Posts by that one in the corner

What to do once your Surface Hub v1 becomes an 84-inch, $22K paperweight

Re: Linux drivers?

> Linux drivers appears automagically when someone says "Linux!".

So, which Linux drivers do you know are missing from the set required for this old kit?

> proper drivers to control an Asus motherboard fans...

You're saying that NO Asus motherboard fans work with Linux? That is a bit of a surprise, as Linux seems to have no issue with my particular Asus boards. Or the Asrock boards or even the Supermicro one.

Guess I just got lucky.

Or do you have a particular Asus model in mind that isn't supported by the particular Linux distro you have in mind?

> Linux being able to more or less seamlessly handle an 84" TOUCH screen is another matter entiely

Why?

The Quadro K2200 is hardly an extraordinary piece of kit and the drivers for it have been listed for a while. So long as it is to the correct h & v resolution, who - or what - cares about the physical size of the display?

Similarly for the TOUCH screen - you only need to read the coordinates back, it makes no difference to Linux if it is (for example) a 100x100 points stretched across 0.84 inches or 84 inches or 84 feet. Whatever the actual resolution of the touch layer - sorry, TOUCH LAYER - if Windows can manage such numbers why would Linux be any different?

Or, for that matter, one of the BSDs.

Microsoft Copilot shows up even when it's not wanted

> https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14

Ah, of course, it is so obvious, elegant and intuitive.

The Guys & Gals from Google are always first with neat & clever UX design.

CVE fallout: The splintering of the standard vulnerability tracking system has begun

Re: We've been here before

Because, as the tech bros know, IT is A Special Thing and has to have everything done for it from scratch. Sigh.

Re: China

> Can you name 1 product China has made, essentially EVER, that wasn't stolen from someone else's work, design or idea?

As you seem to have been asleep in junior school political geography, there is a whole Wikipedia page page on the subject.

Aka "Have you tried looking things up before opening your mouth?"

Bank of England flirts with offline digital dosh

Re: enables the downloading and uploading of funds to and from the ledger when the device is back

No need to sync with the network if it does act as a "super duper Oyster card".

They'll receive the funds as being "loaded" onto their device, same as they were "loaded" onto yours. Bit of bluetooth magic or some NFC & job's a good 'un.

Then they can transfer the digital funds to someone else, then the funds can go to yet another person - so long as the transfer mechanism is robust, it could be as good as cash.

Or we could all just get one of those gadgets from the Underground barriers and use existing Oyster cards.

Whistleblower describes DOGE IT dept rampage at America's labor watchdog

Re: "in contravention of standard operating procedures"

Those rules don't apply to Important People, they are just a sop to keep the little guys quiet.

Attempts to log in from a Russian IP address within 15 minutes of account creation

Much as I love to hear of DOdGEy goings-on, it does seem a bit of a feeble attempt to login directly from home; doesn't Russian Youtube get all those adverts for NordVPN?

Unless, unless - it was all a feint and the successful login from Ivan's Washington office was made within eight minutes of the account going live?

Uncle Sam kills funding for CVE program. Yes, that CVE program

> Shouldn't the other international stakeholders pay their share

That is the direct Trumpian line: the US should pull out of anything where they are "being taken advantage of".

BUT even making "Is there any good reason why this money should come out of the USA taxpayers' pockets only?" the first - or only - question to ask is going about things arse backwards.

The first, the most important, question, whose answer overrules anything else, is: "Do we - the US - risk more costs by NOT having this programme?" (or "Are we getting our money's worth?" or "Will we really, really regret not spending this?" or a dozen other ways to ask the same thing). To which the answer is YES!

If we accept that the US taxpayer paying for this is in its own interests, should they kep it to themselves? Well, will that be cost-effective? Nope, of course it won't, don't be ridiculous. Bug hunting is a world-wide endeavour. If the US list is inly visible to the US, why would anybody in any other country ever bother handing over information they've found? Especially if there was any cost attached to finding it. So should the US pay the costs of all these bug hunters across the globe just to fill the US database? Is there a cheaper option? How about - just let the database be readable by everyone and accept submissions by everyone. Not only does the US then gain even more for its money, it saves on having to set up the systems to prevent global access whilst still allowing full access within the US: unless a Great American Firewall sounds like something that ought to be built anyway.

