* Posts by Roland6

10749 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Apr 2010

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

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Re: What About The Current Resident?

Worryingly, the UK tends to follow the US, with certain elements of the Conservative Party wishing to unquestioningly import much of the Trump/Republican boll*cks. So don’t be surprised to find Bojo also has his stash of appropriated documents.

UK telco watchdog Ofcom, Minnesota Dept of Ed named as latest MOVEit victims

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Having a list of coding mistakes is only a starting point, using that list to guide evaluation of actual code requires much more creative (and probably twisted) intelligence.

HCL proves Lotus Notes will never die by showing off beta of lucky Domino 14.0

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Re: And integration...

I would not recommend reusing the hardware platform purchased for a WS2012 plus Exchange 2013 deployment, for a WS2019/2022 plus Exchange 2019/2022 upgrade. However, agree the use of virtual machines does permit the update to be smaller stepped.

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Notes was a groupware product Exchange and its client Outlook are email products; Probably the equivalent MS product to Notes is Exchange plus Sharepoint.

Singapore's government writes a standard for datacenter ops in the tropics

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"They may suggest..."

I take it ElReg didn't pay for Laura to actually download the standard...

Can noise-cancelling buds beat headphones? We spent 20 hours flying to find out

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This caught my attention, from a quick Google it seems the Galaxy buds are IPX2 and apple AirPods IPX4 rated - effectively not rated.

Why did this catch my attention?

Been doing some research into cochlea implants and noted the Cochlear Nucleus 8 on ear assembly is IP68 rated.

How do you boost server efficiency? Buy new kit, keep it busy

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Re: Efficient in what way?

Interesting link. However, things will differ, I remember the CEO of Mercedes making some comment that for one particular model of theirs the total energy consumption break even point was circa 90,000 miles. so I suspect we are still a long way from having a reliable and useful metric.

Using the figure of 18,000 from the article you linked to there is still an energy premium of circa 3 three years before for the typical UK motorist will reach the break even point and start to deliver net positive benefits; a point noted in the article but not explored. This higher upfront energy cost needs to be factored into strategic thinking - as achieving both a largescale adoption of EVs in the next 10 years and a massive reduction in our (largely imported fossil fuel) energy consumption and carbon emissions is going to be problemmatic.

If reducing carbon emissions is the number one priority over the next 10 years then producing high volumes of EVs isn't the solution and from the experience of lockdown reducing usage of transport in general and ICE vehicles specifically, will do more to reduce carbon emissions in this timeframe.

Chinese chipmaker insists it has Intel on-side, not inside

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Re: Build/Buy (again)

> only remaining question is whether they bought or stole that technology.

According to the article it was bought. Suggest dropping "the Chinese can't do it without stealing our technology" filter when reading.

> The reason that China doesn't have an X86 chip as fast as Intel and AMD

Until the orange gorilla had a strop, they had no compelling reason to establish their own chip industry; a bit like Europe…

Given they are producing (in production quantities and not sample quantities) a mid range 2021 chip (and support chips?), I would suggest the Chinese aren’t far behind Intel and given their access to Huawei HiSilicon I suspect their main limiting factor is going to be getting hold of (or building) the latest generation of fabs, given the sanctions.

Again comparing with Europe, I suspect without US involvement, Europe would struggle to get near a 2021 mid range chip.

I also suspect China’s big problem is software. So currently it would make sense to leverage existing global ecosystems, especially the x86 ecosystem.

Longer-term, would not be surprised if they adopt MIPS RISC-V and build a software industry around that.

File Explorer gets facelift in latest Windows 11 build

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Re: Explorer? You mean the internet?

I think you meant renaming File Manager.

Also around that time the idea arose that local and web should be combined ie. File Explorer was going to become part of Internet Explorer. This idea lives on the Windows search which search’s both local machine and internet.

