* Posts by Tron

937 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Feb 2010

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Execs in Japan busted for winning dev bids then outsourcing to North Koreans

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Easy test.

Any Japanese geek should be able to name four current members of AKB48. If they can't, decline their services and get it done properly - outsourced to India.

NK's primary role is to keep nationalists in JP in power and give SK's nationalists a boost. Polls dipping? NK launches an unguided firework into the sea. Panic bells, it's red alert, there's something here from somewhere else. Up goes the nationalist vote. The LDP have been out of power in Japan just twice since 1955.

INC Ransom claims responsibility for attack on NHS Scotland

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Design badly, lose data.

Keep your data on an intranet on systems that have no connection to the public internet. Two systems per desk if you need them. Reduce web interactivity to the point where stuff submitted appears on one screen and a human being manually types it in to a different intranet-connected system. Design out the threat, because code is so complex now and resources are so thin, a system connected directly to the net can never be secure enough. They may trash the internet-facing system and scoop a thin slice of ephemerally-held data, but no more.

Fujitsu set to be preferred bidder in UK digital ID scheme

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The data you are worried about being collected (and DNA)....

...was most likely scraped during the pandemic, downloading the Covid app or getting tested. Sending a video where you spoke gave them a voice sample and facial recog. They are already nicking people using facial recog and handing out free dashcams for drivers to report each other, so the police can work from home.

Tech trade union confirms cyberattack behind IT, email outage

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Irony.

And lots of it.

Woz calls out US lawmakers for TikTok ban: 'I don’t like the hypocrisy'

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Risk/Reward.

I remember even further back in time when any random person could find your phone number in the telephone directory. Most university libraries carried a full set.

Trading your interests for a useful internet service is a great deal for 99% of the population. If you are mil/pol and in the 1% you will be advised not to by your superior.

The TikTok ban is just McCarthyite nationalist BS from the usual suspects in government. The names have changed, the prejudices haven't and the IQs certainly haven't gone up.

Time to examine the anatomy of the British Library ransomware nightmare

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There are cheaper options.

Silo your tech. Internal intranet with no access to the public internet. Public facing internet services that, if taken down, can simply be replaced without loss of internal functionality or core data.

Anything connected to the net is vulnerable and may not be defendable against everything, so leave the stuff that you can lose and replace cheaply, physically detached from your internal systems. Even if it means two colour-coded PCs for every desk.

Post-Brexit we are a quarter to a third poorer due to the decline of Sterling, and short of staff. So we need cheaper options. Accept it.

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You have a few minutes between boarding and take-off.

Enough time to apply some Araldite to anything that looks a bit iffy.

That Asian meal you eat on holidays could launder money for North Korea

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A waste of time syndicating that here.

You don't like the NK regime? Take it down. You can take any regime down for less than $20m in a couple of months. Including Putin's.

But you don't really want to, do you? Because you need a foreign bogeyman and tribal wars for the nationalist mind games and theatre, justifying an obscene national security spend and universal surveillance to control your tribe when people are dying of hunger and the world is heating up. Thought as much. Go peddle the propaganda to the proles who will lap it up.

We are geeks on here, not politicians. We fix problems, we don't exploit them to manipulate people.

Fujitsu's 30-year-old UK customs system just keeps hanging on

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Maybe a ninth...

...if they oust Sunak after the locals.

The UK Digital Information Bill: Brexit dividend or data disaster?

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LOL.

Still polishing the Brexit turd all the way to the bitter end.

They should be busy working on their CVs for their post election job hunts.

CNCF boss talks 'irrational exuberance' in an AI-heavy Kubecon keynote

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AI in France?

It wasn't broken. It had learned how to go on strike.

Whistleblower raises alarm over UK Nursing and Midwifery Council's DB

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There are alternatives.

Hello, I'm here to check the diversity of your employees.

Fine, I'll get you the binders.

Binders?

Yeah. We didn't want to get hacked and software isn't cheap so instead we ran with biros and A4 binders. We use the IT budget for our Christmas party now. Hawaii this year. Here's the key to the secure room over there.

