* Posts by Denarius

2178 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Jun 2009

Palantir summons specter of nuclear conflict as share price collapses

Denarius
Meh

really ?

plenty pf people and bots echo current mob mantras, perhaps. Self censorship is now common because of the noise of some who make a virtue of intolerance and censorship. Got to the point that the old "dont discuss religion and politics" maxim has become default behavior aside from the marxist farms in education. That is a problem during elections such as the one in Oz where common response to any political advertising is to hit mute or change channel. Interesting to me is the number of people who in passing conversation state they have stopped watching any TV.

Microsoft, Apple, Google accelerate push to eliminate passwords

Denarius

Re: And then your fingerprint scans get stolen.

do you mean there are fingerprint readers that work reliably ? Never found one. Also those of us who work in abrasive conditions do not have detectable prints sometimes, not to mention the issues of dirt, grease. All very well taking 3 minutes plus to use an industrial hand-cleaner, redirecting to toilet facilities, back to office or device location. etc. How long before intrusion developers find ways to hijack TFA systems ?

OTOH, in remote office situations, WFH, etc, TFA is sensible. Used it for decades. IMHO, just not a one size fits all solution, especially with the various device types now in use. Is having a second physical device so I can unlock my phone reasonable ? As others have said, will this be another closed system by the tech bros that is used to levy excess costs onto a population with no choices ?

John Deere tractors 'bricked' after Russia steals machinery from Ukraine

Denarius

Re: If I owned a piece of equipment

Minor detail, but car parked in middle of field theft problem ? The overage thief wont make that much effort. For big items like semitrailers with a D10 dozer on back it happens, very rarely. I know of one case in WA Kimberlies where there is much SFA and cattle stations have uses for cheap earthmoving equipment. Bury semi and one dozer looks like another. I digress.

As for cars, one item of amusement when I am recreational flying is the occasional farm that has a paddock of cars invisible from anywhere but aircraft. Nothing seems to move in those paddocks for years, except maybe wombats and roos. Given the recent interest in older vehicle that dont have electronics bleeping, alarming, blinking etc, prices for complete or nearly complete old cars are rising, at least in Oz. For one, they are owner repairable. Second, it fun to have something you have to drive with a real risk of failure if driver is incompetent.

MIT's thin plastic speakers fall flat. And that's by design

Denarius

updated cliche

as well as the eyes in the picture following you around the room, its listening too

Intel’s neurochips could one day end up in PCs or a cloud service

Denarius

Debatable claim. How parts of brains work is known in outline. Visual and speech processing for instance. Specialised sections recognise lines, colours etc. Fine. Memory ? Partly as there are several types of human brain memory. As for how our brains work, I thought that was a long way away. We know some brain parts functions well, but how the whole works ? Still worth working on as the classic Von Neuman architectures seem to be approaching end game

IBM not cooperating with discovery, say attorneys in age-discrimination case

Denarius

A few more years of this

Bill Gates advice to Apple pre "The Return of Steve Jobs" will apply to the ruins of IBM. Selling to Fujitsu would seem logical. Needless to say the senior manglement will score huge bonuses for their brilliant business acumen </sarc>

New graph database features eschew need for DBAs

Denarius

not my field but

When did I first hear the "No DBA required" line? About 1997 from some company on west coast of USA. How did that turn out ? Bring back Adabas Natural, if it ever went away. One needs DBAs who understand the data for that to perform at its best. Given its speed on the hardware of the day, I wonder how it would scale and perform today ?

Travel tech sheds legacy baggage, heads to the cloud with Google

Denarius

Re: Not in the interest of customers

not even close comparison. Supermarkets dont change shelf distribution or goods advertised on a single consumer basis. As for collecting data, skipping "Rewards" cards reduces their profiling which I suspect, does get sold. IT better managing supply chains ? Could do, in a world without Putin, COVID, etc as many companies are discovering.

Denarius

Re: Not in the interest of customers

Andy,

exactly right. Originally Sabre solved real problems. Now it seems it is just another funnel for the TLAs and the commercial snoops. In decades I have yet to see a targeted add that was of interest, yet alone useful.

Microsoft dogs Strontium domains to stop attacks on Ukraine

Denarius

Re: Why? Because it's the right thing.