One of the things that irritated me was the merging of local and internet help for Office, so selecting on a help result could either result in a local (and thus Office version specific) help article or a webpage which occasionally existed, but more commonly had been moved, updated to reflect the latest version of Office, or replaced by a this product is no longer supported page.

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Re: Thank God!

> Is that even an option any more?

When installing W10 or adding a new user select the “I don’t have this person’s sign-in information” then select “add a user without a Microsoft account”.

I presume the same applies to W11 as not had to do it, but such local accounts survive the update to W11.

Man sues OpenAI claiming ChatGPT 'hallucination' said he embezzled money

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Re: Is blame binary?

>” I thought "summarise this document" was one of the things these models were good at?”

How can it be?

Summarise requires a real appreciation of the meaning of words and the semantic context.

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Re: This is not GPT.

>” I'd be interested to see the complete conversation between Fredy Riehl and ChatGPT”

This will be interesting, I suspect Riehl isn’t that stupid and hence has already “accidentally” deleted his ChatGPT conversation history (to protect his source). So the question is whether the delete function is more of a “hide from user” or a true delete…

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It seems the only people Riehl promulgated the ChatGPT output to, were those named in the case; nothing went to print and thus was in the public domain - until they filed a claim with a court…

Australia to phase out checks by 2030

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Re: Banking apps

> In practice, cheque cashing is automated and there are no checks

The difference between over-the-counter (ie. Human) service and machine.

With all the focus on security, we tend to forget banks tend to make judgement calls, hence why they still use 4 digit pins etc. I suspect the number of dubious cheques currently presented to automated cheque cashing machines doesn’t justify the cost of incorporating greater intelligence in the scanning app.

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Re: Don't know what you've lost till it's gone.....

>” Banks make nothing off checks.”

Back in the 1960s~1970s in the days before free banking, I remember my father doing the monthly bill payments at the local bank counter, he used to write a single

cheque for multiple bills because the (uk high st) bank charged per cheque transaction.

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Re: Don't know what you've lost till it's gone.....

The fall back for the Barclays app is to visit the machines outside their branches as these will take/scan cheques and seem to do a reasonable job of it - yet to have to correct a scan.

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Re: Banking apps

> If someone were generous enough to send you a direct deposit

And how were they able to do this?

I write a cheque to “John Smith” and either hand it directly to the John Smith I intend paying or post it to them (no other information being necessary). Okay John Smith can give the cheque to someone else and the letter can get lost in the post, but a bank will only accept it if it is being paid into an account where the holders name is some reasonable permutation of John Smith.

Interestingly, just received a refund from a company with whom I have a direct debt with. Due to various new rules they couldn’t simply refund to the account the direct debt was on and they did not have visibility of the account details, so over the phone I had to give them my account details so that they could make the repayment.

Metaverse? Apple thinks $3,500 AR ski goggles are the betterverse

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Augment reality ski run would be interesting. However, suspect that would require an order of magnitude better tech and very low latency 5G service…

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Re: “ "It's the first Apple product you look through”

And from the launch it clearly isn’t ready for that application, as surely you would want to demonstrate this functionality?

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But the first iPhone came with a lot of Apple stuff that did stuff people wanted, so they went out and brought it, just like they had previously brought the iPod (the product that saved Apple).

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Re: For sure, this time!

>” Nobody is 100%, but Steve was really good. … the tech was often very polished and not turd-like.”

This what I find so weird about the goggles; they seem to be tech looking for an application people want. You look at Apple’s successes and the hardware, especially the iPod and iPhone (and to a lesser extent he iPad) were simply pocket sized delivery points for Apple ecosystem/walled garden services that people wanted.

So can we expect Apple to announce iMeeting, FaceTime etc. for the goggles…

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Re: Can’t blame Apple.

Or iGoggles..

Healthcare org with over 100 clinics uses OpenAI's GPT-4 to write medical records

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The other aspect of writing notes is the learning cycle; in writing the notes (as opposed to simply producing a transcript) a person is having assemble their thoughts into a coherent form that supports the conclusion and chosen course of action. Through this activity the practitioner learns and builds their knowledge.