The bottom line is that it is far, far cheaper to run a globally useful system like this than not to run it. Even when you just look at the cost benefits of one player.

To risk it just because you want to ask "why should we be the only ones to pay?" is the absolute epitome of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. It is putting paranoia and xenophobia before even bothering to calculate the balance sheet.

"But, but, everyone else is ripping us off! They should pay! It doesn't matter if we are acting solely in our own interests, if *we* are getting far more value back than we are spending, *they* don't deserve to get anything for free!".

Ah, the clarion call of the truly mean spirited.

And those unable to comprehend Soft Power and that they are getting back even more value than they have bothered to write into their spreadsheets whilst reading the above: there is a reason why, when buying a business, you pay for the Goodwill that has ben accrued.

Official abuse of state security has always been bad, now it's horrifying

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

White House budget proposal could beam NASA science back decades

What about the Rockstar Probes?

The Voyagers are still out there, albeit on their last few gasps. New Horizons will reach the heliopause around the 2040-plus-a-bit mark, fingers crossed.

If JPL stops looking after them prematurely then we lose our chance at data from that far out for half a century, just due to the travel time.

LLMs can't stop making up software dependencies and sabotaging everything

Re: well duh.

I hope you jest, but this morning I looked at an online jobs page for my area.

Every other job was, literally, from the same company, saying "we need someone who knows X to train our AI how to do X", where X is C# or Python or Web frontend or backoffice systems or...; after which you can go find something else to do with your time.[1] At least this lot was up front about it.

Microsoft total recalls Recall totally to Copilot+ PCs

Recall does not share snapshots or associated data with Microsoft or third parties

That task is delegated to the Windows telemetry subsystem, nothing to do with Recall at at all.

Remember, the original story was "We Can Remember It For You, Wholesale" - and Microsoft always sticks to the word of PKD[1]

[1] The Thirty Three Stigmata of Windows Eleven?

PIRG's 'Electronic Waste Graveyard' lists 100+ gadgets dumped after support vanished

That reminds me, must re-brain that Cricut

Plenty more devices that aren't on that list: I've got a Cricut cutter in the loft that is waiting for me to cut out its PCB and replace it with a Teensy 3 board, to free it from its attempts to contact the long-defunct server (without which it will not cut at all). Yes, the hobbyists can make things work again, but sometimes it takes more than just new firmware.

What is annoying, alongside the sheer wastage, is the number of people who keep on trying to sell borked goods - after the Cricut servers were shut down, eBay was filled (more than the normal levels) with people asking 80% or more of their original purchase price for a doorstop. "It turns on and self-tests, so it is working". No, no I did not buy any of those. But it looks like more than a few poor buggers did. Even if they did know about the blog post telling you where to cut, those prices are taking the mick. For the bulk of 'em, more wasted resources posting things just so they'll end up in someone else's bins.

Self-driving car maker Musk's DOGE rocks up at self-driving car watchdog, cuts staff

Re: which can be fooled in amusing ways...

PS

In case you thought I'd forgotten:

LIDAR OTOH has a simpler mechanical system, in constant stable motion, and we know how to do the mathematics (which is published, you can check the maths and even some code against the maths) to generate an immediate 3D point cloud, from which we can derive & update decent models. Far more directly and reliably than a stereo camera pair.

And we can merge point cloud data from other frequencies (eg RADAR) and/or secondary sensors without overly disturbing processing on that cloud.

Re: which can be fooled in amusing ways...

> Humans do quite well driving a car with a single stereo (or even monocular!) system.

That is certainly true - although there is a big question mark over the "quite well" and whether we want automated systems to do better than "quite well"[1].

There is - always has been - the argument that if humans can rely on sight, so can machines (to reach the same level, at least). But can anyone actually demonstrate that their automation is in any way comparable to our sight?

