Posts by yetanotheraoc

US Supreme Court asked if cops can plant spy cams around homes

Maybe the engineer knew the fab had metric instruments and the shop had standard ones. Yeah, probably not.

Windows 10 – a 7-year-old OS – is still having problems with the desktop and taskbar

Re: That's because it's shit

Windows is good. I've been using it every working day since Windows 3.1 days and get along fine with it. What you get out of the box is amazing. MS Office is fabulous, so good the clones are still chasing it even though it's the opposite of the Unix paradigm do one thing and do it well. Windows Update is bad. "Known Issue Rollback", have they no shame? Windows Update is why I use Linux at home.

Re: Exceptional service

Well done on the one-upmanship.

Exceptional service

WithFingersCrossed = True;

try { System.Update(); }

catch (SystemBorkedException) { KnownIssueRollback(); }

finally { // Do it the right way. }

Shocker: EV charging infrastructure is seriously insecure

Usury!

Can't be giving the CC network their 2%. Mine, mine, give me all the %s. Plus it's easy, we hired this great team of IOT developers....

Commercial repair shops caught snooping on customer data by canny Canadian research crew

Re: And anyone is surprised?

"The hollowed out coin was purchased off the interwebs"

Customs and border security also know how to use the interwebs.

Re: And anyone is surprised?

"It would never even cross my mind to supply a device for repair without a virgin hard disc/os in." Many/most people in my family would never dream of taking any steps to protect themselves. This type of article is annoying on the one hand, so bleeding obvious. And necessary on the other hand, because so many people, like Kyle (Michael Biehn) in The Terminator, "don't know tech stuff". It's like beating a drum. There will never be a point where _everybody_ heard the message, so just keep beating the drum, give one more customer a chance to hear. And on the supplier side, it's management that needs to tighten up their controls. So they also need to read articles like this.

Robotics startup wants to disrupt walking with AI roller skates

Re: Why?

"These will let you go the speed of skating with the effort of walking, is the idea. So you can 'walk' fast and not get sweaty"

Perfect for an outing to the gym where you can get some exercise.

AI no doubt means phone home

"we automatically regulate your speed downhill" -- Did he mean "we", or did he mean "the AI".

I have rollerblades, and I might (possibly) consider a pair of well-designed _dumb_ skates that go over street shoes. But the AI part? Just say no.

Also, the photo carefully omits to show whether the test subject is wearing a helmet....

Twitter is suffering from mad bro disease. Open thinking can build it back better

Therein lies the problem

"many thousands of high value accounts"

You left out the word "only". Because, unfortunately, there are hundreds of millions of low value users, and possibly millions of negative value fake accounts.

Just follow the instructions … no wait, not that instruction to lock everyone out of everything

alt-right vs ctrl-left

"you have labelled things the left and liberals have done, or would be ideologically inclined to do, as alt-right ideology"

No doubt trying to rile up both sides with one statement.

GitHub's Copilot flies into its first open source copyright lawsuit

Re: Machine cryptomnesia!

"You can imagine the AI's creator being asked why it did whatever it did."

Because of the dataset it was trained on.

"Its like asking a dog trainer, why exactly did the dog bite the baby.?"

Because it has a mind of its own.

Re: FOSS conditions

If/when Microsoft loses, it will be because CoPilot looked only at the code and completely ignored any software licenses. Of course, due to similar code existing under different licenses, it would have been a nightmare to include licensing. I'm not sure "it would have been really hard to do it the right way" would be a good argument in court, so they will have to come up with a different argument.

Re: We need more takedowns!

Right. Whether CoPilot is part of "the service" the end user agreed to will be a bone of contention. Microsoft's opinion is of course the service is whatever they provide, the user agreed to all of it. Same as with their OS.

Re: We need more takedowns!

"I would even go as far to say that if a copyright holder uploaded something to GitHub then this would trump any licence the copyright holder put on the code."

Doubtless that will be one of the many arguments put forward by Microsoft's legal team. Whether one thing trumps another thing seems to be the pinnacle of civil disputes.

I'm happy paying Twitter eight bucks a month because price isn't the same as value

Re: keep paying the rent

"However, it would have to be actual identity verification..."

Just think what that data would be worth to [insert 3rd party here]. But that can't possibly be in Musk's mind, can it?

Nobody said anything about western governments being worse than eastern ones, that was your spin. The difference is the terms and conditions under the eastern governments say it is their data, the terms and conditions under the western governments sometimes say it is ours. So when it is supposed to be ours and it turns out to be not, it's fair to complain about it.

Yes, of course you are right, as always. If people don't agree with you it must mean they weren't listening. By all means keep repeating yourself until we "get it".

Microsoft tests 'upsells' of its products in Windows 11 sign-out menu

Microsoft says no

"split your security updates out from your feature deployments"

The security updates are the foot in the door, don'tcha know? It's the same with Apple. Only the Linuxes (and BSDs) do it right. Except Linux has systemd, where you also get crap you didn't ask for and can't refuse.

