Posts by Alf Garnett

Looming energy crunch makes future uncertain for datacenters

Bad idea

"Google, for example, has a newly forged agreement with solar energy firm Intersect Power to construct new bit barn capacity alongside additional power generation wherever possible, to create industrial parks powered by clean energy."

this sounds like a bad idea to me. All the forests that won't be cut down for datacenters will be cut down for solar farms to power the datacenters. A nuclear reactor provides far more power than the same sized area would if covered in solar panels. Plus the reactor works at night and on cloudy days.

Deadbeat dad faked his own death by hacking government databases

Re: Now ....

Kumalot Harris cast the deciding vote in the senate to get the bill passed that created 87,000 new IRS agents to go after tax dodgers.

Before we put half a million broadband satellites in orbit, anyone want to consider environmental effects?

Re: Plus the effects of thousands of reentries burning up metal in the stratosphere and above

Metal from the satellites burning up scares you? Meteors have been entering the atmosphere since forever. How do you propose to stop them?

NASA pushes decision on bringing crew back in Starliner to the end of August

Re: Boeing suits can't be used in a SpaceX vehicle and vice-versa.

I agree. BMW makes cars. Tesla makes battery operated toys.

US claims TikTok shipped personal data to China – very personal data

Don't expect anything to be done about it. The Biden regime is in bed with the Chinese. Don't expect anything to be done until after the next president takes office. If the laughing hyena gets in, probably nothing will happen.

FBI gains access to Trump rally shooter's phone

Re: Ramblin Man

The bills you refer to did call for hiring more border patrol agents, but to process the illegals, not to keep them out. If Biden wanted to combat illegal immigration, all he had to do would be to undo the changes he made to previous policies and enforce existing laws.

HP BIOS update renders some ProBook laptops expensive paperweights

If I owned one of the affected machines and HP had that attitude, I might very well buy another machine, but it sure as hell won't be an HP.

Class action lawsuit time

Since HP's update fscked the computers, HP has an obligation to repair the affected machines with no expense to the owners with the possible exception of shipping. If HP refuses to do this, I hope somebody gets some bloodthirsty lawyers and sues the pants off them.

Tesla accused of union buster bluster at Buffalo factory

The evil corporate executives gleefully maiming and killing workers nonsense is getting old. Can you come up with a new idea?

NYC Comptroller and hedge funds urge Tesla shareholders to deny Musk $50B windfall

He earned it

Musk earned the windfall. The deal was that he got the money if he raised the company's stock price by the agreed upon amount, which he did. I hope Musk and the board tell the bureaucratic parasites in New York to fsck themselves. I for one get sick and damned tired of these socialists trying to stick their noses in where they're not wanted.

German plod defend Tesla gigafactory from eco-warriors

Re: Could someone please explain ?

The environmentalist extremists that get the headlines are not concerned about the environment. If they were, they'd attack factories that make fuel burning cars. These thugs just enjoy destroying things.

Ex-White House election threat hunter weighs in on what to expect in November

Re: Worry about AI (so you don't worry about state sponsored

Don't forget the little girls who he has fondled and the ones whose hair he sniffs every chance he gets.

UnitedHealth's 'egregious negligence' led to Change Healthcare ransomware infection

I read somewhere, might have been The Register, an article that said many companies have determined that it's cheaper to clean up after a data breach than to try preventing them in the first place. United healthcare must be in that camp.

There should be a law requiring companies that hold sensitive information about people ( medical records, financial data, etc) to take steps to secure that data. If there is a law in the U.S. like this already, United healthcare should be prosecuted for failing to obey it. Of course that won't happen. They'll just bribe congress so they don't create such legislation, or others in the government so they don't get prosecuted for violating it.

End-to-end encryption may be the bane of cops, but they can't close that Pandora's Box

If criminals...