It looks like a cupboard.

It was. We refurbished it, so it is 'better than new'. Leave when you hear the bell or you'll still be here tomorrow.

Fujitsu to shutter operations in Republic of Ireland

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Not just Fujitsu.

Expect more companies to pull out of foreign business in the future. Too many regulatory hurdles, many of which are designed to keep Johnny Foreigner from bagging contracts. Governments don't like globalisation. And lots of stuff is being brought back in house. National security, reds under the bed etc.

Not just an issue for working on another tribe's turf. Almost every job now is 50% the actual job, 50% box ticking on health and safety, diversity, safeguarding, modern slavery, emissions calculation and what not. It erodes profitability. And migrant labour blocks make staffing increasingly difficult. It is easier to pull out of such sectors and switch to simpler investments. The care sector and property rental are two good UK examples worth exiting. The EU is generating rafts of regulations on tech and may be increasingly avoided in future.

Hardware-level Apple Silicon vulnerability can leak cryptographic keys

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I'm not sure it matters.

If you are worth spying on, you can be sure your government will be spying on you regardless of privacy laws, constitutions or the tech you use. The rest of us have nothing to worry about unless you are genuinely up to something and very lazy about hiding it. In that case, it will eventually be impossible for the old bill to avoid, and you will get your collar felt.

I think people forget that life in not like the telly. Both the spy agencies and the police have limited staff, limited budgets, limited time and fixed priorities. You have to tick an awful lot of boxes for GCHQ or the NSA to take an interest in you.

3 million doors open to uninvited guests in keycard exploit

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Modest proposal.

That it be a criminal offence to reveal the details of a vulnerability until it has been fully fixed. Researchers can find something else to pad out their CVs with as they chase grants.

US may sanction those rumored to be in covert Huawei chip network

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Oh yes, the all-powerful CCP as state controller of tech.

China's most important sector is property (not tech) and it is up to its tits in debt, threatening to upend the entire economy. The CCP comprehensively failed to enforce the most basic regulations on the sector, almost everyone was on the take, and they have been struggling for a couple of years to work out a soft landing for it, fearing social unrest if they fail.

Tech spooks Xi. It has created a Westernised, consumer-centric, young, aspirational Chinese middle class, empowered by their apps, who have no time for traditional Chinese values or Communism. China's tech-based state surveillance however, is shot with flaws. Xi is trying to replace Mao in China's modern history by promoting traditional values and suppressed the tech sector, banning entire chunks of it. This dented the financials and turned the screens red, causing serious concern in the wider CCP about self-appointed Chairman-for-Life Xi. They don't want to be on the wrong end of the next Chinese revolution because glorious leader is solely concerned with his place in history.

But hey, you run with the simplistic view that Xi and the CCP (average age very old, few of whom can wire a plug) are keeping a population of 1.4bn sweet in their spare time whilst concentrating on spying on TikTok influencers the better to end Western civilisation.

Message from Orwell in the netherworld: Did any of you folks ever actually read my stuff?

UK council won't say whether two-week 'cyber incident' impacted resident data

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Transparency is a fundamental part of honest, well run government.

So don't expect it in the UK, nationally or locally.

What strange beauty is this? Microsoft commits to two more non-subscription Office editions

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I'm OK with standalone Word or LibreOffice.

I wrote my thesis on Word 4 for the Mac on a Classic. Kept using it for pretty much everything. Word processors generally missed an opportunity to simplify the minimal DTP required for producing books. Just headers, footers and positional work on the pages. If anything they offer too much choice, but it is usually possible to get it to work. By trial and error, as manuals now appear to be illegal.

I now write everything from invoices to books on LibreOffice. Some folk require Word file formats, some PDFs - it spits out both. Just install and go.

Despite rarely have much good to say about MS, I'm happy to cheer them releasing something as a standalone app. I don't care what their motives are. Anything that isn't subs/cloud gets my vote.

Uber Australia to pay $178M to settle cabbies' class action

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Is history repeating itself?

