Posts by Mishak

Russia expected to pass experimental law that tracks foreigners in Moscow via smartphones

"a mobile application the state will specify"

I bet it'll uses a load of mobile data - after all, it'll be streaming everything in real time to the KGB FSB.

Scattered Spider snared financial orgs before targeting shops in Britain, America

Typical AI BOT

Doesn't know when to stop ;-)

Actors' union complains about Epic Games cloning Darth Vader

Put them in touch...

with an AI "legal team" and let them fight it out?

Foxconn chairman predicts AI will end manufacturers' search for cheap labor

Re: I can see it now...

There is one cutting my neighbour's very large field as I type. I think the machine is probably larger than my yard...

I can see it now...

Last-remaining-human: "Foxy, make me a smartphone and a lawnmower".

Foxy: "Sure, give me a moment..."

Last-remaining-human: "WTF? I didn't mean as a single item".

Dilettante dev wrote rubbish, left no logs, and had no idea why his app wasn't working

Best plan

Always put someone else's name at the top...

Plan to keep advanced chips from China with tracking tech gains support in Congress

Which is why

the UK buys fuel in litres, but measures fuel economy in miles per gallon!

Canada made the better choice of changing everything.

People find amazing ways to break computers. Cats are even more creative

You're lucky

One of mine jumps on me as soon as he hears my voice.

Though I think it's more a case of "great, the staff have returned".

That’s no ordinary rabbit!

That’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!

Power cables

A friend of mine had a border collie puppy that they used to shut in the utility room when they went out as it was still being house trained. It was a bit cold in there in the winter, so they put an electric heater in to keep it warm.

They came back one day to find the power out. The main RCD had tripped when the puppy decided to chew through the power cable to the heater. It was totally unharmed (thank's to the RCD), but it never went near a cable again!

Cat & mouse

One of mine likes to sit in front of the screen to watch the mouse pointer move about - and hunts for it on the desk if I make it move to the bottom and "jump off".

Curl project founder snaps over deluge of time-sucking AI slop bug reports

AI "Facts"

I "love" the way you can get an AI to change its opinion.

For example, I recently asked a well-know one to give me an example for MISRA C Rule 15.2. It replied that the rule stated "An unconditional break or continue shall not be used."

Wrong! When I told it so, it "changed its mind" and declared that it meant to say "The goto statement shall jump to a label declared later in the same function", which is correct. However, it then proceeded to give non-compliant and compliant examples that were exactly the same.

And people actually let these things write code or find vulnerabilities?

Microsoft moved the goalposts once. Will Windows 12 bring another shift?

Reasons not to upgrade to Windows 12

AI

Techie solved supposed software problem by waving his arms in the air

CAN

Yep, which is where things like CAN bus come in handy - it can handle ground differences and all transfers are validated and re-tried if there are any errors (so the receiving end only ever gets valid data*).

* Nearly - it is theoretically possible for the CRC check to pass a bad frame, but it's so unlikely that only a few system need to worry about it.

Yep

I guess they were using RS232, but it would have been better to use a differential signal with transceivers that can tolerate ground differences.

Microsoft to preload Word minutes after boot

Quite

I do use Word, but probably only once or twice a month on average. And I've never noticed to being particularly slow to load when I do.

HMRC's Making Tax Digital scheme also made tax more expensive – by £300M

Re: Small business VAT

I use a similar service that started out as free but became a monthly subscription (including services I do not need) or £4* a quarter for the VAT filing. Any idea if this one is going to stay free?

* Not worth fussing about, I know - but I do object to having to pay to pay the tax I owe (or, even worse, to get the refund I'm owed).

Small business VAT

I used to be able to use the HMRC gateway to enter the figures on a web form. Took a few minutes and cost nothing.

I am now expected to file electronically, either by:

1) Use of accountancy software (Sage, etc), at a cost of £hundreds (I currently use a spreadsheet for my trivial accounts).

2) Use a third-party system to make the submission for me. This only costs about £4 a quarter, but the process is a pain and takes up my time.

From my POV, there was nothing wrong with the old way.

Cook'd: Judge says Apple lied to court in Epic case, asks Feds to mull criminal charges

I think the two are different

In the case of Apple, an alternative purchasing mechanism may have reduced the final cost to the consumer as the merchant would have had the opportunity to reduce the cost of sales.

