* Posts by Someone Else

3579 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Dec 2009

Elon Musk launches his own xAI biz 'to understand reality'

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From the article:

Those hoping to get a better explanation than Musk's brief tweet by visiting xAI's website won't find much to help them understand what the company actually plans to do there, either.

But you might find the Muskrat's vaunted poop emoji....

Google, DeepMind accused of 'stealing the internet' to create Bard AI chatbot

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Someone should tell the plaintiffs that the Internet also exists outside America.

NO! The last damn thing we need is for them to start scraping even more garbage from an even wider trough.

You're too dumb to use click-to-cancel, Big Biz says with straight face

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Real people? Shirley, you jest!

So the trade watchdog put out a call for "real comments from real people" [...]

Regardless, the trade groups will simply fire up ChatGPT to create as many thousands of individual "comments" as they think they need to poison the well. Does anyone here believe that the FTC, even with the best of intentions, will be able to filter out the bullshit from the industry groups?

Oracle pours fuel all over Red Hat source code drama

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Re: Opensolaris anyone?

[...] bright young MBAs [...]

Now there's an oxymoron I haven't seen or heard in years!

...and didn't miss it, either!

Sega COO backs away from blockchain

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Re: It's very strange...

That's a surprise. Now that blockchain has been supplanted by generative AI as the tech fad du jour, the only reason they ever had for contrivedly forcing the former into their game- whether or not it made sense- is gone.

Sure. So they will install "generative AI" into the game, which will hallucinate and modify the games such that no one can win...thereby making it so that there will be no need for these NFT that everyone is banging on about.

Australia's 'great example of government using technology' found to be 'crude and cruel'. And literally lethal to citizens

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Re: seems quite sensible

An IQ above room temperature...for starters.

Threads versus Twitter: Shouldn't we be happy the wheels are falling off antisocial social media?

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Re: Internet Interoperability Without Central Censorship

Oh, and here's one for you"

+ STFU

You're Bombastic Bob without the caps lock key, and I claim my $5...

Linux Mint cuts slice of 'Victoria' as 21.2 beta lands with dash of fresh Cinnamon

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Re: UIX

"a consistent experience across mobile phone UIs and a PC desktop"

...was asked for by nobody of no one, ever...

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The author is an increasingly grumpy old git, whose shortsightedness is not improving with age. As such, we long for the complete banishment of trendy flat UIs. We would welcome a return to skeuomorphic, fake-3D buttons, scrollbars and other controls, but perhaps that is no longer feasible as upstream projects move to newer versions of Gtk and other toolkits that have removed support for such things.

Amen, Liam, amen!

Now take yer flat-ass icons 'n' buttons 'n' 50 shades of grey, and git offa my lawn!

Microsoft's GitHub under fire for DDoSing crucial open source project website

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Never attribute to malice...

"We do not know if this is made with malice by Microsoft, if it is some sort of mistake, or if [it is one] of their cloud customers … running the attack.

I'd vote for door number 2...

Supreme Court says Genius' song lyric copying claim against Google wasn't smart

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Re: "the results were often character-for-character copies of song texts it hosts"

Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams are made of Cheese!

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@Pascal Monett -- Re: "the results were often character-for-character copies of song texts it hosts"

All you have to understand is that this Supreme Court is nothing but politicians in robes. If the case at hand has to do with the current "culture wars", then expect a political finding. For those that are run of the mill legal imbroglios, they fall back to their (often secondary) legal backgrounds, and provide a reasonable ruling...sometimes.

Now, if the run of the mill case can be converted, via some form of pretzel logic, into a culture wars issue, count on at least three of the so-called Justices to revert to their political selves. (I think you can figure out which 3...)

Dialup-era developer writes ChatGPT client for Windows 3.1

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Re: So this was part written by ChatGPT ?

Doubt it. Where would it find the training for that?

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Gak!

Next on the agenda: ClippyGPT, because why not?

You'd think we would have learned by now that just because you can do a thing, it doesn't mean you should do a thing.

Near Field Communication to get longer, stronger – better at contactless

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Re: Back when NFC was new

I asked my bank nicely and they issued me with an NFCless card.

Who is your bank? I asked the nice folks at Visa, and they basically handed me a hammer, and directed me to the beach.

Nicking the edge of my card sounds like a right fine idea. Thanks!