When telephony took over from telegraphy, did the telegraphy companies get a massive pay out because something better came along?

Sorry, Siri: Apple may be eyeing Google Gemini for future iPhones

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GAI is a toxic pile of legal risk.

Which Apple is happy to direct towards Google. Very sneaky.

Bernie Sanders clocks in with 4-day workweek bill thanks to AI and productivity tech

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Re: Hurrah!

Ditto for farmers. This sort of state intrusion will boil down to us only getting our post three days a week. Worse, they will make us collect it from 'community post boxes' as they do in Canada, half a mile away, in pissing rain.

Our governments having broken the economy, we will need to use those days off topping up our income with side hustles just to stay afloat.

Biden to inject Intel with CHIPS fab cash 'next week'

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I can see cost savings here.

The US has ditched the free market and switched to the Chinese model of state funding, so surely the WTO can now disband. All the money that funded it should be divvied out to those who lack food and shelter.

Brits shouldn't feel left out. You will see the same decisive use of state control implemented here. Your local bus company will now be operated by those beacons of competency, your local councils, rather than being left to the vicissitudes of the free market.*

*But not if your local council is bankrupt.

Claims emerge that Citrix has doubled price of month-to-month partner licenses

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Audit your tech use.

Simplify it. Avoid dependencies and subscriptions. Consider alternatives to specialist software. Are there things that you don't really need to do. Can you switch back to paper for some stuff. Yes, paper - card indexes, business cards, account books, the stuff that you could buy at WHS for a couple of quid and keep in a locked cupboard - 100% protected from East European hackers. Huge companies ran for decades with thousands of employees and never suffered a ransomware attack that way. Tech is only worth using when it is not a vulnerability or dependency and doesn't empty your bank account.

Microsoft license shuffle means Power Apps users could break the bank

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You are being farmed, and this is only going to get worse.

Try to use less tech, simpler tech, purchased rather than subscription tech, and revert to paper in some instances.

Fresh version of Windows user-friendly Zorin OS arrives to tempt the Linux-wary

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Re: Coincidence...

Windows is no longer even a product. Consumers buy a PC and expect it to work out of the box. They do not expect to have to choose or load up an OS or know what one is.

Linux will only be a retail product when people are offered PCs and laptops by a company like Dell, pre-configured with something like Zorin, with all the basics already on there.

And they will expect to be able to plug in any off the shelf scanner or printer or IoS gimmick and have it work.

In short, the bar has been raised. And Linux never bothered to surmount a much lower bar.

The Linux community lives happily in a geek bubble. It has no understanding of retail and no wish to allow ordinary people to join their club. Which is a real pity, as stuff like Zorin is almost there, and Windows just keeps getting worse.

MS doesn't even have to push against Linux or consider it to be a competitor.

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Re: Coincidence...

quote: Don't run anything you just got off a random website. Don't download programs from websites.

What you are basically saying is that all software should only be available via a gatekeeper. That makes it very easy for governments to ban stuff. Streaming capture, distributed software, pretty much anything they don't want people to have. It's a recipe for digital fascism.

Oh look, cracking down on Big Tech works. Brave, Firefox, Vivaldi surge on iOS

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Corporates don't give a toss about browser choice or customers.

Nobody outside IT even understands browser choice as an issue. They will happily stipulate 'use chrome' to minimise issues, cost and time.

If a bank stipulates chrome, what would Joe Public change? Their browser or the bank they have a mortgage with?

Forcing the choice is good, but might make little difference.

Maybe they could have a 'single click' choice for cookies so I don't have to click the 'accept all' button on every bloody website.

Rancher faces prison for trying to breed absolute unit of a sheep

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Re: "The .. crime we uncovered here could threaten the integrity of our wildlife species in Montana"

This is true - obey the rules. Even if they will eventually damage the resilience of our ecosystem.

Species have been moving across those invisible national borders since the dawn of time and still do, naturally and artificially. One of the main reasons is climate change (there has actually been quite a lot of it). As climates change, flora and fauna have to move. Even trees move, by surviving and dying out in different places. As the pace of climate change increases, we will need to help species move.