Feds find Silk Road thief's $1b+ Bitcoin stash in popcorn tin, hidden safe

wire fraud

This one always bugs me. If it's not your money (according to them), and you wire it somewhere, they charge you with wire fraud. It's beyond stupid. Like driving a stolen car is road fraud, or eating some stolen fruit is digestive fraud, or ....

Re: He didn't steal NEARLY enough to retire on

His lawyer will argue to the court it was a small fraud, and bill his client based on it being a large fraud.

Parody Elon Musk Twitter accounts will be suspended immediately, says Elon Musk

Re: Free Speech!

A lair doesn't have to be on an island. It just has to be photogenically difficult for James Bond to get there.

Streisand effect

How long before changing one's user name to Elon Musk becomes the _in vogue_ way to leave Twitter?

Re: I used to use twatter

You should have said you don't like "chats". N'est-ce pas?

Re: I've managed without Twitter this far

"artists and creators will have learned not to put their entire profile and identity in a corporate-controlled silo"

I suspect they won't learn that. If not Twitter, they will choose some other corporate-controlled silo... because they need the network effect to get a decent number of followers. It doesn't affect me, though. I don't follow anybody, nor do I want anybody to follow me (not that anybody wants to do that).

Version 252 of systemd, as expected, locks down the Linux boot process

Re: Systemd and it's team is more than a pile of bad code

"My first attempt used a bash script and wait [multiple pids] etc, figure out which process died, restart it, etc. It became an unmanageable mess."

It's a known hard problem, but init systems have been around for ages without getting all twisted up. The fact that more than one init system exists shows (a) there's more than one way to solve the problem, and (b) nobody has come up with a perfect solution yet.

"I spent some time googling, and despite still being a newbie with systemd, I now have a perfect system where the dependencies will start and restart themselves in the correct order, as well as the sway@tty1 service running as the display manager, auto login etc"

If only systemd had stuck to solving that one problem...

Multi-factor auth fatigue is real – and it's why you may be in the headlines next

Re: same mistakes made all over again

"And they don't need clocks or refrigerators."

I bet they do.

Re: That's not MFA. That's just stupid.

Just because it's stupid doesn't mean they don't set it up that way. The stupidest one I get is from my phone provider. I log on using a browser, being very careful not to check the "trust this device" box. I enter my password and get a message, please enter the code from your phone, with a nice little box waiting for the code. Do I get a code on my phone? F no! I get a _link_ on my phone, click on the link opens a mobile page, allow access Yes/No. Which, as you point out, means I don't 100% know if I'm allowing access for myself or for someone else. It's _probably_ my own login. Anyway I choose Yes and I'm in. But given the phone provider doesn't even know their own authentication process (by the way they change it all the time), one day it might not be my own login I'm allowing.

Meta thirsts for desert conditions in datacenter water quest

Re: 13%? What an odd number...

Maybe the half-datacentre at normal operating conditions was in some way buffering the half-datacentre at 13% humidity. For example, people walking from one side to the other, or cabling from one side to the other, etc.

Why I love my Chromebook: Reason 1, it's a Linux desktop

This is not your grandfather's journalism

"Google is expected to separate Chrome OS and the Chrome browser, so even if you can't get Chrome OS upgrades, you'll still get browser updates."

Hasn't happened yet, and anyway how can the author be sure Google will, or indeed will be able to, provide browser updates for an out-of-support OS?

No, I will not pay the bill. Why? Because we pay you to fix things, not break them

Re: It goes far beyond that ...

the dyslexic agnostic insomniac amnesiac ... realized there was no dog, but sat up again the next night...

The GNOME Project is closing all its mailing lists

Re: "bottom-posting"

In forums and mailing lists I dutifully snip and bottom-post. However, when in Rome...

At work I have to top-post like everybody else, otherwise nobody can understand my emails. I also use subject lines like "Urgent: Please respond blah blah -- the actual subject", which I hate. But it's a regulated business, and one of the regulations is that we have to follow the written instructions to the letter, and guess what the written instructions say the subject line has to look like?

It's nice to fantasize about taking the instructions writers out back to be shot. But almost everybody here thinks the same way, so eventually there would only be a handful of sane ones left, facing an undiminished mountain of work.

Apple perfects vendor lock-in with home security kit

phase 2

"users are able to gain access and lock their door with a simple tap of an iPhone or Apple Watch, just as how you'd pay for goods in a store"

Wait for it. When they decide it's not already _enough_ profit, there will be a per use charge to unlock the door. Conveniently linked to your Apple Pay.

To make this computer work, users had to press a button. Why didn't it work? Guess

Re: office save dialog

I agree the new dialog is useless.

In Excel I have "Save As" pinned to the Quick Start menu, next I click the "Browse" button to get the old style save dialog. If instead I want to "Save", I use ctrl+s.

Re: Bad design

"the glove box"

Thanks. I would never have thought to look there, but now I will. When I borrowed a car in 2021, I called the owner because I couldn't find the fuel door release. The car didn't have one.

I think people expect too much from intuition. Intuition is entirely based on experience, and something just a little bit different from every example you have ever seen can be impossible to use -- at first.