The governments are saying end to end encryption should be banned because criminals use it to do whatever. Following that logic, let's take a look at other things that should be banned. Cars and trucks should be banned because criminals use them to smuggle drugs and transporting stolen goods among other things. Telephones should be banned because criminals use them to coordinate criminal activity or warn others about law enforcement activity. Computers should be banned because criminals use them to commit crimes. Acetylene torches should be banned because criminals use them. I could go on for hours, but you get the point.

AI boom is great news for the nuclear power dreamers

It sounds like a good deal to me. Nuclear plants don't produce any air pollution. The spent fuel is stored on site. With coal plants their spent fuel it vented to the atmosphere. Also building datacenters next to nuke plants means less energy lost in transmission vs putting the datacenter hundreds of miles from the nuke plant.

Elon Musk's latest brainfart is to turn Tesla cars into AWS on wheels

Just another reason

This is just another reason for me to keep my real fuel burning car instead of buying one of these battery operated toys.

We never agreed to only buy HP ink, say printer owners

Haven't touched HP s**t for years

12 years ago I bought an HP computer. I took it home and promptly put Kubntu on it. A few days later, it locked up. There was nothing to do but pull the plug. It would do this every few days. I found out what the problem was. There was some sort of bug that caused this problem in any HP running linux. Also that HP didn't support linux (don't know if its still true) so wasn't interested in fixing the problem. From that day on, I made up my mind not to buy any HP anything. Four years ago I needed a printer, so I got a Canon laser printer. It works just great for me, and it has no problem with toner cartridges made by other companies.

Want to keep Windows 10 secure? This is how much Microsoft will charge you

There's always Linux

I saw something recently showing that Windows has been losing market share for years. Most of it was to Mac, phones and tablets, but Linux was in there. People who have a perfectly good computer who can't afford or don't want to buy a new machine capable of running windows 10 might very well got to Linux. It's free, so there is no problem with licensing. Also Linux is known for supporting older hardware. There are Linux distros specifically designed to minimize the OS's requirements for system resources. I'm guessing a lot of windows users will stay with windows 10 even after support ends. Some are bound to switch. How many remains to be seen.

It took Taylor Swift deepfake nudes to focus Uncle Sam, Microsoft on AI safety

Good luck

I don't know what anyone will be able to do about this that will work. C.p. has been illegal in the U.S. for 50 years or so, but that hasn't stopped people from making it, distributing it or finding it. Calling attention to it in the media only serves to tell more people it's out there. I hope some way can be found to stop this garbage, but I'm not holding my breath.

Drivers: We'll take that plain dumb car over a flashy data-spilling internet one, thanks

Re: "only five percent believe this surveillance should be unrestricted"

Be careful guys and keep it in your pants, or you could be next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNV5X-GBkR8

Re: Big brother is creeping up behind you.

Don't speed sounds like a good idea until the information the car's computer has isn't up to date. For example: a stretch of road where the speed limit was reduced 10 or 15 mph for maintenance. The repairs are completed and the speed limit raised to its previous number. Your car's computer finds out you're driving through that area, but it didn't get the update that the work was completed and the speed limit raised. It rats you out to the police and insurance company for your alleged speeding. You get a speeding ticket in the mail and a notice your insurance rates are going up.

Don't grass me up

I don't want my car grassing me up to the police so they can send me speeding tickets. On the 4th of this month, you car reported you were driving 56mph in a 55mph zone for 5.27 miles. On the 5th you drove 82mph in an 80 mph zone for 25 miles. No doubt because of mandatory insurance laws, the car would also sqeal to the insurance company. They would inform me that my rates were going up or my policy would be canceled. With my luck, they'd probably cancel my policy. During the day at work, the insurance company would email me saying they were canceling my policy effective immediately. When I got in the car to drive home after work, the computer wouldn't let me start the car because it knew I had no insurance. To get home, I'd have to immediatly find another insurane company and pay whatever outrageous amount they wanted.

What if Microsoft had given us Windows XP 2024?