In the car finance case, consumers did have the option to compare prices and use another (probably less convenient) source of finance if a cheaper one was available. Personally, I have no problem with the car companies not disclosing that they were getting a cut from the finance, as consumers could look elsewhere.

Nationwide power outages knock Spain, Portugal offline

Re: In 1970's UK ...

Though that "single event" appears to have caused a 15GW drop in connected generation. The UK grid wouldn't survive the loss of 5GW.

Google goes cold on Europe: Stops making smart thermostats for continental conditions

Re: Bollocks

I came here to say the same - OpenTherm and "traditional thermostat" are all that's needed, and OpenTherm is very easy to implement - though they would then have to work out how to scale the demand to a percentage (no more than basic school maths).

I can understand the old versions not supporting OpenTherm (no hardware), but it would cost virtually nothing to add it to a new product. I will happily consult to Google for a suitable fee...

Decades-old bug in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas finally shows itself

Any instance of undefined-behaviour is a bomb waiting to explode

Simply updating the compiler or changing the build (order, settings, ...) can be enough to set it off.

Not zero-initializing variables immediately is dangerous

However, doing so can also be dangerous, as default initialisation (zero or otherwise) may not give a sensible value, and its inclusion prevents analysis tools from detecting paths that do not perform appropriate initialisation.

Unfortunately, only a subset of instances of undefined-behaviour (within a language that has it) are "decidable" - which means that ubsan cannot guarantee to catch all of them.

Need a Linux admin? Ask a hair stylist to introduce you to a worried mother

Qualifications

Drives me mad when I see positions advertised that are obviously for someone with 20-30 years of experience, but "must have at least a 2-1 degree".

Experience

A lot of the best engineers I know are those who qualified through routes other than degrees.

My daughter wants to get into nuclear engineering (not sure yet if that'll be design, civil, mechanical or electrical - knowing her, it'll be the lot), and it looking at a four year apprenticeship that leads to a full degree (but without the debt).

White House budget proposal could beam NASA science back decades

I don't imagine many international projects (not just space) will want to retain connections with the US where funding is involved.

I feel really sorry for the scientists that are going to be affected. I just hope the rest of the world will welcome and support them if they decide they need to move elsewhere to get work.

VMware revives its free ESXi hypervisor in an utterly obscure way

So long, and thanks for all the fish

I just migrated, in my (not inconsiderable) private time, a small, not-for-profit organisation from a dedicated ESXi server to Github. No plans to go back now.

Satellite phone tech coming to your mobe this year – but who pays for it?

"Not Spots"

Aren't the UK companies trying to use satellite to "fill in" the rural areas where they are required to provide service but don't?

If they do, then I'm not going to pay again* for the service that I am already paying for.

* that's actually "again again", as I already pay for broadband to use the "services" they charge me for over WiFi calling when I am at home (where there is no coverage).

Trump kills clearances for infosec's SentinelOne, ex-CISA boss Chris Krebs

Falling out of windows

Has that started in the US yet?

No democracy, especially one that declares that "free speech" is absolute, should allow politicians/judges to suppress information or prosecute those who report "inconvenient truths".

How do you explain what magnetic fields do to monitors to people wearing bowling shoes?

"My mouse is going the wrong way"

"Fixed" by turning it so the "tail" came out the back, not the front.

FAA closes investigations into Blue Origin landing fail, Starship Flight 7 explosion

Re: Propellant management

Yep, and that's why the centre engines keep burning at stage separation so the booster doesn't get into free-fall before the boost-back burn starts, with cold-gas thrusters being used to keep it on track when it is coasting to re-entry. The re-entry burn happens when there is enough deceleration for the tanks to have settled.

Re: Propellant management

Though, during the re-entry and landing phases, the booster will be decelerating due to atmospheric drag and the propellant should be at the bottom of the tanks.

However, that doesn't mean that gas bubbles haven't made their way into the collectors and pipes.

Isar’s first orbital rocket crashes into sea – CEO calls it a 'great success'

20 seconds

It was failing well before then - you can see the thrust vectoring starting to move the exhaust stream well before that. Round about when the FTS shut down the engines, it is also obvious that a significant roll had built up.

Failure could be something as simple as a sensor being wired back-to-front, as that would lead to an undamped oscillation along the lines of what appeared to happen. Will have to wait for an investigation to find out, of course.

Asda's tech separation from Walmart nears £1B as delays mount

Where do they get these charges from?

That's enough to pay for something like 2,500 people a year for four years...