Re: Manual is optional,

I've never done a study on it, but my experience as a teacher is that students don't all learn equally effectively when taught the same way. Changing the approach for different students works better. Too bad it's all anecdotal and therefore not statistically significant. I wonder what percent of teachers reach the same unscientific conclusion? :)

Basecamp decamps from cloud: 'Renting computers is (mostly) a bad deal'

Re: good for them

"that company is long since dead"

Where I work IT is making a mad dash for the cloud. The only thing to save us is that the stampede is industry-wide, so whether we remain competitive will not depend on the cloud-vs-on-prem column. However, it will represent a massive transfer of wealth from our shareholders to those of the cloud providers.

NASA OKs spacewalks, upgrades helmets after fishbowl mishap

Re: Surely it'd be easier....

In space a drain valve is not up-to-down but in-to-out. Don't let it get stuck in the open position. Also, draining stuff into space doesn't necessarily get rid of it. If it follows you in orbit, you merely changed it into a different class of nuisance.

Verizon prepaid accounts hijacked by SIM swap crooks

Re: Insecurity by design, yet again

"Now, I get a one time code by text."

Little good that will do you, if your bank allows "access to customer accounts using the last four digits of the credit card linked to the account", as Verizon appears to have done. Or substitute some other publicly-known data point that the call center uses to identify you. Change the linked phone number, and the phisher can get the next code.

Around these parts, businesses wanting to look up my customer record constantly begin by asking "What's your phone number?" My reply, "I never gave it to you." Not because I don't want them to call me, which would be merely annoying. But because I expect they would treat anybody who knows my phone number as me, which could be devastating.

Fun fact, Verizon has an incorrect Social Security Number for my account. That was changed decades ago by Verizon sales, after they used the correct SSN to pull my initial credit report. But nobody at Verizon today can understand why that happened, so I just keep quiet about it.

How GitHub Copilot could steer Microsoft into a copyright storm

Re: No Solidarity with A.I.'s run for profit!

RE "4. License Grant to Us"

Call out the lawyers then, as to ...

* whether CoPilot is reasonably covered under the "We need", for xyz purpose, language.

* what the word "incidental" refers to, e.g., maybe CoPilot, maybe not.

Most people using a service like GitHub would expect "parse it into a search index" would still return the results as a link to the original repository. Again, something for lawyers to argue over.

The interesting thing about CoPilot is that it's a two-way street. You search for code by typing, and equally you return all your code to CoPilot by typing. So not only are you using someone else's software without regard to copyright, but it makes no sense to copyright your own software because Microsoft already "published" it first in CoPilot. The extinguish phase is well under way.

Phishing works so well crims won't bother with deepfakes, says Sophos chap

Re: Trust me, I'm a ...

Rickrolled by a deep-fake, perfect for building trust.

Re: Trust me, I'm a ...

Me: You want what?!

Them: Trust me, I'm the new corporate chatbot.

Me: ???

Them: Didn't you get the memo? The old corporate chatbot is EOL.

Me: Oh, that's all right then.

(We actually have a corporate chatbot! It has all the same defects as chatbots everywhere.)

Infosec still (mostly) a boys club

Complain, complain, complain -- Gomer Pyle, USMC

2017: "only 11 percent were women"

2022: "women make up about 25 percent of the cybersecurity workforce"

Instead of going on about how bad 25% is, why not run the numbers as to where the 14% came from, and just do more of that.

Just $10 to create an AI chatbot of a dead loved one

Re: Let Me Think About This...

"I try to keep an open mind about those people"

It's all of us. In _Religion Explained_ (2001), Boyer says the brain has a separate naming system which can only think about names in the _present_ tense. This leads to confusion when thinking about deceased people. Of course the rational brain can and does come up with various ways to resolve the confusion. An explanation recognizing the cognitive error is scientific. An explanation based on communicating with the dead is less so.

Re: $10

Hmm, a downvoter.... My psychic powers tell me you think mediums are not fake.

$10

No. I wouldn't pay $10 to chat with the departed through a medium/psychic, either. ... "funny, creepy, profound, weird, spiritual, or even comparable to a healing process". The adjective I would use is "fake". I might pay $10 for a book or movie about chatting with the departed. That's not fake, it's fiction -- a subtle difference.

The Metaverse is the internet no one wants

Re: Call me old fashioned

"I still like dead trees, but I get cramped up if I try to hold a book for hours."

Metaverse to the rescue! You can hold a virtual book with your virtual hands and never get tired.

Senior engineer reported to management for failing to fix a stapler

Re: Local Manager - Former Architect (Log cabins).

Or, Number 2 could have done `select mid(barcode,i,j) as serialnumber` in his export query....

Expression Builder? What's that?

Japan space agency blows up eight satellites aboard Epsilon rocket

Re: Do NOT rinse after brushing - re-mineralization proceeds for at least 30 minutes

I suppose we can trust brushing advice from someone with the nickname elregidente. Although contrariwise my hygienist instructed me to brush, floss, rinse; no mention of waiting 30 minutes.

AI recruitment software is 'automated pseudoscience', Cambridge study finds

Re: tools are likely trained to look for attributes associated with previous successful candidates

If they want you to wear a red shirt, you should decline the job offer.