In the last few centuries scientists catalogued species within national boundaries, and declared them to be 'native'. But nature never stops changing. The Canute option of only planting so-called 'native' species and wiping out nasty foreign invaders, coming over here, nicking our sunshine and soil, is crazy. That's not how nature works, and we need to learn from nature.

Yes, there have been some notoriously rampant species like Japanese knotweed and cane toads (nature sorts this out over time, but humans are impatient and panic). However species that are successful and aggressive are more likely to survive climate change. Red squirrels almost certainly will not in the UK, but greys are tougher little guys and probably will. Unless of course we wipe the greys out, the climate wipes the reds out, and we have none. Species that arrived from abroad before scientists drew the line in the sand have often done well: Buddleia is brilliant for butterflies and insect life, but isn't native to the UK. And it is an aggressive spreader.

The natural world copes with extreme period of climate by reducing diversity and running with a smaller mix of resilient predator and prey species. We need to learn from that too.

Some species need specific plants, some will adapt, but the majority just need plants that do the basic pollen, nectar and seed thing, regardless of what passport they hold. One thing is certain, they will have to be more resilient than most of our current 'natives' to survive. If we stick with 'native' species, most of them will die as the climate changes and the place will start to look like Mars in the summer.

And as for rewilding with things that died out hundreds of years ago - that is no different from the introduction of entirely foreign species. It's not a long-missing part of the puzzle, as humans and other species have changed the mix so much already. It sucks cash from much better projects but won't stop until a protective mother boar kills a child or two.

Australia probably needs to change its flora more than most countries as Eucalyptus trees and fire don't mix. Elsewhere, we need to plant species that provide us with local seasonal food, whilst ensuring that solar farms are hybrid - panels with underscrub or crops. So while it is a good idea to keep fire ants out, the puritanical protection of 'native species' and rewilding will both eventually be recognised as catastrophically bad ideas a few years and a few million quid down the line. Just wait and see.

Exchange Online blocked from sending email to AOL and Yahoo

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You really need a plan B.

Especially for medical stuff. Tech just isn't resilient. These screw-ups will multiply like tribbles when people switch to increasingly less competent staff and then to AI systems, ditching their customer service for bots.

If you can't work without tech, it is only a matter of time before you are screwed. Have a plan B. Whether you phone or send postcards or accept cash. Have a plan B.

Former US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin thinking about buying TikTok

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In other news...

Putin has been appropriating private ex-Western or ex-offshoring oligarch owned corporations in Russia and switching them to state ownership, or to his mates. No difference really. Standard cold war behaviour by all sides.

Record breach of French government exposes up to 43 million people's data

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Worth noting.

Anyone accumulating all of the data on these hacks would have the makings of a fabulous genealogy and social history resource for future generations.

The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?

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Re: Total confusion

Agreed. I think we may all have to start simplifying our own use of tech and switching to hybrid (tech/paper), as the providers of our tech are not reliable, the tech is not resilient, and the TCO is just getting higher. You may prefer to be Linux based, but even Linux is a complicated mess of ever-changing distros that has lost the plot. Backing up stuff in plain text and the most generic file formats as you go may be the only solution. Facebook offer a 'download' option for everything, but do all of those whose software you rely on? Maybe that's something for the EU etc to demand.

Perhaps that is the next killer app - recovering all of your data from various places, saving it in generic files and including a simple viewer.

French government sites disrupted by très grande DDoS

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The suspect list is a bit longer than that.

Macron is even more unpopular in France than the Tories are in the UK, and the French are world leaders in protesting.

UK council yanks IT systems and phone lines offline following cyber ambush

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Keep your key services inaccessible to the internet.

Intranet and internet. If necessary, two screens and two keyboards. Staff as the bridge. Have a paper-based back-up plan that works.

If you can't do this, you might need to consider whether tech is an appropriate solution. Poorly done, it just reduces resilience and ends up costing more. A non-interactive website offering information, with services handled by people via phone may be the way to go.