At the very start, we move our eyes continually, pointing "the good bits" at different places - but putting that much motion into mechanical systems introduces points of failure, so instead we have to have more cameras, all with the highest level of fidelity to match "the good bits". So now the very first stage is wildly different - having to manage merging of views, compensating the different angles and cross-overs, then deciding what the current field of interest is (or do we do it the over way around to get quicker processing? Back to the design, boys).

Ok, now demonstrate the system is at least as good as our sight.

Right, onto the next stage: what we feed this "sight data" into...

Logically, yes, there is a good argument for saying we can automate all this. But have we?

And can we demonstrate this in a better way than counting how many vehicles each one can crash?[2]

[1] Yes, yes, we do

[2] Oh dear, that would mean letting other people have access to our proprietary system to test it out piece by piece (assuming we actually know what the different pieces are).[3]

[3] Note: yes, we can test humans' abilities piece by piece before before letting them out onto the motorway: reading, knowing the signs, did they manage to open the car door without breaking a window first... and all other "testing" in the years before you got to that point, as you simply lived and grew up.

Delusional reporting of FSD doesn't help

Tesla Cybertruck Avoids Landslide and Then Drives Right Over It: "A must-see video of a Tesla Cybertruck riding into what could have been a disastrous accident, avoiding a landslide, and then remarkably driving over it as if in the act of defiance of machine vs. nature."

> Here's a recap from today posted on the Cybertruck Owners Club Forum titled "FSD Saves Cybertruck from Landslide,"

> Thank you Tesla for making an amazing Cybertruck. Yesterday mine stopped on a dime on a wet road just before we would have been sucked into a crazy landslide. And then, I put it in off-road mode, and I drove through the landslide once it stopped instead of staying in a dangerous situation and waiting over two hours for it to be cleared. No car like it on the planet―Joel D. Wright

> "It was on FSD, and going the speed limit. But by the Grace of God, I saw that crazy tree starting to float down the mountain with the landslide and manually slammed on the brakes for all I was worth stopping just in the nick of time."

OR, in reality:

Whe HE hit the brakes, the vehicle slowed and stopped. Then it (remarkably!) "off-roaded" for a few metres.

How is that better than any Landrover, farm truck or original 1940's army jeep? Or, for the fashion-conscious, Range Rover - although our old Peugeot 2008 has working brakes and got us in and out of a good few muddy fields and rock/pothole strewn farm roads; wouldn't necessarily recommend it for "proper off-roading"...

Infosec experts fear China could retaliate against tariffs with a Typhoon attack

Re: China only needs to wait a few days.

> the first wave of price hikes from the 125% tariffs on Chinese goods will become visible to consumers in the next days.

Helped along in their impact by the removal of the $800 de minimis on overseas goods arriving by post.

(Although, TBH, over the years I've become really fed up with Americans being smug about how high that limit was on any forum about an international group purchase...)

Re: Most dangerous?

Oh, I dunno - that was a favourite trick from DHL a few years ago: deliver the parcel and then their bill for customs & handling fees arrived a few days later; ok, by mail, not in person, but soon followed by a - less pleasant letter.

Most annoying case: I had a Novell software package, in the days when we still got printed manuals; Novell had it on a very low cost sale, for reasons I forget (trying to get traction for particular version? doesn't matter), but then put the full retail price on the customs sticker. Wasn't expecting to pay on receipt, as it wasn't expensive to get, so the bill was really not expected.

Much prefer to get the demand first: "Pay the customs or we'll destroy it" "Well, given that cost, I'll help you load into the incinerator - it's only Novell, after all".

Musk's DOGE muzzled on X over tape storage baloney

Re: 70-year-old technology

I was intrigued by the way that Space 1999's Computer (most definitely singular) always printed its results out on till-roll paper, whilst SID's reports at least were printed on to full-width pages.

However:

> The best they came up with was radar-like CRTs

Both Moonbase Control and SHADO HQ had black & white monitors that displayed (changing) text, like a proper VDU.

> The providers being disabled vets doesn't prove whether the service was good or not, and you can dismiss that as an emotional argument.

Well, it was a bit more than only an emotional argument, as the service was being provided to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the very people who are supposed to be supporting the veterans - one way of doing that being to support their businesses. Which businesses were still required to actually provide the service, as any other business would be.

