* Posts by Pascal Monett

16645 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007

Apple's iPhone 12 woes spread as Belgium, Germany, Netherlands weigh in

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"the iPhone 12 was approved by the FCC before sale"

The FCC approves iPhone 12, the FAA approves the 737 Max, it's becoming clear that certification agencies in the US need a serious revamp.

Scientists spot startlingly close black holes in Hyades star cluster

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"we'd probably already be dead"

In the category of rogue planets or stars, the possibility of direct collision is almost zero. But you don't need a rogue star, or black hole, to collide with Earth in order to destroy Humanity (and possibly all life on Earth as well).

A star or black hole passing close enough to our Solar System will throw planetary orbits out of whack, likely ejecting several, if not all. That would logically depend on how close it gets. But one thing is sure : if Earth gets ejected, we're all on a timer to the deepest freeze we will ever know.

However, even if none of our planets are actually ejected, the outer planets' orbits will certainly be perturbed, which will very likely in turn perturb the orbits of the inner planets. Not to mention everything in the Kuiper Belt will go nuts, and whatever is beyond as well.

So, even if the Earth possibly stays in its actual orbit, the amount of asteroids being josled by all this will be enormous, and there's every chance that we might see a new Late Bombardment in the years that follow.

The only question is, at what distance are we doomed by a passing star or black hole ? If it is two light-years away, are we safe ?

Beijing freezes social media service for a month for letting kids see smut

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"particularly for website platforms that 'repeatedly make mistakes' "

No wonder Facebook is not present in China.

Zuckerberg would never get out of jail.

Airbus takes its long, thin, plane on a ten-day test campaign

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"leaving airlines to decide if they want to cram passengers in"

Really ? Because they're going to decide not to put 250 seats in if they can ?

If they could, they would.

Ford, BMW, Honda to steer bidirectional EV charging standard

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Clarity

Sorry, I obviously read that wrong because I understood that there were three companies involved. BMW and Honda not being US companies, it was obvious that it was their US presence that was involved.

I will endeavor to confuse myself better in the future.

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Stop

Re: So you can still have enough remaining to use the EV to drive

No, you'll have enough for what you think you need to drive.

Any nasty surprise and your EV will not have enough juice to get where you need to go.

Frankly, to me an EV is already seriously limited as far as range is concerned. To give people an excuse to drain them for supplying power is the height of stupidity. There's already a waste of energy charging the damn things, now you want to waste more energy discharging them.

We don't have fusion yet, and too many countries are using coal. Stop the madness.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Voila!

Yeah, solar is going to be very useful when you come back home from work in the evening.

Especially in winter when the sun sets before you leave work.

The only viable solution for all these new vehicles is nuclear. Preferably the Thorium kind.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

So, I gather that you don't have a refrigerator or a freezer ?

GitHub alienates developers by force feeding them AI recommendations

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Mushroom

"provide a first-class developer experience"

Yes, because developers are clamoring for ads. Bug fixes my arse. The bug was that the ads were not in our face enough.

Carry on, Borkzilla. Your efforts to drive everyone to another platform will bear fruit, don't you worry.

Having slammed brakes on hiring, Google says it no longer needs quite so many recruiters

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Nooglers ?

That's the nickname for people who work at Google ?

Well, another sticky note on the trivia pile.

Watchdog urges change of HART: Late, expensive US biometric ID under fire

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"urging the company to end its plan to host HART"

I sympathize, but that was a useless gesture.

If not Amazon, there's two other solutions. One of them will host this thing. Heck, in all probability they all bid for it. It's a long-term government contract.

It's money. For sure, and for a looong time.

You don't say no to that.

Portable Large Language Models – not the iPhone 15 – are the future of the smartphone

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"neither will they leak all our most personal data to the cloud"

At this point in time, that sounds rather like wishful thinking to me.

It appears as if everything everyone is doing at the moment is geared toward siphoning my personal life to The CloudTM. If those portable whatchamacallits are going to become pervasive, I'm willing to bet that they'll happily lap up everything they can and send it to the mothership ASAP.

It's the contrary that would surprise me.

Scientists trace tiny moonquakes to Apollo 17 lander – left over from 1972

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"craters at the Moon's south pole"

Is it really necessary to fly a seismograph to the Moon and go through the trouble of landing it ?

I would think it would be easier to send a satellite with ground penetrating radar and have it fly over multiple interesting sites to find out what we can.

Of course, a seismograph wouldn't be useless, but I would think GPR would give us an answer that would be more precise.