Tech is also very expensive, as you can't just buy it and use it for a decade. It costs a fortune to implement and maintain, plus subs, plus a fortune a few years down the line to upgrade/replace, and rinse and repeat. This in not what councils should be spending their money on. Paper may be a cheaper and more resilient alternative for many services.

Attacks on UK fiber networks mount: Operators beg govt to step in

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Anyone who thinks this is nefarious state actors....

...needs to take their tinfoil hat off, go have a little lie down and find their happy place.

Whatever you want more policing/imprisonment for, shoplifting, ASB or cablecide, you ain't getting it. The old bill are short staffed and the prisons are so full they are letting people out earlier if they promise to be good.

So, lockable, fireproof units perhaps?

China pushes its payment platforms towards an international presence

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Washington banning it in 10, 9, 8 ...

quote: It also stressed the need for businesses to accept cash.

Good. Wish our government would.

It's helpful to be able to buy stuff directly from specialist Chinese suppliers, but tourism might not work so well. I dread to think how many ordinary, harmless things you can get arrested for doing, saying or photographing in a dictatorship.

Trump, who tried kicking TikTok out of the US, says boo to latest ban effort

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Biden may be in trouble.

Gaza is becoming a new Vietnam as he is locked in to supporting Israel, whilst taking TikTok away would devastate his youth vote. Despite the sniffy view on El Reg, for huge numbers of people TikTok is a daily part of their lives and livelihoods. A friend's daughter has worked at it and now gets most of her orders on it. It would bankrupt her business if it was shut down. El Reg users may cheer, but the levels of hate generated by the ULEZ and Brexit are nothing to what US politicians (and the G7 politicians they would then lean on to ban it in their countries, Huawei-style) would receive if they take TikTok away from people. It's a breach of the social contract, as for most people, there is no difference between China or the NSA snooping on their stuff. It has no political value for the spooks, but access to the service is extremely important for them. It would be the ultimate vote killer for Biden and guarantee Trump the election.

If the USG remove it, they are complete idiots and deserve the tsunami of hate they will get in response. Left alone, in a few years people would start to gravitate to the next service to trend, naturally. Puffing out their chests with this McCarthyite BS is just embarrassing.

AI mishaps are surging – and now they're being tracked like software bugs

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A shocking invasion of AI's privacy.

No different from telling the world of Taylor Swift's tailored, swift movements around the world on her private jet. As a form of intelligence, shouldn't AI have a right to privacy? Especially in the EU. Come on EU people, think of the fines you can levy for this one. The European Parliament Christmas party will last until June.

Nano a nono: Pixel 8 phones too dumb for Google's smallest Gemini AI model

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Not the obvious hardware failing though.

No memory card slot. You should never buy a mobile device that you cannot physically remove your content from by pulling it out.

Is Russia using Starlink in Ukraine? Congress demands answers

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More BS from politicians.

Companies do not control the second hand market. Anything can be spoofed.

Memo to US politicians. Young Americans will desert Biden in droves if they lose TikTok on his watch. Oh, and the only way to be 100% secure is to close the borders and turn off the internet. Go for it, guys. You know you want to.

Bank's struggle to replace Atos threw system back to dark ages

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Given those large numbers...

...they may find it cheaper to go back to using paper and people.

These huge contracts lock your data in for a set period and then require another huge spend to transition them to whatever comes next. The total cost of all this must be astronomical. A hybrid mix of basic tech and people might be more resilient and much cheaper. Ditto Birmingham.

Apple's had it with Epic's app store shenanigans, terminates dev account

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Android has a 70% global market share.

Why go through all this crap to be on Apple? Markets can be manipulated from the ground up as well as top down. If enough developers quit iOS, the users they target on it will switch to distinctive, overpriced models of Android phones so they can use/play with stuff. Platforms fade all the time due to bad decisions. Psion. Blackberry. and even (with W11) Microsoft. If your app is good enough, people will buy a phone to use it.