Re: Only $1M?

A difference in attitudes, as well:

The UK created BBC micro would let you do both *DISK as well as the proper *DISC, but to start coding in Pascal[1] from The Other Place, you were only allowed PROGRAM.

[1] named after someone who would have preferred *DISQUE

Still, it did mean that we could say the BBC was broadcasting a good programme about programs and not be confused whether the subject matter was computers or the making of fine historical dramas.

What is that bonfire for?

"Oh, we've found a load of thick paper tape & card that somebody has made holes in, so it is useless now. Hey, do you what label this means? 'Cultural artifacts. Perm. copy duration 1000 year?'"

Re: Nothing to beat it on $/Gb basis.

How often do they need that old data? As stated, only when a new analysis method appears and it seems worthwhile to re-work the old data. Which doesn't feel like it would occur even once a month...

So it may simply still be as cost effective to have an old tape be mounted, let the new software run over it for a day or two, swap tapes... As you say, 20MB per reel is not a lot so if the chap is mounting new tapes to archive new data a few times a day anyway then - he may be grateful for the foray into the stacks to break up the routine!

UK's answer to DARPA sprouts new ideas, like programmable plants

Re: Finally....

Trifids? Pah, merely walking fertiliser for my fully grown Krynoid[1]

[1] new varietal, totally deaf and immune to sonic screwdrivers!

AI entrepreneur sent avatar to argue in court – and the judge shut it down fast

I had never made a replica before of myself or anybody

So he is selling a service - and using it in court - before he has even tested it out once?

How did he expect that was going to turn out?

> You know my site, we get a fair number of views but we really don't get much business out of it.

Time to give up, matey. That isn't a startup business, it is a shambles.

Can any good come out of this? Well, show the story to anyone trying to do the same sort of business and point out you can't actually see any substantive difference between theirs and his, then see if they can or if all they can do is merely bluster.

DOGE dilettantes 'didn't test' Social Security fraud detection tool at appropriate scale

Re: School children?

Oh, if only.

At least school children try to remember how to do simple arithmetic, so they'll be ready for something really important, like the end of month test (Mr Baxter is hard, but fair and works to a schedule).

Now, let us try again, Donald: if you want the minimum of a number k and 10, what is the result when k is negative? No, you *do* know what a negative number is, we had a look at your tax returns, remember?

OTOH we trek the cheque books around to the co-signers twice a month...

Different strokes for different folks, as I believe our cousins are wont to say.

Procter & Gamble study finds AI could help make Pringles tastier, spice up Old Spice, sharpen Gillette

Re: rubber duck debugging

Just time for another bath, in the glow of the burning forests.

Re: Game changer?

Of course it is a game changer - they only have access to another human to work with for less than five minutes at a time, whereas the AI won't storm out, screaming "will you shut up about bloody Pringles!".

This is especially useful for R&D at Gillette (where they standardised on Chipples last year).

Trump doubles down, vows to make Chinese imports even more expensive for Americans

Re: Probably a stupid question

There is a Matt Parker "Stand-up Maths" video about Explaining the Trump Tariff Equation where he does just go over these numbers - double-checks them, points out the set of countries where (according to Trump's own maths) the US ought to be putting on negative tariffs...

And after watching that, and slamming your head on the table a few times, you can be reminded that there *is* sanity in the world by, say, watching his recent "Pi Day" video about how to calculate Pi by slamming blocks together on a table.

Re: Probably a stupid question

Nope, you are not an idiot: there is no point at all in basing tariffs on that sort of trade differential.

Consider vanilla, 80% of which (approx) comes from Madagascar, which now has a 47% tariff.

Madagascar is not a rich place and isn't in the market for too many expensive US products - and the rest of the World will buy the vanilla (and other exotics) - the price may go down temporarily, as the non-US supply chain won't take it all, immediately, but it will sell.

So "plain vanilla" goes way up in the US, and Madagascar tries to a bit harder to convince us to buy some more.

The "value" to the US being - nope, I give up.

French Toast, anyone? Extra tasty today.