No ulterior motive ? Evidence for that assertion ? I hope its true, but history suggests otherwise. The big question is above. Why a company, not a lawful government taking over the domains? Almost as if western governments are just cover sheets for corporate clowns. Both are incompetent enough to be hard to distinguish at times. Taxpayer money and shareholders money, treated the same careless greedy way

Finnish govt websites knocked down as Ukraine President addresses MPs

Denarius

EU army ?

Such a hybrid would be frozen solid on creation IMHO. So many bureaucrats, so many memories of power, empire and multiple parliaments all competing for influence.

Russia (still) trying to weaponize Facebook for spying, Ukraine-war disinfo

Denarius
Joke

perhaps FB usage is due to a shortage of JCBs ?

Volvo car sales tumble amid ongoing chip shortages

Denarius

which may be part of the reason

used car prices have risen sharply. Also, a common theme as above. Instead of a few simple switches, multiple smears required on a screen to find the right menu, right option, while interrupting something needed, such as navigation. Interestingly, age of driver is not affected by this common complaint. One wonders if a low cost model has a niche with decent engine controller and basic safety systems but separate entertainment and navigation systems might have market ? Sort of a 2020 middle to low market segment level.

If you fire someone, don't let them hang around a month to finish code

Denarius

OTOH, when version control goes thru a few outsourcerers, I found all code I had written on one site for the departments main activity had the comments removed when I looked at it a decade or so later. Why, no idea. The original team kept a full change history of who, when, why and what.

The month I worked for DEADHEAD: Yes, that was their job title

Denarius

art copies real life

had a consultancy job installing hardware like this once. No onsite infrastructure, no contacts for infrastructure. So often found shadow networks are only way to get real work done. Its who you know. Always be polite to security guards and techs. One day you may need their good graces

Brit techie shows us life in Ukraine amid Russian invasion

Denarius

Re: "sadly none of his party have had the balls to kick him out yet"

evidence for this assertion ?

Denarius

Re: "sadly none of his party have had the balls to kick him out yet"

labels are irrelevant. Money is not.

We have redundancy, we have batteries, what could possibly go wrong?

Denarius

Re: What could possibly go wrong?

Back in the day, Detroit Diesel 2 strokers with Rootes blowers could go from cold to full load in 0.3 second. Designed for emergency power systems and good for it. Downsides were an insatiable thirst, lots of oil leaks allowing oil to be blown into radiators making overheating a problem if located in deserts as these were. Also very fussy about type of oil. It had to be very low ash, which meant only one supplier on planet or they wore out even faster.

Lastly, a short life, requiring new rings every 3 years or so. Some were use in fishing boats where they were popular for a while.

Oracle creates new form of free Solaris

Denarius

digression

IBMs Power may continue. Whether that is to support both AIX and RedHat is another issue. Muttering from users suggests a strong push in IBM to encourage moves to Redhat Linux.

New flashpoint: US may ask Chinese tech firms to bin Russia

Denarius

Re: Rail "cargo" trains from China to Europe.

whatever Tufton is. The single point of interest is : Is codejunky wrong ? Is this site getting infested with ideologues who cant see the wood for the trees?

Russia is the advanced persistent threat that just triggered. Ready?

Denarius

Re: Between that

my point precisely. You dont get out of your echo chamber. Try talking to farmers dealing with bureaucrats who know how to run a property from an air-conditioned office.

Denarius

Re: Between that

Did I say all greens are marxists ? Straw man attack. Nope, just many of them seem to think from that world view and sound like marxists. Unless you are one, in which case you cant hear how like utopian materialists they sound. Sometimes people have ideas, sometimes ideas have people. In my experience most greens are useful idiots with good intentions and little knowledge of the actual environment issue they feel a concern over in last two decades. Useful for political influence.

In short, EU and pals will have get along with Russia on Russian terms because they have to. Wont change until there is a return to energy independence in EU or there is another Russian revolution or collapse. Perhaps China will want the territory it lost to Russia in 19th century back.

Denarius

Re: Between that

Did you notice I wrote of long time span, not last year ? Merkle hung around for how long ? As for young Jake, true in recent history, not in last 6 month and probably a brief anomaly. As for watermelons, an old term. You youngun's dont read much, do you ?

Continuing to corporates and the collectivists, have any of you noticed both dislike free independent citizens and nation states ? Both want surveillance dystopias for their own reasons and both will try to use the other. It happened last century in Germany. If you dont study history over centuries, you dont understand the present as someone said.

Denarius

Re: "NOW is your time to shine!"