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Understatement “ The use of GPT4 given here is *not* for any diagnostic purpose.”

The purpose of medical records is for diagnostics.

However, given the focus seems to be on “more appointments”, suspect accuracy of the records is of secondary importance.

It bothers me that there seems to be a potentially substantive lag between audio being submitted and the AI generated consultantion notes. In my recent interactions with a doctor/consultant, the notes were prepared in front of me and read back to get my agreement, before the consultation was formally ended. This process resulting in further clarification and information exchange.

>” The article points out that the text is still being verified by the doctor”

Can’t help but think of those “do you really want to do this dialog boxes” which users blindly click okay to…

US govt now bans TikTok from contractors' work gear

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Re: Only a limited ban then

> For secure sites, personal devices are usually not allowed to enter the facility

That’s why I included the car park, whilst the device might not actually go into the secure area, there is probably much location and other metadata that could be usefully extracted and aggregated, if the Chinese government really were interesting in using TikTok for intelligence purposes.

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Only a limited ban then

So effectively only on “work” devices. It would be okay for a contractor to have two phones in their pocket, but only the one used for non-work related activities can have TikTok installed. What is not clear, can someone use TikTok whilst on a government site, where “government site” includes the parking lot?

UK government proposes legislation to regulate umbrella companies

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Government creates red tape to fix IR35 mess of its own creation.

Don’t you love the Tories; endless talk about doing away with red tape, yet doing a remarkable job of creating problems where their solution is more red tape.

The challenges Intel faces to compete with TSMC, Samsung

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Re: Flogging a dead horse

Shouldn’t rule out Trump getting a second term in the White House and requiring the use of US produced chips and leaning on their poodles to adopt similar policies…

Has Amazon found the ultimate lock-in? Cheap cellphone service for Prime

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Re: People who called Joe's Pizza also called ....

After being visited by Corleone collection services?

WTF is solid state active cooling? We’ve just seen it working on a mini PC

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According to the footer of the brochure (see link in article), patents are pending. Suspect the application(s) is not in the company name, hindering cursory seaches.

A quick Google “ us patent application pulsating jets cooling” does not list any recent applications, however it does return a number of abandoned and active patents that seem to be relevant.

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>” is probably built on what Intel patented and may not be patentable if not different enough.”

Unless it is identical to the Intel patents, it will be patentable, if only because they have made it work with modern materials.

Remember the Marconi radio patent didn’t contain anything “new” other than the way Marconi had put the parts together and tuned them.

Suspect they are keeping quiet about the patents as there is probably an application “in the system”.

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Re: Nothing to see here

That would be worth shouting about!

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Re: Cool...

Article referring to:

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/support/articles/000006710/processors/intel-xeon-processors.html

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Re: Cool...

If I’ve read this article correctly, a Xeon cpu potentially needs an array of 18 of these. Also with that amount of heat the exhaust needs to be ducted out of the cabinet.

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Re: Cool...

Desktop PCs?

I would of thought 1U servers would be the £ primary target for something smaller than a traditional Xeon cpu cooler.

My quick we search indicates the cooler needs to move 92 watts from a xeon at circa 3 GHz. So that would indicate a Xeon will need an array of circa 18 of these.

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Re: Noise??

Useful Youtube video review in this article.

https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/05/23/zotac-pi430aj-pico-mini-pc-features-airjet-solid-state-active-cooling-chips/

I expect the sound can be tuned, just like jet exhaust on modern quiet jets.

Cunningly camouflaged cable routed around WAN-sized hole in project budget

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>” I recall at least one instance where someone got a nasty surprise of the voltage variety when grabbing an Ethernet cable”

Worst case with yellow peril is 3KV; however, to achieve this you need to max out the number of MAUs and get them all to start transmitting at the same time…

This was our testers favourite test, they would get the courier who delivered the MAU to wait 5 minutes in reception, whilst they conducted the test and returned a still smoking and hot MAU to the courier to return to sender, there were several manufacturers who spent months failing this test…

Laid-off 60-year-old Kyndryl exec says he was told IT giant wanted 'new blood'

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Re: Why not tell the truth?

