Re: shameless
Why do I suddenly have the Portal theme-song running through my head?
“We do what we must, because we can.
For the good of all of us,
Except the ones who are dead…”
Posts by David 132
3870 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2010
Page:
Windows Insider Dev Channel flies again as very flighty Canary Channel
Tech demo takes brain scan, creates a picture of what you're looking at
Tuesday 7th March 2023 23:51 GMT 
Re: nuclear magnetic resonance imaging
> whilst being wheeled about a hospital with a broken leg, we passed a sign for the "Department of Nuclear Medicine". Although "Nuclear Medicine" might have sounded pretty awesome, on the whole I was probably better off in Orthopaedics.
Where’s your sense of adventure? You could have left there with SIX broken legs!
Can we interest you in a $10 pocket calculator powered by Android 9?
Why ChatGPT should be considered a malevolent AI – and be destroyed
Thursday 2nd March 2023 23:33 GMT
Re: Replicorrections
I have a lovely recording in my collection - and it's probably on youtube, although I CBA to check - of an IBM mainframe at Bell Labs in the very early 60s, running a demo. It starts by playing a rather wonky, but recognizable, monophonic rendition of Daisy, Daisy. Rough, but darned impressive for the era, you think. Then it begins the second repetition, this time with harmonies and percussion. Wow, you think, this is actually amazing for 1961-whatever.
And then the mind-blowing moment when, on the third iteration, the synthesized speech comes in singing the actual words. WTF.
They were clever boffins indeed. And my understanding is that this demo was the inspiration for HAL9000's performance a few years later.
This pint's for them.
Thought you'd opted out of online tracking? Think again
Windows 11 update breaks PCs that dare sport a custom UI
Thursday 2nd March 2023 23:07 GMT
Re: Bloating the bloat
I am not a Windows fan, and am in violent agreement with you, but I do have to query an apparent contradiction in what you said:
> which comes with very little included
followed by
>You have to deal with the manufacturers bloatware and on top of it with Redmond's bloat as well.
Which is it? "Very little included" or "deal with bloatware"?
Personally I'd rather have the former. Give me a basic OS with functional network drivers and a WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE EDGEnon-retardedEDGE CAN SAVE YOU MONEY browser and I LET'S GIVE YOU A FULLSCREEN UNSKIPPABLE TOUR OF EDGEcan take it from there myself and get the stuff I want. Yes, Microsoft, that Edge crap is exactly what I mean.
Linux Mint 21.2 and Cinnamon 5.8 desktop take shape
Thursday 2nd March 2023 22:29 GMT
Re: Never got Warpinator to work reliably
In my experience the problem is almost invariably on the Windows side. The OS has an annoying habit of classifying new network connections as "public" (which is prudent, and a far cry from the pants-down permissiveness of older versions of Windows) but then hiding the UI to make them "private", a known glitch on Windows 10 at least. It can't be DNSthe firewall, there's no way it's DNSthe firewall... oh. It is DNSthe firewall.
'Major' news: Microsoft slips Bing chatbot shortcut into Windows 11
Wednesday 1st March 2023 23:04 GMT
Re: Anyone been asked if they want this 'feature'?
Oh, goody, was my reaction. Now, when I try to search for a local file or launch a program by name, instead of just getting Web Results for: Q2-Budget-Draft.doc or whatever, I'll get an AI-generated response as well.
"How does Q2-Budget-Draft.doc make you feel?"
Dammit, Eliza Bing.
IBM teases AI-infused hybrid cloudy upgrade to z/OS - Bingo!
Wednesday 1st March 2023 04:11 GMT
You're not kidding about the buzzwords!
"...AI infused into the OS..."
"...leverage data insights..."
"...cloud-native..."
"...containerized..."
"...quantum-safe encryption..."
Sadly, it still falls short of being a viable modern product, because... it doesn't include blockchain, and even worse, IBM insist on selling it as a boring physical product rather than in NFT collectible form.
Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, pals proclaim 'Japan Metaverse Economic Zone'
Bitcoin mining rig found stashed in school crawlspace
Sunday 26th February 2023 23:50 GMT
Re: Scammers ripping of the conmen.
No no no, I just drew a garish picture of a monkey in MS Paint and I'm selling it for $4000... therefore that's what it's worth, right? And if I have a disk crash and lose monkey.bmp then I can loudly complain that I've lost $4000.
That's how NFTs seem to work.
Ukraine invasion blew up Russian cybercrime alliances
Friday 24th February 2023 22:05 GMT
Re: "[..] has not produced the disruptive results that the Russian state has expected"
Well said PM, though I’ll gently remind you of the old aphorism about wrestling with a pig…
And honestly, the original comment was the best laugh I’ve had all week. I half expect it to be revealed as an over-the-top parody of dumbfuck Putin trolls.