As usual AC, wrong way round. A part of the disinformatioin campaign. Old man and Hilarious were influenced by by links to Russia and the other place

Denarius
Coat

Re: Between that

@DS999. An excellent and often unrealised point. About 20% of USA gas (the real vaporous stuff) comes from Russia now, thanks to you know who on accession. Europe is in an even worse state, with Angela obeying her controllers orders to defuel and de-industrialise Germany with the help of useful idiots. Likewise other states such as Nederlands, UK shutting down their own gas fields so they now have to buy Russian gas or freeze in winter. Situation strategy model fits a long information warfare disinformation campaign that benefits only two countries. Did I mention that most devout green leadership historically have a marxist background and so feel a natural affinity for Marxs two holy lands ?

No need for conspiracy, because mere stupidity, expressed as a decades long focus on quarterly financial results is sufficient explanation for how a low level strategic misinformation game can win against an initially more powerful foe.

Mines the bright silver flame coat with the body armour inside

Website fined by German court for leaking visitor's IP address via Google Fonts

Denarius

variation on million monkeys typing

Jake,

brilliant allusion.

Denarius

@myhandler

yes.

Back up for a minute – Backblaze HD reliability stats show oldies can be goodies

Denarius

usage stats

Andy, thanks for info. However, whatever controllers inside each Tome and run by OS should have some device usage data surely . Just using SMART seems a trifle trusting. Just asking as my own past limited experience in big arrays allowed individual device data or at least virtual device stats were extractable, eventually.

Machine learning the hard way: IBM Watson's fatal misdiagnosis

Denarius

Re: I still tremendously respect the veterinary office...

I saw what you did there. Cunning and not catty

Earth to Voyager 2: Standby for connection – after we tip this water out of the dish

Denarius

monsoonal ?

Even better, a full bore La Nina with a monsoon trough further south that usual. Not as much as 1974, but some of the recent local storms are worthy of a Top End Wet. On the bright side, it is safe to slash the deep grasses except for the risks of bogging.

LG promises to make home appliance software upgradeable to take on new tasks

Denarius

Re: A clothes drier that adapts itself to prevailing conditions

I would up-vote you but you have not lived in a monsoonal climate, have you, especially with a new baby in the house. For most of Oz, though, a sensible attitude.

Denarius

so what do those dial thingies and buttons do ?

Another set of complications, buggy software and security problems solving no problems coming up.

Farm machinery giant John Deere plows into two right-to-repair lawsuits

Denarius
Joke

Re: John-Dear

Winky, you didnt mention the location of rebranding. I suggest backside or forehead with traditional hot iron applied to board and past CEOs

Denarius

In Oz

simpler alternative tractors are being bought. Ironically new Russian made machinery is doing well now despite appalling quality in 1980s because it has adequate instrumentation to do job, well enough made and no software and stupid "smarts". It can be fixed by owner. How much this happens on big factory farms I do not know. Different economics altogether. How times change

UK, Australia, to build 'network of liberty that will deter cyber attacks before they happen'

Denarius

rest assured

that liberty will be accompanied by more bureaucracy empowered to inflict fees, charges and mindless time wasting on citizens while miscreants wont even notice. The usual lawyers delusion of thinking that marks on paper mean something to those who by definition, ignore marks on dead tree carcass. Now if the pollies would do something about the torrent of phishing SMS scams plaguing this country they might get a positive response from the citizens. Instead the manglement fools want us to use and trust the most unsecured, easily lost and damaged devices on the planet with more and probably dodgy apps for routine activities that web browser provide the best interface for.

Despite having great innovation among the techies of all types, Oz leadership has a consistent penchant for choosing the worst possible combinations in anything, including fads. More Australian brown nosing rather than Australian crawl

Denarius

lower crew requirements

is actually a big issue for Oz. for some reason, humans dont like 4 months plus away from sunlight, let alone family, pubs and friends. Pay not keeping up with CEOs and senior clerks in suits also does not help. The unreliability of the Collins class means submarining is not seen as a career as you get so little sea time anyway while the latest bug/stuffup/great idea in gold plating is fixed/repaired/added/mangled.

'95% original' film star Spitfire could be yours for a mere £4.5m (or 0.05 Pogbas)

Denarius

Re: One of the best 5 minutes of my life

finally a reason to visit the ancestral dirt

Open source, closed wallets, big profits – nobody wins the OSS rock, paper, scissors game

Denarius
Joke

Re: Governments

So records were initially made by cutting grooves on nice round slices of tree from forest groves, Jake ?