Dev loudly complained about older colleague, who retired not long after

Re: Commodore 128 - A Questionable Example

That is true.

But you had to decide to take the plunge at the initial purchase, and there wasn't much C128-specific s/w available, so you - unless there was already something you wanted to run - it was a leap of faith that the programs would appear. There was a bit of a self-reinforcing loop between buyers and authors, neither wanting to take a gamble on the other.

As opposed to starting with just the MDA board in a PC, knowing that you could upgrade as/when the EGA software arrived: you're not having to take any leap on day one, if you don't wish to.

Re: Commodore 128 - A Questionable Example

Except that your customer can buy an EGA card without having to buy an entirely new PC (unlike buying a C128 and still having the C64 in good working order).

Oh, and having an MDA (or, better, a Hercules card) AND your shiny new EGA card plugged in together meant you could now run two monitors on one machine (not quite as seamlessly as with today's GUIndesktops).

The two situations - buying a C128 or an EGA card - were nothing alike, so the questions of writing s/w for one or the other (in terms lof whether there could be a market for that s/w) wasn't alike either. Even before you raise the question of what types of use each machine was going to get (business or pleasure) and what that did to how much you could charge for the (possible) versions of the s/w. And so on and so forth.

No joke: Microsoft foolishly published inaccurate price list on April 1st

Re: "It’s the New Commerce Experience"

The only time it is valid to describe anything a company provides as "an experience" is when they have opened the doors to a theme park.

"Experience the thrill of anticipation as our payments page stalls: will your bank balance plummet as you realise just how high our charges really are or will your neck be broken by the g-forces as we spin you around, back into the maw of our 'optional add-ons' pages? Be prepared for laughs at 'customers also bought' and shocks as 'buy now, one-click' buttons suddenly appear under the mouse pointer! End with the heart-pounding, blood-pumping moment as you punch the monitor the fifth time you see 'you one-time code has expired, try again?'."

Americans set to pay more on all imports: Trump activates blanket tariffs

Re: US produce?

Crikey!

Re: US produce?

> Thank, kind sir.

Proofreado! I'll swear that the "you" was there last time I looked. Maybe if I shake this tablet *really* hard it'll drop out onto the duvet....

Nope. But apparently I have just finished level four of something called "Flappy Birds"?

Re: Tuition

> German polka history nor left handed puppetry

Could we trouble you to give citations that these are real degree courses (offered at Bachelor or taught Masters level), offered as an accredited course at a UK University?

If not, one might have to conclude that you making things up purely to rail at them.

Re: US produce?

Thank, kind sir.

Re: Please explain

>> In the US it would be illegal to sell these cars. The crash-test rating isn't high enough

> I thought it was the other way around and the EU/UK standards are higher...we already know that the cybertruck is illegal on UK roads as a rather crude example.

The US crash test rating is all about protecting the car's occupants, as is the toughened[1] windscreen & windows, the supposed bulletproof construction etc.

The UK and EU regs Cybertruck falls foul of are aimed at protecting pedestrians and other road users - e.g. the too-sharp edges. Plus issues with the steer by wire, which isn't inherently self-centring, some other bits about difficulty of getting it certified.

These are two distinctly different attitudes and the clash can cause difficulties in both directions.

I haven't found (yet) anything definitive with regards to the crash testing[2], except for responses saying things like "US cars are getting heavier to survive the cras tests" which seems to indicate similar differences in attitude: the US wants to drive their car away after a crash, the EU/UK wants as many people involved in the crash, inside and out, to survive. One set of cars gets rigid & heavy, the other lighter and deliberately crumpleable.

[1] albeit not as tough as boasted

[2] as always, solid citations for or against this current understanding are welcomed

Re: Please explain

> Parental leave should be part of the wage package

Well, definitely the salary package - benefits help to the low waged is sensible.

Re: US produce?

I always favoured the broadsheet reporting: The Eagle was most reliable on the issues concerning relations with the Treen, which I feel have a lot to inform us with respect to today's situation.

Ok, so The Mekon is green[1], whilst The Donald is orange, but once you look past the Chromatic Question...