Nuclear center must replace roof on 70-year-old lab so it can process radioactive waste

Even if it made it to space...

It requires a lot of energy (delta-v) to get something to "fall" into the sun.

UK's first permanent facial recognition cameras installed in South London

Re: city centre

SalesThefts of spray paint will increase in the Croydon area.

Signalgate storm intensifies as journalist releases full secret Houthi airstrike chat

Cringe-worthy

I saw the video of Trump and the others talking to the press. What's-his-face was giving the most disgusting a**e licking I've ever seen in public.

"You're the best president ever. Kiss, kiss".

Do these people have any self-respect left?

And a distinct lack

of humble pie.

British govt wants to mainline AI, but its arteries are clogged with legacy tech

AI. Don't talk to me about AI.

I've just had a "discussion" with Acrobat (which I have, fortunately, not had to use for a long, long time) about the helpful annotations crap it was adding to an EMC report I was trying to use. Things along the lines of "See this, this is a graph - but I may be wrong, so don't trust me".

I'm hoping I've found the kill-switch, but I suspect I've only managed to give it a flesh-wound.

Apple hallucinated Siri's future AI features, lawsuit claims

Re: Introspection deficit

Thanks - Looks as if I need to set the app up before I can disable the feature though (the preferences are disabled).

Re: Introspection deficit

The only app I have that is a pain (and was before the changes) is pCloud - which updates itself after every OS update in a way that needs the "allow this to run" setting to be set, followed by a restart.

I can't say I've noticed any others except for the "this new app wants to access files on your desktop" type when I install something new.

Though guess I could mention OneDrive, which keeps adding a startup item that I don't want - if I remove it I get told it has been added back next time I restart (with a note that I can disable it). Microsoft don't give an option to not have the autostart for a feature I don't use...

After three weeks of night shifts, very tired techie broke the UK’s phone network

Came here to say exactly the same!

Weeks with a BBC Micro? Good enough to fix a mainframe, apparently

I worked in a place with a high-speed dot-matrix printer (it had four heads to reduce the travel) on a stand with metal legs.

It used to print a very, very long sales report every month (that was never collected).

One month, there was a loud "BANG"! as it fell to the floor - the vibration caused by the carriage changing direction had caused metal fatigue in the legs!

The report was turned off after that, and no one noticed.

Boeing's Starliner future uncertain as NASA weighs next steps

It makes sense to have redundancy, as a failure of Falcon/Dragon could lead to a long break in service (as happened to the Shuttle Program).

However, there is nothing to say that redundancy has to come from Boeing; I wouldn't be surprised if another commercial provider surfaces at some point (such as the Sierra Space Dream Chaser DC-200

'Once in a lifetime' IT outage at city council hit datacenter, but no files lost

Did they try turning it off and on again?

Oh, only the "off" worked...

But seriously, why are systems these days so fragile that a power loss means it takes so long to get them back to an operational state?

User complained his mouse wasn’t working. But he wasn’t using a mouse

Sounds like...

He just needed to open the case and put them on!

Vodafone: Be in the office 8 days a month or lose bonuses

"expensive coffees and pastries near by"

Yes, I saw some "business development" person from somewhere on TV using this as the mean reason why people needed to RTO - "or else I won't get re-elected as everywhere will be shut down".

Junior techie rushed off for fun weekend after making a terminal mistake that crashed a client

And one closer to the story here...

It was the end of the week, so the sys admin responsible for the CAD servers at a large automotive OEM executed "shutdown -h now" on his local workstation.

"That's strange", he thought, "it's still running".

At which point all the phone lines lit up - and he remembered he had been remoted into the main CAD system...

Not me, but...

I once worked for a company down south that provided energy management systems for office blocks and the like.

The hardware was a eurocard version of the BBC micro, with the code being stored in battery-backed RAM. An external board had been added to provide a watchdog with a thirty second timeout - if this wasn't serviced, then a reset was triggered to restart the system. A modem was used to transmit alarms, to allow settings to be changed, and to support remote software updates.

However, there was a "known risk" with the "software updates". These needed the running program to be stopped so that new code could be entered at the command line over the modem (redirected from a file). The trouble was, the watchdog was not being serviced when the program was stopped, so the person loading the new software had to ensure that the blocks were small enough that "resetWatchdog" could be manually entered at least every 30 seconds; timing was therefore critical and distractions a real risk.

Of course, the inevitable happened - with a shout of "I'm just off the airport to get the next available flight to Glasgow"...