, I always wondered how it could be that so many Americans living at or near poverty never voted for a bit more socialism, or at least some basic healthcare. A bit of self-interest would not go astray for these people often having to work multiple poorly paid jobs just to keep their and their family's heads above water, and one illness away from bankruptcy or other financial disaster.

The truth is, most every American, no matter how bad off they are, is a frustrated billionaire whose ship is just about to come in...and of course this "american dream" nonsense is happily perpetuated and reinforced to the maximum degree possible by conservative media to enable the conservatives to conserve their own wealth as much as possible.

Agree that capitalism is a good system compared to the alternatives, but it does not have to be this pitiless turbo-capitalism forcing families to live out of their cars, massive homelessness, and all the associated trauma just so some 1%ers can avoid contributing to society in any way by paying some taxes on their exorbitant wealth. I never bought this "freedumb" story and am happy to pay more taxes in my adopted social democratic country.

Huawei reportedly set to salvage honor with sale of server x86 business

Re: Just an opinion

What about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989? - don't you think that the high technology embargo of the west towards the eastern bloc countries imperiled their economies and contributed to the opening towards the west?

Seems to me to be an example where sanctions in fact did work - not that I support them in general.

Economic warfare (which is what the sanctions against Huawei are) is an instrument of political warfare- this worked in the past with tech embargoes to the eastern bloc countries and Russia. But China in the here and now is a different story - there are technology areas they lead in, such as mobile infrastructure, which they can leverage in such a conflict - in the end the consumers will pay the price in the form of slower adoption and higher prices to achieve these political aims.

Are such embargoes preferable to fostering economic interdependence as a way to reduce military conflicts? Perhaps, but that requires trust between the political blocs - something in short supply at this point in time.

Good Grief! Ransomware gang has only gone and pwned the NRA – or so it claims

Re: Ummmm, no...

Charlton Heston was formerly president of the NRA - perhaps you are confusing him with Charles Bronson?

Missouri governor demands prosecution of reporter for 'decoding HTML source code' and reporting a data breach

What?, a Trump republican basically just making up a pseudo-conflict out of thin air and then riding it around to further cement his support by many others who also have no clue whatsoever?? Never seen that before..;>)

In fact, the fact that he is ridiculed by experts has no bearing on his behavior - he is not addressing any experts, just his own constituency - these are the same people who agree there is no need to vaccinate, wear a mask, the election was stolen, etc, etc....who cares about any actual facts??

The planet survived six hours without Facebook. Let's make it longer next time

Small businesses use FB for free? Whenever I as a hardcore facebook-avoider accidentally land on such a "free" FB website, I hightail it the other direction as fast as I can before FB plants a cookie or other evil bot on my trail, so I don't see that content. Wonder how many other act similarly.....?

Just get a normal website and we can gladly do business together.

Three UK says its 5G plans are under threat if tower merger with Euro giant Cellnex is blocked

From my point of view, carriers divesting their towers makes perfect sense.

For discussion: does every carrier really need to have their own physical towers or can the increasing virtualization of the mobile infrastructure enable multiple carriers to share the physical towers while remaining securely separated from one another?? Or put another way: does each tower site need three separate infrastructures (assuming 3 main carriers), or does it make more sense for a third party to own it and share the common infrastructure among the three carriers?

It seems to me the carriers are happy to get rid of the bother of locating and managing these real estate transactions for towers (often in the face of both reasonable and unreasonable resident's resistance) and the tower specialists have built a business model on squeezing the maximum usage from any given tower site. To me this looks like a win-win situation. Thoughts?

Foxconn and Wisconsin reach new deal to do something different at Donald Trump's favourite (flop of a) factory

It was just a PR exercise for Trump - like everything else he didn't do while he was president (except tax break for the rich). Like the wall - he built a net 50 miles of new wall (on a 2,000 mile border) and the mexicans did not pay for it. Why should this factory be different that anything else from the Orange-u-tang??