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Re: been known to accidentally pay with my default card

I'm going to get downvoted for this [...]

No, you're not...at least by anybody with an IQ above room temperature.

That can be either Fahrenheit or Celsius

Security? Working servers? Who needs those when you can have a shiny floor?

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Re: Multiple things lead to the conclusion

newly corrected plans

The most important (and most likely to be "overlooked") step!

Lawyers who cited fake cases hallucinated by ChatGPT must pay

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Re: What?

They hallucinate 100% of the time, it’s just that the training results in the hallucinations having a high chance of being accidentally correct."

Well said!

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@Blackjack

I prefer the term "Fabrications" since it is another word for lies.

A good point, Blackjack. However, I would infer from the word "Fabrication" a somewhat (to severe) malicious intent to deceive. From what I know about LLMs, no such intent can be inferred (at least, from the "market leader" LLMs). "Hallucination", on the other hand, does not imply such intent; it instead implies that the source of the hallucination is rather addled, and is not in full control of its capacities1. To me, this is a much more accurate representation of this phenomenon. YMMV, of course.

1 Anyone who has been there knows what I am talking about...

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Coffee/keyboard

|

L _ _ _ _ >

There! the post contains letters! Sheesh!

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I think there is some concrete skill that humans execute that makes it relatively less likely for us to confidently spout nonsense and then double down.

That "skill" appears to have been systematically purged from basically anybody identifying themselves as Republican.

And likely, from anybody identifying themselves as Tory, although not as sure about that; as a left-ponder, I'm not quite as familiar with right-pondian pols.

Mark Zuckerberg would kick Elon Musk's ass, experts say

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Hard to find someone to root for here. That said, there will be popcorn.

Bad times are just starting for India's IT outsourcers, says JP Morgan

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It can spew out BS that sounds smart, but is just word salad.

Sounds like Sarah Palin, except she never "sounds smart".

Guess what happened to this US agency using outdated software?

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Re: Thinking smart

Probably also still using SNA and 3270 terminal protocols…

Ooooh...Pain!

With dead-time dump, Microsoft revealed DDoS as cause of recent cloud outages

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Re: Ah, what a nice bit of camouflage

Your check from Micros~1 Marketing is in the mail.

False negative stretched routine software installation into four days of frustration

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"You're in a helicopter!"

Perhaps an unexpected style of answer, I agree, but I'm not sure it's actually wrong...

A/C's response reminded me of a joke a colleague told me awhile back. It goes something like this:

Two folks were flying in a helicopter along the west coast (of the US, for our Continental readers). At one point, a fog bank rolled in, and they became disoriented. After flying for a while, the pilot decided to descend to see if he could find some visible landmark he could use to regain his bearings. He descended into what looked like a college campus. On the ground he spotted a couple of folks looking back at them. He got on the 'copter's speaker, and asked, "Where are we?" One of the folks on the ground produced a marker and a large piece of cardboard, on which he scrawled: "You're in a helicopter!"

The pilot put on a wry grin, turned to the passenger and said, "I know exactly where we are. We're in Redmond, Washington and that's the Microsoft campus." The passenger, looking more than a little puzzled, asked, "How can you possibly know where we are from that response?" "Easy," the pilot replied. "I know we're over the Microsoft campus, because that answer is technically correct, and absolutely useless."

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Re: Don't be so surprised

Our product is perfect, you must have a bad computer, [...]

Bad Computer! Bad! Bad! No donut!

That someone could say that with a straight face (and not be laughed out of the conference call) indicates that it was, indeed, a different time.

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We have a winnah!

Amazon confirms it locked Microsoft engineer out of his Echo gear over false claim

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Re: Hypocritical

Just for my edification, what version(s) of Windows are not "severely limited"?

Didn't know there was such a thing. I guess you learn something new every day....

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Pint

Re: no backup strategy, SMH stupidity

But while the house might lock me out of the computer, the computer can't lock me out of the house.

Quote of the week, sir! Here's to you. - - - - - - >

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Re: What, no backup strategy?

If the light stops working on the whim of someone else, that is an intrusion into the "home" - it may as well be a hotel for all the sense of "belonging there" that is left. And that "someone else" doesn't even know you! It isn't even personal, you are literally nothing to them other than an account on their screen.