[1] and we all know that it isn't easy being green, so we should cut The Mekon some slack on that account

Re: Trump is easy to model

> the 'golden age' of manufacturing that lives in his head is never coming back.

But, but, people are saying, many people, that Trump has the best expert in his buddy Elon:

>> "At this point, I think I know more about manufacturing than anyone currently alive on earth."[1]

How could that Dynamic Duo ever get it wrong?

[1] Maybe the World has just moved on, it has been a couple of years since he made that claim.

From the "fact sheet", singling out Blighty

> The UK maintains non-science-based standards that severely restrict U.S. exports of safe, high-quality beef and poultry products.

Not in the least; if we were actually offered high-quality beef (without excessive levels of hormones) or poultry products that were properly prepared (instead of damaging eggs so that they go off if you don't keep them refrigerated) then we would happily accept them.

But it looks like the USA really wants to keep all its safe, high-quality products to itself, and just offer the rest of the World its dregs. No thanks.

(Similarly, why would Argentina take in US beef? There is a reason the US imports tasty cows from the Argentine...)

(And the tirade against Japan, which boils down to US car makers can't be fagged to meet their higher standards...)

System builders say server prices set to spike as Trump plays customs cowboy

Re: In other news

> Is this actually worthy of an article.

Yes.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but (alongside all the fun with biting the hand etc) The Register does actually report on things that will impact those working in the tech industries. Like prices going up.

They also report on prices going down, parts running low, parts in a glut, new things coming, old things going.

Doesn't matter if you think any particular reason for those changes is too trivial to report on - because, hey, maybe there is something else going on as well - a bit of price gouging whilst they have something else to blame?.

Perhaps even a miracle may happen and next week we can refer back to this article when it turns out that industry didn't panic like sheep seeing the shadow of a wolf, but they kept calm, used their current stocks and held out for the whole 6 days until DT changed his mind again[1]. Hard to refer back if the article wasn't written in the first place.

[1] wow, beginning to think that fruit juice at lunch packed more of a punch than I realised! Totally drifted off into fantasy land.

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

Re: Spectrum rocket destroyed

He isn't allowed to operate in Norway, the authorities keep refusing his paperwork: there are just too many strings attached.

LLM providers on the cusp of an 'extinction' phase as capex realities bite

Cloud was more transformational

Because all it did was rename a way of working that we'd long since demonstrated works (buying time on a sever), sprayed on go-faster stripes and upsold it like profits were going out of fashion.

The LLMs: not following any proven path, in fact selling THE Neural Net application that we hadn't demonstrated is actually useful or could be put into service with understood cost/benefits for both true & false responses.

Malware in Lisp? Now you're just being cruel

Maybe that is part of the trick to getting malware onto people's systems.

Either make it tiny, so nobody notices it slipping down the wire, or so big that you get a dialogue box saying "3 minutes, 2 minutes, 17 minutes..." and then users just take it in their stride "bloody thing is doing ANOTHER update!" and go get another coffee.

Re: Malware in Lisp

> Naming it CAR & CDR instead of FIRST & REST was the true malware move

Aside from being sarky about whether or not you know where the names CAR and CDR came from, it is more important - if anyone wants to use Lisp - to realise that calling them FIRST and REST would only make sense in one - albeit common - use of the Cons Cell. The two halves of the cell are equally capable of holding the same kinds of data and, if it makes sense to your algorithms, you can quite happily always have a pointer in the CAR and an atom in the CDR.

More - sensibly? - you'll use the cell to hold a binary tree - in which case, let's moan that the accesors aren't called LEFT and RIGHT or BEFORE and AFTER. Of course, if it makes your code more readable, you can always just define functions with those names...

But I was very serious about the happy fact that CAR and CDR allow for simple compound accessors just by adding in a few more As and Ds, which "alternative" names really don't - as the Common Lisp docs show :-)

Mobile ad world drama: AppLovin not lovin' short seller assault claiming fraud

Dig deeper.

> Given the AI tools available today, it’s easy to discredit a short report like this in minutes.

Very true, you can get those things to spout all sorts of bullshit, even providing citations that *look* convincing...

(Insert cautionary tale about not sampling your own "product")