I do wish OS developers would leave things alone that work. When I used windows, I hated having to relearn where everything was when I installed the latest version. I use Kubuntu now. Their developers are also guilty of changing things around all the time. It's confusing when I look online for help on how to do something. The instructions in the article tell me how to fix the problem, but when I try to follow them, nothing is where the directions say it is. Android is the worst for this. Instructions for finding something in Android 10 aren't good for Android 11 . ARRRRGH!

Bricking it: Do you actually own anything digital?

No wonder

No wonder people pirate stuff. You pay for the streaming service, then you go to watch something you saw on it before only to find the streaming service no longer has it. Another beef I have with the streaming services is that people can't afford the multitude of streaming services that would be required to watch everything one likes. At $10 or $15 each, it quickly adds up. Then there is the conttent that the right owners decide to pull from the market for the hell of it. Recently I wanted to watch the Disney film Song Of The South. Disney no longer sells it. I read somewhere they decided it wasn't PC so the quit selling copies of it. I went to my old friend Usenet who had a copy in 1080p. Now I have a copy I can watch whenever I want.

I can understand why the software people want to make their stuff available via a subscription only model. They get you paying over and over and over again in perpituity. Customers find it hard to accept because we've been buying software and owning the copy we bought since people started buying software 50 years ago or so.

I do buy CDs and DVDs. When I get them, I take the internal drive I keep in a drawer, plug in the USB adapter, put the disc in and rip the contents. When I'm done the disc goes back on the shelf. Also thanks to CSS I can get them from anywere in the world. A few months ago I bought the Are You Being Served box set from a seller in the UK for much less than that same seller wanted for it in the US. Even with paying the shipping from the UK it was cheaper. I know it's the wrong region code to play on a US DVD player, but the computer doesn't care. Now I can watch Mr Mash harass Mrs Slocombe as she's talking about her pussy whenever I feel like it.

As long as it's more convenient to pirate something than to buy a copy or license, people will continue priating it.

Electric vehicles earn shocking report card for reliability

In a free ecomony, the debate over EVs vs fuel burning cars will settle itself. Some types of driving are better suited to EVs. For example; someone who lives close enough to their work that they can drive to work and home on one charge. They have all night to charge the car at home before going to work the next day. Cars that burn fuel are better suited for longer trips or when you need a car before the EV can charge. An example is the driver who just got home in his EV. He plugged in the EV then he gets a call that his mom, grandma or some other family member 150 or more miles away is in hospital and he needs to get there asap. He gets in his car that burn diesel of petrol, goes to the filling station, fills up and is on his way. If he had to rely on the EV, he might be stuck at home for hours before he could go. Maybe he's lucky enough to live near one of those fast charging places. He drives the EV there, but there are several cars in the queue ahead of him. Assuming each one needs 45 minutes to an hour to charge, he still could be stuck there waiting for hours. The people who like EVs, have a use for them and can afford them will buy them. Like any early adopters, they'll have to deal with problems that come with a new technology. As manufacturers get better at making EVs and the technology gets better, they'll appeal to more and more people. As more people buy them, more people will invest in charging stations. Also more companies that don't build better cars will leave the EV market as other makers do improve the quality of their EVs.

One problem with EVs that won't end soon will be getting the electricity to charge them. In some places there have been rolling blackouts whent the weather turns exceptionally hot or cold. It's not going to helpl the flexibility of the power grid if people keep suing to stop the construction of new power stations. All that electricity has to come from somewhere.

Greenpeace calls out tech giants for carbon footprint fumble

Re: Greenpeace is irrelevant and so is carbon dioxide

I heard somone say that CO2 isn't poison, it's plant food. The man's right. I have yet to see or hear an explanation from one of the global warming people about why the earth was warmer a thousand years ago when Greenland wasn't covered with ice. People are finding remains of them now as glaciers retreat. If a scientist knows that his paycheck comes from people who support this notion that we're cauing global warming, he will have an incentive to find evidence that supports that. Also scientists sometimes get something wrong. Look up Pitldown man. I remember in the 90s when global warming advocates said by 2010 or 2020 that coastal cities would be underwater. As time caught up with their predictions and proved them false, the advocates started calling it climate change. Now when a part of the world that gets blizzards gets one, the advocates blame climate change. When it's hot in Arizona during July, they blame climate change. Climate is what the so called experts predict. Weather is what we get. I've heard people say that global warming is a religion to some people. I'm beginning to believe that myself.