The future of the cloud sure looks like it'll be paved in even more custom silicon

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: fire up the Azure version of your cloud app, shift the data over

That's where the problem lies. Sure you can fire up another cloud, but transiting petabytes of data from one to the other will be difficult by the sole virtue of size.

Not to mention that, on the other cloud, there's almost certainly something that will be different enough for you to have a headache getting everything running like before.

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Coat

Meta's Grand Teton

In French, grand teton means big nipple.

I'll just leave you guys with that knowledge . . .

Friends don't let friends use AI to chat

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Facepalm

"Effort is very important in a relationship,"

And water is wet.

Oh well, I guess these days it bears repeating.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Please don't.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon and others sue OpenAI

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Library Genesis ("LibGen"), Z-Library, Sci-Hub, and Bibliotik

So, after googling that, LibGen doesn't respond, neither does Sci-Hub. Bibliotik requires logging in, something I doubt OpenAI is capable of.

Of the four, only Z-Library allows you to freely search, but I did not try to download.

If that is their collection of sore points, I don't really see where the problem is.

Washington left with chip on shoulder after Huawei exposes export loophole lapses

Pascal Monett Silver badge
FAIL

$61 billion in exports [approved] between November 2020 and April 2021

That's not a rounding error, guys.

That's you fucking up in a major way.

It's very nice to hear your bluster, but when the figures come in, you're nothing but bullshit.

US amends hypersonic weapons strategy: If you can't zoom with 'em, boom 'em

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

"Both China and Russia said they've tested hypersonic weapons"

Oh yeah, Russia has tested them.

It blew up on the launch pad, but they tested it !

Lightning struck: Apple switches to USB-C for iPhone 15 lineup

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"can reach out for help when there's no cell signal coverage over satellite connections"

Hang on, am I supposed to understand that, in the middle of the Grand Canyon, two hiking days out from civilization, I can still call 911 if I have an iPhone ?

Have they managed to include Iridium technology in a slab 8mm thick ?

Somehow I doubt that. Have you seen an Iridium phone ?

Or does Apple have a deal with Starlink ? Because if so, Apple might want to find a way to make sure that His Muskiness doesn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and shut them off.

Lawyer's Microsoft email snafu goes from $1.75M lawsuit to Ctrl+Alt+Settle

Pascal Monett Silver badge
FAIL

Typical lawyering

Work the hype on righteousness and morals, and fold as soon as the check arrives.

You could have made a public case that forced Borkzilla to change its attitude and made it more conscious and careful, but no, you took the easy way out.

Pfft.

Billions of 'custobots' are coming online. Marketers may need to learn SEO for AI

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Coat

Re: Marketers may need to learn SEO for AI

What happens is ad-blockers.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

If it's all the same, then it's capitalism at work, isn't it ?

Anything that gets the bullshit out of the way is positive for me.

Arm's lawyers want to check assembly expert's book for trademark missteps

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Mushroom

Arm is a trademark of Arm

If it were me, and my life of support and faithfulness was being upended like that, I would start every public speaker event by saying something along the line of :

"Let me be perfectly clear : we are talking about Arm, which is a trademark of Arm, not Leg. And it's those fuckers over there that are watching me right now, that want me to say that Arm is a trademark of those fuckers. Just to be clear. Thank you."

Google warns infoseccers: Beware of North Korean spies sliding into your DMs

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Challenge accepted

"this one requires victims to fall prey to both a phishing attempt via malicious advertising and questionable prompts"

Ooh, because you think that'll stop them ?

No, my friend, there will be idiots clueless users who will do whatever some random stranger tells them to do.

As someone wrote in these forums not long ago, it is strange how people completely forget real life and do things online that they would absolutely never do in the same situation in real life.

What's that, random stranger I just met in the street ? But of course I will give you the keys to my house so you can take pictures for your scrapbook. And, when you're done, just be nice and put them under the mat when you close the door. Have a nice day !

Microsoft, recently busted by Beijing, thinks it's across China's ever-changing cyber-offensive

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Thumb Up

"social media users are as much of a problem as China's propagandists"

Effin' A

SK hynix says no Huawei its memory should be in Chinese wonder-phone

Pascal Monett Silver badge
WTF?

"the handset's existence may therefore spur further sanctions"

Just a minute there, because China is capable of making a fully home-grown phone, the US is going to impose new sanctions ?

That does not sound very fair.

Is the US also going to impose new sanctions because China has discovered how to burn coal ?