Thre was I thinking 3 minutes was all a teenager could last doing one thing.

The year ahead in technology fail: You knew they were bad, now they're going to prove it

Denarius

good Snark

Rupert,

well done article. Fully agree, for what its worth. Just like the Old Register. <sniff, wipe a tear>

International Monetary Fund warns crypto-related risks could soon become systemic

Denarius

you mean

that the fiat inflating currencies that are not cryptos are not a problem also ?

Pentagon wants to drive digital and AI onto the battlefield

Denarius
FAIL

as usual

to bureaucrats, the problem of too much bureaucracy is more bureaucracy to enable the pursuit of power to continue. Consequently war fighting gets stopped by corporate arterial sclerosis and approved views, no matter how idiot ideologically formed. As for AI etc, more needless deaths of wedding parties and soldiers supposedly supported by the AI

Specs appeal: Qualcomm and Meta insist headgear to plug you into the metaverse will 'supersede mobile'

Denarius

not only but

living in a sometimes hot and sweaty climate , followed by cold and humid weather, I do not want another <deleted> object fogging up reducing my vision. The damned masks are bad enough. Also one more thing to stuff up use of needed sunglasses or motorcycle helmet. Lastly, as others have re-iterated, what problem does VR solve for the average person ? In meantime, search for Ed Kilburns song about the new LS22. Glider pilots might like it, techies so-so and the reset be utterly baffled.

Samsung wheels out new silicon that turns cars into 5G-fuelled entertainment hubs

Denarius
Thumb Up

Re: In cockpit video calls

Chris, true. Already we in recreational aviation have been for years warned, rightly, about electronic distraction devices. As for the surface transport systems, a few drives in a Merc emergency vehicle has put me off anything made even partly in Europe for life.

Robotaxis freed to charge across 60km2 of Beijing

Denarius

New Delhi

that brought back bad memories. Head on into big truck, missed by centimeters. Yes, robotaxis cant be much worse now I think about it. Perhaps they might even turn up on time, unlike human driven machines where 0630 means sometime before 1000

China trying to export its Great Firewall and governance model

Denarius

Re: I'm working on a new paper...

not those deep in debt, or NZ where its policy to learn proper diplomatic kowtows

Denarius

Re: Scaremongerers’R'Us

almost rational enough to consider thesis AMFM mkx is a troll masquerading as feral AI

Denarius
Meh

you gullible, gullible people

Left loves the idea once repackaged as fake news control to silence those who dont follow the social engineering goals.

Right loves the idea once repackaged as fact checking to silence those who dont follow the social engineering goals.

The battle used to be totalitarians versus free. Now we mostly blindly choose our selected tyrants under the delusion voting matters. What matters is who chooses and advertises the choices, such as they are.

A lightbulb moment comes too late to save a mainframe engineer's blushes

Denarius

Re: Surgical Safety Checklist

AFAIK, It did come from aviation. Aviation has had incident analysis for decades to improve practices. Simple checklists create a known reliable process. I believe a USA doctor noted the aviation procedures and tried it to manage surgery in his hospital. It showed a dramatic drop in hospital caused injuries and deaths so idea spread.

The ideal sat-nav is one that stops the car, winds down the window, and asks directions

Denarius

Satnavs

process for updating is a ripoff. Tried to update the satnav in an emergency vehicle used by a volunteer unit. Some of the smaller communities we go to even locals 30 km away have never heard of so updated maps matter. This being Oz, phone coverage is variable to nonexistent so built in it is. Following the vehicle users manual to web site and find demands for big money. So its downloads Google maps to phone and hope for best. IMHO, Google beats N**m*n units hands down. On long trip, a mere 600 km, Google pointed out a good but obscure road that took over 100km off. The dedicated N* unit insisted the road could not be used, regardless of settings. That turned into a minor amusement where I ran Google against the other unit to see which one had the highest error rate. Google generally best except in very minor backroads. Needless to day I still plan my longer trips using printed maps. One can see the trip in entirety and spot tolerable shortcuts off major highways. I will look at TomsTom for next unit though.

From the studio that brought you 'Mortal Wombat' comes 'Pernicious Possum'

Denarius
FAIL

Re: Pets? PETS?

when they pay the bills. Nope, no legal standing and not named on rates notices. So you expect me to spend my time and money so you feel good ? I rest my case. BTW wombats very recent in my woods. Only arrived 10 years ago, so they arrived on my land.