Microsoft begs you not to ditch Edge on Google's own Chrome download page
Thursday 23rd February 2023 22:16 GMT
Re: I'm confused
Well, if the world's various regulatory authorities remain true to form and repeat what they did for the IE antitrust farrago, they'll start an investigation into this in about 5 years' time, an investigation that will take 10 years plus, and by the time it finishes a) no-one will care about it or even remember what "a browser" is, and b) the mandated relief will be along the lines of "Microsoft, stop pushing Edge on Windows 10". As Microsoft by that point will be pushing the second generation of BingOS, having EOL'ed Windows 10 long since, this remedy will overwhelm them with apathy.
Titanic mass grave site to be pillaged for NFTs
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 22:31 GMT
Re: Utterly shameless
Well said, although the gold standard for this sentiment has to be GrumpenKraut's timeless comment from a few days ago:
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 19:23 GMT
Re: No but, they're 'licensed'
Slightly o/t, but years ago I was at the Storehouse brewery/museum in Dublin, learning all about the Guinness brewing process. Fascinating, and there was an extended opportunity afterwards to investigate the product in greater detail. I don’t remember much about it after that, other than a very “tired and emotional” colleague staggering up to me to tell me that the bar had run out of product.
Yes, Les, that’s why they won’t serve you any more. Run out. Yep.
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 19:09 GMT
For only 2.6ETH I’ll sell you a small, cube-shaped piece of the VERY SAME MATERIAL that sank the Titanic.
Or if you prefer, a non-fungible electronic record showing that you, and you alone, paid me for that same non-fungible electronic record. Act now! You’d be a fool!
(Normal sales pitches would append “…to miss out” but I think in this case…)
Deutsche Bank's takeover of Postbank hasn't gone well, according to customers
Do you rely on Microsoft Bing Search APIs? Price hike incoming
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 04:15 GMT
Re: What happens when everyone moves to Google?
>Watch out for Microsoft's "special offers": 50% off! Get your search API here!
That's not really how Microsoft usually operate, though.
More like there'll be popups in Windows: "You're trying to switch your search product to a different API. Check out Bing, it's Microsoft's recommended API! Are you sure you don't not want to not switch?" followed by a huge KEEP USING BING button, and underneath it, in 3-point font, battleship grey on a military grey background, "no I am stupid and like to take unnecessary risks".
If you're persistent enough to click the latter, you'll be dropped into a Powershell instance where you have to manually switch API for every possible search term, one at a time.
And of course, after every system update, you'll "accidentally" be switched back to Bing anyway.
Gartner: Oracle probes orgs for Java compliance after new licensing terms
systemd 253: You're looking at the future of enterprise Linux boot processes
Unplug that Anker battery pack now: House blaze sparks recall
Friday 17th February 2023 09:47 GMT
Re: Argh!
Don’t know what you mean - those brands’ batteries have lots of 5* reviews on Amazon.
Admittedly, the reviews all seem to be for gloves, small plastic toys and similar tat, but I’m sure that’s just a glitch in Amazon’s system. They wouldn’t steer us towards dodgy disreputable merchants with made-up names and manipulated reviews, would they?
More victims of fake crypto investor scam speak to The Register
Make Linux safer… or die trying
Microsoft's AI Bing also factually wrong, fabricated text during launch demo
Tuesday 14th February 2023 20:36 GMT
Re: "Why do I have to be Bing Search?"
Well, that serves me right for not - as my teachers always pointed out - reading all the way to the bottom before adding my contribution.
I linked to a Penny Arcade strip earlier on this page in response to another comment, and darn if it isn't even MORE relevant to this thread.
No, I'm not going to re-post it. That would be cheap and attention-seeking. Just scroll up a page or two.
Tuesday 14th February 2023 20:27 GMT
Re: My take on "AI"
Or those stupid troll sites that just comprise every conceivable search term mashed together into gibberish text. Surprisingly often, hosted on quiet backwaters of reputable sites that have obviously been hacked.
It's 2023. You'd think Google would have figured out how to cull those by now.
Latest Windows 11 build shares desktop real estate with, er, Spotify
Tuesday 14th February 2023 03:04 GMT
Re: As long as it's removable!
Oh god. You've triggered me with visions of that $%@#! stupid "SpamApp just got installed! Check it out!!!" popup that plagues any installation of Windows 10/11 if you're daft enough to hook it up to the internet before GPO'ing the hell out of it to remove all that slurry.
Must have a drink to forget it!
Microsoft promises smaller Windows 11 updates with UUP – but there's a catch
Google's Go may add telemetry that's on by default
Microsoft switches Edge’s PDF reader to pay-to-play Adobe Acrobat
Friday 10th February 2023 22:22 GMT 
Revenue grab
So basically it’s just another upsell hook in Windows, which is increasingly just an ad-delivery framework.
(Sorry. I am still salty that on my one Windows 10 machine I can no longer remove the “Microsoft Rewards” advert on the Settings app, where Vivetool used to do it perfectly but is now broken. Funny how MS updates always do a great job of closing down mods like this that people create, but such a useless job of fixing real security flaws…)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