I mean, while they're at it . . .

Windows August update plays Blue Screen bingo – and MSI boards got the winning ticket

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Hmm.

There is no insurance problem.

The EULA, which you agree to by using the product, specifically absolves Borkzilla of any and all responsibility now and forever. Amen.

Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

Pascal Monett Silver badge
FAIL

"Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars"

And it wasn't until you started meddling in it.

You put up a vast comms network in the sky, which is good. Then, as usual, you start getting ideas on how it is supposed to be used and by who. You shouldn't.

A comms network will be used by nefarious people that are up to no good. If you can't hack it, then shut down Starlink and be done with it.

The Internet is rife with DDOS, scams, kiddie pr0n and other unsavory things. I don't hear anybody shutting off Russia because of any of that.

Oh go grow a pair already.

India warns ecommerce 'basket sneaks' and 'confirm shamers' their days are numbered

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Thumb Up

Well done India

This nation is becoming a beacon of trustworthyness and making things better on the Internet.

Congratulations on showing the way, or at least confirming the way, to a better world.

It's good to see that the right decisions can be taken at high levels. Shame on the states that do not follow suit.

Microsoft to kill off Outlook REST API v2.0 in 2024 – for real this time

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Of course Borkzilla wants everyone on Graph

That way it can fleece the userbase even more.

If you like to play along with the illusion of privacy, smart devices are a dumb idea

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"what they trade for that peace of mind"

is the ability to get home when "smart" doorbell servers are offline.

Which is, of course, a million to one chance, so it happens nine times out of ten when you really need to get inside.

And I'm sorry, but I think there must be a mid-term between selling my personal data to all and sundry and living like a cave man.

It's called dumb terminals, dumb switches, dumb doorbells (get your fat ass off that couch and go see who's there), dumb shutters and a VPN for when you just can't help it.

UK rejoins the EU's €100B Horizon sci-tech funding program

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Facepalm

"it wanted to pursue a domestic fusion energy strategy"

Sure. Because it's always a good idea to go solo on a project that has already taken decades and multiple billions from an entire economical coalition.

Even better, go solo when actual advancements are being made.

Brilliant timing !

Just like Brexit.

UK admits 'spy clause' can't be used for scanning encrypted chat – it's not 'feasible'

Pascal Monett Silver badge

They didn't "accept" anything. They're just waiting for it to be "technically feasible".

Which proves that they don't understand that it is not feasible, technically or otherwise.

This is just basic political maneuvering. Move the goalposts, look like you're doing something.

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Facepalm

Scanning has no use - no need to wait for feasible

Did I miss something ? Didn't we just have an article proving that not backdooring encryption does not prevent the law from doing its job ?

Can someone please take a cluebat and beat some sense into these people ?

I'd pay to see that.

Scientists turn to mid-20th century tech for low-power underwater comms

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Thumb Up

Impressive

A 70-year-old tech I had never heard of before is now the future of underwater communication and detection. And, obviously, the person having invented that tech had no idea that it would be used in that way.

If that's not upcycling, I don't know what is. Well done to the boffins who created this.

Now I await with anticipation the imminent posting somewhere stating that this Van Atta was actually a lizard man from Ceti Alpha Tau, who left this tech on stone tablets to be sure that Humanity would discover it, for . . reasons.

Toyota servers ran out of storage, crashed production at 14 plants in Japan

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Out of space

I'm not a DBA, but I do believe that those people keep an eye on that sort of thing, normally. And, if I'm not mistaken, there should be notifications about storage space, and regular reports. You don't just run out of space one morning.

So, if all of that is true (and I have no reason to believe that Toyota DBAs are incapable of using such tools), then how on Earth can this have happened ?

Could it be that the DBA was clamoring for the budget to augment storage and was being basically ignored ?

If so, I don't think they'll ignore him again.

SAP user group calls for support deadline reprieve amid hospital billing worries

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Nationalise

Why should the EU bear the cost of that ?

The fact that German hospitals, who likely have just as tight a budget as any other hospital, have chosen SAP as their ERP provider is a choice that concerns German hospitals, not the EU.

Besides, it would not be the EU that could nationalise SAP, it would be Germany.

The EU is not yet a country, even though some people up there seem to believe that they can wield the power.

India's Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission hibernates to see out a long lunar night

Pascal Monett Silver badge

I do not find that that validates Putin in any way. It explains it, but it does not validate it.

It seems to me that it is the entire Russian elite that are pining for the days when their power was a reality.

