Posts by Tams

Google engineer suspended for violating confidentiality policies over 'sentient' AI

A very good question.

Re: You missed the important bit

It's clearly not, so it's not worth discussing.

And is your username supposed to stand for 'Contrary T. rex' or something?

It's also just bizarrely worded, even suggesting that said family and friends aren't 'happy and uplifting company' and therefore there needs to be some third party that provides such an atmosphere.

TSMC and China: Mutually assured destruction now measured in nanometers, not megatons

Re: Hcak the hackable.

If they invade, I hope they choose you as their military planner.

Re: When did Scorched Earth ever work?

Because if they end up getting invaded (and it looks likely that the PRC would succeed), then their leverage clearly won't have been enough. So of course they'd destroy what couldn't be taken at that point.

Re: Sure....

The Taiwanese will have rendered the fabs useless by that point.

And even with opposition to their destruction, it would likely end up Azovstal like. Some diehard Taiwanese fighters would likely hole up there and China would blow the place to smithereens (while likely not affecting the defenders much at all).

Re: Britain, alas, seems destined once again to blithely assume that it'll all work out in the end

'Don't worry, it's not our money'.

*Evil laughter*

Re: Cost optimization

JIT operations don't allow for that, and in some industries to not have been using JIT (well, until the pandemic) might even have made your business not viable financially.

Microsoft brings tabs to File Explorer

Re: Rigorous journalism

Because it's not relevant.

Re: Another productivity disabler

Microsoft have been idiots recently, but they aren't removing the ability to have multiple resizable windows of file explorer open, so I don't see what your problem is.

Just don't use them if you don't like them.

Vivaldi email client released 7 years after first announcement

Old Man

Maybe I've prematurely aged quickly, but why on Earth would you want to rely on Teams, Slack, or any other *instant* messenger?

I mean, sure, they have private messaging functions and the ability to send files so it's not 'chat' like, but it's still pretty 'chat' like. Not to mention proprietary.

Email on the other hand... there's just something about it that makes it better for leaving around for a while (if you want), rather than needing an immediate or quick response.

But maybe I'm just a dinosaur.

I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems all too well

Re: Choosing to choose

Yes, where is (a fully working) MS Office (and other programs)?

The ones available for Linux are decent (if usually ugly), but still nowhere near as good.

Next major update of Windows 11 prepares for launch

No Surprise

Well, it is mostly a new skin with bits removed or rewritten (often performing worse) just for the sake of it. New hires trying to push their 'vision' on us and justify the existence of their jobs?

Windows 10 was fine. No rehashing of bits that didn't need it and worked. It ran well. Compatibility and customisability weren't thrown in the bin.

Now we have this mess forced on us, and the complaints are either ignored or threated with condescension and scorn. It wasn't even this bad in the Windows 8 days And they added some actually useful functionality back then - Windows 11 as added what? Long overdue window tiling that doesn't even work with all programs?

Honestly, Microsoft, fire the Windows 11 leads and get the Windows 10 team back.

AI chatbot trained on posts from web sewer 4chan behaved badly – just like human members

Re: So he trained an AI on 4chan

Oh diddums. Are you upset? Do you need a Werther's Original?

Microsoft: You own the best software keyboard there is. Please let us buy it

Re: Proving yet again

Eh. Nuance gave up on Swype before they were bought.

Re: Android

Only half-arsedly as is the norm.

To the extent they make a multimillion investment in the Duo line and yet half-arse it.

I do like Swiftkey more than Gboard (especially after Gboard's recent update), but I'm in somewhat of a niche and like to use Gboard's Japanese handwriting input.

Swiftkey doesn't have Japanese handwriting support and likely never will (as Microsoft translate doesn't either - Windows has an IME for it though, so Microsoft have had the data for it for years).

I'd use Swiftkey and Gboard's Japanese handwriting keyboard together if only Microsoft would make switching between different company's keyboards quick. Instead it hijacks the keyboard and you have to go digging into the settings to change it.

And Gboard does allow quick switching to different company's keyboards. You just can't quickly switch back.

Minimal, systemd-free Alpine Linux releases version 3.16

Re: Alpine is one of the better ones

I think they more meant the rest of the laptop isn't anything special.

If it has 32GB of RAM, then it's probably quite powerful, but you're not going to have to go to some boutique vendor to get it.

DuckDuckGo tries to explain why its browsers won't block some Microsoft web trackers

Re: Right

For certain things they either don't give a shit about, or actively want to expose*.

*these need to be taken with a grain of salt as they also like to exaggerate or just make stuff up.

I wouldn't just say Yandex or Baidu for anything Uighurs or Ukraine, but I would on, as mentioned, a superinjunction in a Western country.

And so you jumped onto Brave of all things...?

Why is any surprised about this?

If you use DuckDuckGo because of privacy concerns, surely you'd know it's pretty much just a customised version of Bing? And from that worked out that there would almost certainly need to be some allowances for Microsoft? I mean, you'd have done the research into that right? Because you care about your privacy so.

Oh, they're all fluff and are just lazy. Sorry, forgot about that.

Export bans prompt Russia to use Chinese x86 CPU replacement

Re: Russian politics aside

What was the point of this essay?

The only thing I can take from is it that you are salty that we're having a bit of irreverent fun. And if that's the case... then maybe this site ain't for you.

*I didn't actually bother reading it all as it really just seemed like a long boast about how great China is. And you have gall to call us pompous...

O Danny/Dannie boy...

And 'Tonk' is such an appropriate for a Russian manufacturer.

All thoroughly deserved by the bastards.

Surf the web from your parked Renault: Vivaldi comes to OpenR

Re: I can understand why.