For the record, I do not, nor would I even consider, turning off someone's lights, whim or no!

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Happy

Re: A bit unfair

It's us long in the tooth engineers, that have a different attitude from growing up in different times, and learning the lesions of life. [Emphasis added]

Your Freudian slip is showing....

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

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Headmaster

Re: What I cannot understand ...

The Secret Service's role is personal protection and nothing more.

(Well there is this anti-counterfeiting thing that is in their remit, but that is not germane to this conversation....)

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Re: What I cannot understand ...

If I had a nickel for every instance of whataboutism in this forum...

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Re: What I cannot understand ...

Yeah, but that would require putting down the clicker set (welded?) to Fox Noise, putting down the Super-Slurpee full of Kool-Aid, and straining every synapse to try to comprehend what is there...all the while desperately trying to filter out the cognitive dissonance that would result. Sheesh! Too much work! Much easier to sit back and watch Hannity bullshit himself silly.

I mean, it never was about the facts, now was it?

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Re: What I cannot understand ...

Mary Trump (remember her?) posited recently that he's keeping them for leverage in a potential future business deal overseas. If these docs contain some embarrassing/compromising details on a head of state that tRump wants to do business in, they could be used to get The Orangutan a better deal.

Ego? Sure, but tRump is purely transactional, and these could help him in a transaction.

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Re: as did his aide Walt Nauta

Nothing in the EU would ever be an analog to Tejas!

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Re: Not a flight risk?

So, he could fly it to Paraguay, that famous refuge where old authoritarians go to die.

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Re: I can finally admit something

"Six degrees of Kevin Bacon"

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Re: I can finally admit something

[...] indeed, famously he's the only President never to have won a national election [...]

I suppose it depends on how you define winning a national election. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received more popular votes than did tRump, but tRump was (legally) installed as the President by dint of having more electoral college votes. One could make the argument that tRump "lost" the nation election, but won the Presidency.

Decision to hold women-in-cyber events in abortion-banning states sparks outcry

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Re: Women in Jobs?

It actually means the government may not mandate a religion.

It also means that the gubmint may not mandate religion.

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Re: Women in Jobs?

The problem here is allowing people in positions of power to believe "freedom of religion" means freedom of religion only if it is a their Christian religion.

There, FTFY.

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

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Re: Spot on!

...as a verb!

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Re: Thanks El Reg...

I've got a migraine after trying to grok that first paragraph.

Migraines aside, I got BINGO on 3 cards!

Oh, and wasn't it the Boomers that came up with Buzzword Bingo, in response/disgust to the Me Generation (Gen X)'s obfuscatory excess in trying to regularize their developing corporate greed?

WFH mandates bad for staff morale and stunt innovation

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Re: Bad headline

Using the phrase "I could care less", when they actually mean "I couldn't care less", never made sense to me, until I came to understand that part of the phrase was elided. The complete phrase is something along the lines of: I could care less, but I fucking don't, so fuck/bugger off!"

Sort of like an American offshoot of Rhymin' Slang...

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To quote the old song, "Just you wait, 'Enry 'Iggens!"

I find it quite possible that, given a large turnout of folks from home during that two-week period, that Salesforce's Powers That Be will make some kind of declaration along the lines of: "Well, what a wonderful turnout we had in the last weeks. We saw a discernable increase in productivity1 during that time. So after much discussion2, we have come to the inevitable conclusion that we need your asses/arses in seats here, so you all must start coming in at least 3 days a week...."

1Naturally, we don't have any documentation supporting this claim, and even if we did, you can't see it, anyway.

2OK, maybe a 5 minute conversation on the way to an Executive Lunch

File Explorer gets facelift in latest Windows 11 build

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Pint

@David 132-- Re: It looks like you're finding a file. Can I help?

Thanks, I needed a good laugh today! - - - - ->

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Re: The Recommended File feature

It's just blatant, self-serving, attention seeking by a company that feels the need to keep telling us about the "quality" of its product, rather than just letting that quality speak for itself.

These are the Sounds of Silence...

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Actually, more like: "Microsoft is fucking up File Explorer, again."

Google HR hounds threaten 'next steps' for slackers not coming in 3 days a week

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Re: You can work from home! Well, we should tell our users that they can.

Seems a bit contradictory hypocritical.

There, FTFY.