Those days are long gone, erased by corruption, greed and power manipulation. The Soviet Union was already not a place that took kindly to reality, and that mindset has been carefully conserved in Russian minds today.

At least, those minds that talk of power.

Microsoft admits slim staff and broken automation contributed to Azure outage

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"We have temporarily increased the team size "

Temporarily.

So, the next time there's a "power sag", you'll be in exactly the same position again ?

That's manglement for you. Always use the minimum resources until you hit the wall, then boost like crazy until you feel safe enough to go back to minimum.

What could possibly go wrong ?

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Nah. Wait for the failure that will educate him.

If he's intelligent enough for that . . .

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Borkzilla doesn't know how to manage sleep.

My SOP when getting a new computer is to modify the standard power config to forbid sleep and hibernation.

As far as I'm concerned, when I need that PC, it is supposed to be awake and ready to roll. If I don't need it, I shut it down. Especially these days when boot times are livable.

Microsoft tells partners unbundling Teams is a 'compromise' with the EU

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"The Register was able to download from Microsoft without entering channel partner credentials"

Hmm. Doesn't that mean that you are guilty of terrorist hacking and computer abuse in the eye of the Home Office ?

Couldn't you get fined for that ?

I mean, people are apparently under risk of arrest for having accessed data that was publicly available, even if posted by mistake by some fat-fingered bobbie with a donut in his hand and another one in his mouth, so where does that put you ?

Europe's Ariane 6 takes rocket science seriously by testing patience before engines

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Flame

"Aschbacher admitted in a recent LinkedIn post"

What a shame to have to use LinkedIn to publish anything about Ariane.

Can't you use your own site for official communication ? Is that not worthy enough anymore to communicate with people who actually give a damn ?

When are you going to start posting on sewer-data.whogivesashit.whocares ?

How's about going back to official channels ?

Does anyone know what official means anymore ?

The Anti Defamation League is Musk's latest excuse for Twitter's tanking ad revenue

Pascal Monett Silver badge
FAIL

"I'm pro free speech, but against antisemitism of any kind"

Yes. Of course.

That's why you welcomed back all those neo nazis.

You fucking waste of resources.

Want tunes with that? India-made POS terminal includes a speaker

Pascal Monett Silver badge

A speaker and BluTooth in a PoS kit

I am waiting with baited breath to hear how the miscreants are going to abuse that kit.

Because I'm pretty sure it's going to happen.

Why BluTooth ? Don't shop merchants already have a sound system if that's what they want ? It's not difficult to put a CD player in a corner, and these days, you can probably find something that takes a USB key and has all the usual audio controls and speakers. Yeah, maybe it costs a bit more than 9 bucks, but it's already there. Adding BluTooth under the pretext of allowing music is really reaching for an excuse, as far as I'm concerned.

But hey, if they're happy with it . . .

Microsoft billing 3 cents a minute to revisit tedious Teams meetings via API

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Flame

Such a shame that we can no longer use local servers, eh ?

Eh, The CloudTM came and took away all the servers. It'll be wonderful ! we were told. No more admin worries ! they said.

They lied. There is just as much administrative headache with cloud servers, but it's worse because IT'S NOT YOUR SERVER ANY MORE.

And now, icing on the cake, you get to pay to obtain the recordings of YOUR MEETINGS.

Ain't The CloudTM just wonderful ?

IT needs more brains, so why is it being such a zombie about getting them?

Pascal Monett Silver badge

I think the professional certification industry is rife with this problem.

And, to start with, I have a problem with an exam that is supposed to prove my knowledge of a specific domain of programming, and it's a questionnaire of the pick-the-right-answer type. And the questions are the hardest to understand, because those who created the questionnaire did their damndest to make the question obscure and open to interpretation. There's always the obvious wrong answer, then the easy to eliminate answer, and you end up wrestling between two choices that could be acceptable if the question included such-and-such as a given. If you really know your domain, you can pull it off in spite of the odd mistake, but I don't see that such shenanigans prove my competence as a Lotus Notes developer.

You want to know if I know how to program ? Ask me to write the code to answer a specific problem. Then test the code. If it runs and it answers the problem, then I'm good.

But of course, that approach eliminates 100% of the certification industry of today.

Attackers accessed UK military data through high-security fencing firm's Windows 7 rig

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Facepalm

"the UK's Ministry of Defence [..] does not comment on security matters"

Then what does it comment on ? Security is it's job, isn't it ?

Ah, silly me. I forgot : we're talking about Government. Reality is on the other side of the door.