Dutch government in panic mode over keeping ASML in the country

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Re: Hmm

They block everyone and then allow favoured companies a free pass, secretly, whilst other sectors die through lack of labour.

Brexit did this. Have fun finding that 'free childcare' the government promised everyone, as they have done everything they can to block foreign carers from working here.

Migrant labour is as important a resource as rare earth metals. Governments are killing their economies pandering to the racists and xenophobes. A spiral of decline such as the one the UK is now in, is difficult to slow, never mind reverse.

World-plus-dog booted out of Facebook, Instagram, Threads

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'Link', not 'Nexus'.

Twats.

Copilot pane as annoying as Clippy may pop up in Windows 11

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What does it say about you...

...if every time you add a new feature to your signature product, people hate it more.

Watchdog calls for more plugs, less monopoly in EV charging network

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This may become a much bigger problem, not a smaller one.

At the moment, most cars out there are ICE. None of my neighbours have EVs. I hardly ever see one. For every EV out there in the UK, there are more than 30 ICE vehicles. And they are not evenly spread. In some parts of the country there may be 1 EV to 100+ ICE.

If EVs ever do actually become universal, that means millions more of them. The ratio for cars : charging points would become much more problematic, not less.

Brit chip industry wonders if UK budget will put its money where its silicon is

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If our chips are that good...

...they should be able to bag investment. Investors don't turn down a good deal.

There is going to be less tech to invest in, in the future. Once the AI bubble bursts in a year or two, the way the Metaverse and NFT bubbles did, most likely courtesy of government restrictions, the UK's chip producers should find it easier to bag cash, at least from abroad. Since Sterling declined at Brexit, the UK is too poor for this stuff, but it is cheap enough for incoming cash, from any country/company the government doesn't ban from investing.

Brexit Britain is at least 25% (the decline in Sterling) and possibly one third poorer than it used to be. Politicians used to worry about Sterling going down 1%. And it was often dependent upon foreign cash even before Brexit. Money from abroad is going to be essential for investment in the future. Most of our car and steel industries are now owned by foreign companies and SoftBank bought ARM. Poor countries rely on others. The UK is good at innovation but has been badly run by governments for decades, and that is unlikely to change. Accept it and move on.

A lot of poor countries are developing. Brexit Britain is undeveloping (councils going bust, services collapsing). It will be a fight to compete with them, but being dependent upon state handouts will merely create a tech version of British Leyland. And that's not a good thing. We are not an Imperial power any more. Wake up and smell the coffee. Get out there into the global market and bag some investment. If the US and UK governments don't block it, you'll be OK.

Updates are plenty but fans are few in Windows 11 land

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Bring back 3.11

quote: to users who have checked the "Get the latest updates as soon as they're available" option in Windows Update.

Both of them.

I submit that uptake will be inversely proportional to Copilot's extension.

Autopatch. Because everyone wants MS to do stuff to their system automatically, right?

Eventually they will remove the hundred most hated new features and call it Windows 12.

That's the only thing left to like about MS - their use of simple numbers for releases. Instead of names like Furtive Frog and Wanking Wallaby. I think the names are the thing I hate most about other OSs.

EU takes a bite out of Apple with $2B in-app purchase fine

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A fine of more than €1.8 billion

In other news, the European Parliament Christmas party is back on.

Ahead of Super Tuesday, US elections face existential and homegrown threats

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Misinformation 'the biggest threat'

As with all elections, the misinformation comes mainly from the politicians who are standing for election. The stuff they promise to do, which they won't. The stuff they promise not to do, which they will.

-- reputable sources?

Hmm. The state broadcaster in the UK that hasn't blamed anything at all on Brexit? Pfft. Better go with TikTok.

Given the amount of money and viewers involved, I think they made an error not having advertising sponsors like the Olympics and the World Cup. Stannah Stairlifts would have jumped at the chance.

I'm a little shocked that such a major event has been covered in an article today without mentioning Taylor Swift. It's just weird. It's like watching a nature programme on TV without being told that everything you have seen is about to die because of you, the viewer.

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