On the consumer side, that's been Microsoft since Windows 8.

And when they knock that attitude off, they always regress again as a new generation of those trying to justify their jobs and 'visionaries' get hired.

Re: Megane specs kneecapped for UK models.

Shhhh.

You're spoiling the party.

Putin reaches for nuclear option: Zuckerberg banned

Re: Well, damn

Looking at the state of him, he might well be incapacitated or even dead by then.

Twitter preps poison pill to preclude Elon Musk's purchase plan

Re: 'I have much trouble agreeing with'

Jein.

ESA: Fly me to the Moon, just not on a Russian rocket

Re: If the Ruskies want it...

Yes, but Altas V has been long in the legs for a while now. It should have been moved on from years ago. It's EoL, though does have all its remaining slots sold.

Re: Solo a space-mano

The gas money they get from Europe each day just about covers the cost of the war in Ukraine each day, provided, they errrr, don't lose any big assets... bit of a sunk cost now.

Everything else? Whatever money they can scrounge together from the back of the metaphoric sofa.

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

Re: "Linux Desktop"

I mean, there's a whole industry for customising Windows UI.

You can even wholesale replace it with the likes of Cairo.

There is a good point to having ine default UI. And until 11, Windows were good with providing a good one, while keeping tinkering even without third party stuff.

Re: re. Anyone who tells you Linux is hard to use wasn't paying attention

Ah, it only took the first reply for the condescending Linux fan to turn up.

Every. Single. Time.

Re: Linux "Desktop"

You mock Office, but it has no counterpart after all these years. Apple come closest, and other than being restricted, their offerings range from an utter joke to competitive.

As for the open source world... LibreOffice, or whatever they are calling themselves this year, recently updated their website. It went from looking like an early 2000s one to a late 2000s one. So if they can't even make their website look decent (despite making much noise about it)...

First rocket launch from UK soil now has... a logo

For a six year old it's pretty impressive. But I wonder how they'll actually use it.

On another note, wouldn't it be good if the UK had a spaceport somewhere... useful? It's a shame Guyana decided they wanted independence as it hasn't exactly turned out well for them.

Adobe anticipates $75m hit from Russia, Belarus pullout

Such a small amount, and as if most Russian users were paying in the first place.

UK's largest union to Arm: Freeze job cuts now

Re: On the other hand...

It wasnct whining, and it was the FTC getting involved that really killed the deal.

AMD to Intel: Take our GPU talent? Two can play that game

Wasn't Raja Koduri in charge of Radeon at a time where it was struggling? Didn't he leave AMD on quite acrimonious terms?

Boys outnumber girls 6 to 1 in UK compsci classes

Perhaps there is something putting women off compsci? Perhaps it's the sex ratio itself?.

But given how society is now, I think it may well mainly just be the different sexes tending to like different things.

Oh, and are we going to have an article about the sex imbalance in nursing? After all, the number of male nurses is around 11%. Or around 1-in-9 for the hard of thought.

What? No? Because it's not really a huge problem*? Well then....

*actually there are reports of male nurses being bullied and abused

Intel to spend €17bn on chip mega-factory in Germany

Re: How big?

Then how big's the battered haddock going to need to be?!

RISC-V keeps its head down amid global chip war

Re: But pronounced JIF

party

Re: Sorry, what was the problem again?

The CCP are a menace at best, evil at worst. We need ways to hinder them. I'm sorry, but if you can't see how they and Russia as they are making the world a worse place, they you're not the sharpest tool.

But doing so with instruction sets just seems like a waste of time and energy. x86, Arm, MIPS, RISC-V, they all get the job done. Shrug.

Arm's $66bn sale to Nvidia is off: Deal collapses after world's competition regulators raise concerns

Re: Typical UK short sighted profiteering

It was big the UK, where we have either let our industries decline or be bought up.

Companies like BAE Systems are only safe because they are major defence suppliers, and under the current lot I wouldn't even consider them 100% safe. They'd sell their own grandmas.

Geomagnetic storm takes out 40 of 49 brand new Starlink satellites

Re: Read the damn weather forcast

Because SpaceX/Musk.

Typical 'Silicon Valley', go fast and break things.

Re: Insured?

No insurer is going to be happy with their insuree disregarding forecasts and warnings that if heeded would have avoided any loss.

SpaceX are going to be paying out of pocket for this.

NASA taps Lockheed Martin to build Mars parcel pickup rocket

Geez, you Musk Bois are annoying.

SpaceX are not going to be landing a manned Mars mission in 2026. That's just not going to happen.

And while I do appreciate the effort of their innovation and success, they are also reckless. They wanted to send that Tesla crashing into Mars, with zero consideration for contamination.

Go fast and break things is give up to a point. A Mars mission, or any manned space mission is not the place for it. Hell, Starlink is starting to be troublesome as it is.

Nvidia promises British authorities it won’t strong Arm rivals after proposed merger

Re: I'm onto you

Come on Jensen, don't be coy!

OpenShell has been working on a classic replacement for Windows 11's Start menu

Because I need to sctually use my machine to do stuff. And I want to do it the way that makes sense to me, not some 'experience engineer' in Redmond.

If I wanted to be told how to do things; I'd use iOS.

Re: "If it ain't broke..."

Ah, the call people who disagree with you about technology 'Luddites' approach.

Come on now, surely you are above that?

Re: Craig 2

Every year or so?

Oh, you have no idea...

Wolfing down ebooks during lockdown? You might want to check out Calibre, the Swiss Army ebook tool

Re: Upwards thumb

Mate, what are you smoking? It's very late 00s/Vista.

To each their own, but to call it 'one of the most attractive'? You're off your rocker.