Why do cloud titans keep building datacenters in America's hottest city?

Re: 4 cents?

One reason power companies may be bitching about solar is it's not as reliable as other means. A coal, natural gas or nuclear plant works 24/7. Solar only works when the sun's shining. Windmills only work when the wind is blowing.

Let's take a look at those US Supreme Court decisions and how they will affect tech

Re: This is somewhat weird...

German lawyer speak, all those 12 and 15 letter words are the stuff of nightmares.

Re: This is somewhat weird...

The web designer is self employed. She works for herself. The first amendment guarantees freedom of speach and freedom of religion. Over the last 80 years the court has ruled that governments also cannot require people to say something they don't agree with. Look at it this way. I will assume for this argument that you support Ukraine in the current war. Let's assume you were a web designer and a customer came to you and wanted you to design a pro Putin website. Naturally, you would object.

About the university admissions policy; there are laws in the U.S. that ban discrimination based on a person's race when it comes to education. Affirmative action is racial discrimination. The universities practicing it are admitting people of one race, or multiple races because of those peoples' race. Affirmative action was created supposedly to make up for past discrimination. It's been over 60 years ago that not allowing people into university because of their race was made illegal. Affirmative action penalizes the current generation of university students for something that was made illegal decades before they were born. If you think affirmative action is a good thing, just ask yourself if you would like it if you were denied admission to the university you wanted to go to because of your race.

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

Here's an incentive

So you work from home people want an incentive to go to work at the office? Hows this? Come to work or get fired.

Japan unleashes regulation Kaiju on Apple's and Google's app store monopolies

I'd like to see people given root access to their devices. I bought that phone. I should have the final say on what's installed on it and I should be able to remove anything I want. The OS developers should be able to make a warning appear that warns a user that removing a critical app will cause their phone to not do whatever that app controls (phone calls, sms, etc) This should be limited to only those apps that are needed by the phone to make phone calls, send sms and so on.

Florida man insists he didn't violate the law by keeping Top Secret docs

Re: I can finally admit something

If you're so eager to have Trump locked up for mishandling classified documents, why are you not also demanding Joe Biden be locked up for the same thing?

A toast to being in the right place at the right time

Re: He's toast

I have an idea. When the no oil of extinction rebellion plonkers are standing in the road and blocking traffic, throw some durians at them or near them. Perhaps that would persuade them to get out of the road.

Re: He's toast

It may stink, but it smells a helluva lot better than the stink of burned microwave popcorn.

Microsoft and Helion's fusion deal has an alternative energy

Build SMRs instead

Small Modular Reactors can produce the power required to run a datacenter, and the tech already exists. Fission reactors have worked for decades. Also there are designs out that that cannot produce the handful of disasters that have occasionally grabbed headlines in 1979 (Three mile islans) 1986 (Chernobyl) and 2011(Fukushima). Also nuclear power works at night and when the wind isn't blowing. It also produces a given amount of electricity using far less land than the huge tracts of land needed for solar panels and windmills.

US government says Silicon Valley Bank depositors can get their cash on Monday

won't cost taxpayers a dime? bull****

All governments lie. When the government faces tough time, it lies more. Anybody who has two working brain cells won't trust that senile old buzzard in the white house.

It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system

America still is in some ways a free country. We don't want the metric system. If we did, we would have adopted it long ago. A lot of Americans have gotten used to feet, inches, gallons, pints, and so on and don't see any need to change. Many Americans also resent what they see as elitist snobs telling them how they should live their lives. If you're in the U.S. and don't like our reluctance to go metric, either deal with it or move to a country where they use the metric system. If you're not in the U.S. and feel this way, stay where you are.

San Francisco investigates Hotel Twitter, Musk might pack up and leave

Musk is doing nothing wrong here. There may be some minor regulation of some oppressive fascist government that he's run afoul of, but there's nothing morally wrong with him offering employees the option to sleep at work if they want to. It does save workers having to face the psychotic homeless, the piles of human feces and used needles they have to deal with between the door at the twitter building and the building they live in. If he wants to move the twitter HQ to another state, good for him. Let's see what happens to the workers paradise the Peoples' Republic of California when all the businesses are chased out by high taxes and oppressive regulation.

Norway has a month left until sun sets on its copper phone lines

About 25 years ago I lived in a community where a storm came through one evening and took down about 2 miles of power lines, the big ones on the tall wooden poles next to the highway. The power company had the power back on the next afternoon. that morning I drove by the building that held the phone company's switching equipment. They had a generator on a trailer that they had parked next to the building. The phones never quit working. New technology is a great thing, but is it really a good idea to abandon something that's very reliable for something that has more to go wrong with it? Going to mobile or IP for phone service means a lot more equipment that needs power to work when the grid goes down.

Re: The big problem

By renewable sources, I'll assume you mean solar panels, and windmills. As far as I know, the renewables aren't so reliable. Solar only works during the day when it isn't cloudy. Windmills only work when the wind is blowing. Ways to produce power that don't pollute are a good thing, but other means need to be kept available for times when the renewables fail, such as at night when the wind isn't blowing.

Microsoft 365 faces more GDPR headwinds as Germany bans it in schools

Here's an easy solution that will save money in the budgets of public schools and other institutions. Use LibreOffice instead. It's free and it doesn't require any information from users. I've used it for years and it NEVER asked me for any personal or any other information. German public schools can save money by not buying MicroShaft products and spend the money on fuel to keep the schools warm this winter.

Apple stalls CSAM auto-scan on devices after 'feedback' from everyone on Earth

This is yet another reason to not own an apple device or to get rid of the ones you have and switch to Android. Also, anyone who wants to keep their data private should store it unencrypted on a system they don't own and control. There's no telling when some government will demand the big corporation hand over the data. The big corporation will because the people who make the decision don't want to go to prison or have their wealth confiscated.

No, not everyone who wants to keep their data secret have anything illegal to hide. Someone may have a bid for some multimillion dollar deal on their device. That goes unencrypted to the big tech company's server as part of an online backup of this person's device. A competitor hacks or bribes their way into the system and steals the backup. It may not be anything that big you want to keep secret. Maybe the device is owned by a woman with a psycho ex who is hunting for her so he can kill her. He hacks her backup, finds out where she will be tomorrow night, and is waiting for her with a gun.

Maybe you have evidence of the government you live under doing something dishonest, or criminal. Let's say it's a video of cops beating to death someone who is a member of the wrong ethnic group or political party. Your iThing is told to scan for and finds this video. The government is alerted, cops or soldiers come to your door and your body is found floating in a river or if you're in Russia, you're found dead from polonium or some chemical weapon that attacks the nervous system.

Dell won't ship energy-hungry PCs to California and five other US states due to power regulations

This is another sign that California is going down the toilet. Instead of building more power plants, they're trying to reduce demand. This may work for a while, but eventually they'll get to the point that there won't be enough electricity to go around no matter how much consumption is restricted. Try to build a dam there and some environmental extremist group tied up the proposal in the courts for decades. Try to build a nuclear plant and they bitch and moan about that. Try to build a power plant that uses concentrated sunlight to boil water and they'll piss and moan about the stupid bird that flies too close to the focal point and cooks itself. Build windmills and they gripe about the birds that fly into them and get chopped up.

All these proposals will do is make the computers more expensive. People who can afford them will get them. All someone needs is a friend or relative out of state who will cooperate. John in L.A. has it shipped to his mom and dad who already escaped California and live in Phoenix. They either ship it to him, bring it to him if they visit or he goes there. Someone living close enough to the state line will have it shipped to someplace out of state then drive there to get it.

The shady black marketeer who used to sell drugs will start selling computers and Dr. Seuss books.