Well if you still have access to your office etc., help yourself and colleagues by doing a quick survey of your department/site and get everyone to give you their age and whether they expect to be attending the company Xmas party (or some other event that is for employees post the end of the redundancy period.

Then send this to the lawyers representing those laid off.

Kremlin claims Apple helped NSA spy on diplomats via iPhone backdoor

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Re: Of course...

In sone respects it doesn’t matter whose spyware it is, we know the US has form - Angela Merkel’s phone. Also the US has been quick to make similar claims about Chinese phones and 5G hardware…

Linux Foundation and pals – including Intel – back software ecosystem around RISC-V

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Intel feeling the pain?

I wonder what the cost is of Intel maintaining its proprietary CPU architecture. Suspect it must be similar to developing and maintaining your own operating system.

Hence Intel might be looking enviously at the ARM eco system which would seem to distribute the work and thus move faster. Plus Intel with a new fab or two in construction, will be wanting to build production orders…

Ukraine war blurs lines between cyber-crims and state-sponsored attackers

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“ Ukraine war blurs lines between cyber-crims and state-sponsored attackers”

The lines always were blurred, just as they are in real wars of the flea.

Seriously, boss? You want that stupid password? OK, you get that stupid password

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Pint

Re: Missing part

>The operative word there being "if". The answer, in the case of the story, is in the story :-)

The user was intelligent; they obviously knew firstly to ask for a password and secondly not to ask for their password to be "Password", "Password1" or "12345678".

Microsoft has made Azure Linux generally available. Repeat, Azure Linux

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Re: I don’t think I really get it

> “In fact Linux fundamentally sucks in that it produces this extraordinarily verbose dialog of self-conversation that flashes past at each and every bootup, before vanishing to show a login prompt.”

Every version of Windows does that as well, just that most people and systems default to having verbose mode disabled.

>” But the frustrating nature of the Linux CLI is you carefully construct each command to issue to the software, and if there’s the slightest typo it fails with the most pathologically useless error message describing what went wrong. Entire batch jobs are one bit-error from massive pile-ups”

You need to be a precise typist for any command line interface. Yes, Unix due to its ultra terse CLI and minimal error reporting, can be challenging, but that was one of the intentions behind its design…

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Re: Azure

> Could you imagine the fallout if it became apparent that Microsoft don't trust the shit they're selling?

Different times…

I remember Sun Microsystems had an IBM for its accounting and HR systems… don’t know if they had managed to migrate away to Sun hardware etc. before Oracle acquired them.

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Re: Azure

> The world+dog have been moving to Linux year on year

These are “customers” or “service users”, the use of the word “engineer” is interesting and would seem to be referring to MS’s internal market.

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Re: Azure

I found this statement very telling:

” Microsoft started CBL-Mariner because it needed an internal Linux distro and a consistent platform for the myriad workloads engineers were running on Azure, according to Jim Perrin, principal program manager for Microsoft Azure Linux.”

It would seem MS’s own engineers prefer developing on and for platforms other than Windows…

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”Additionally, since there are far fewer packages in the container host, the volume of required security patching is lower, and these issues are patched promptly as well,"

Something the Windows team could usefully take on board…

Since when did my SSD need water cooling?

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Under the display adaptor/GPU and PCI slots seems to be a preferred location for the primary and secondary M2 SSDs, so not only potentially warm but also little to no headroom for a sizeable heat sink/cooler…

Also we shouldn’t forget many modern laptops have very limited space and airflow over the M2 SSD…

Windows XP activation algorithm cracked, keygen now works on Linux

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Re: Is it really needed?

Depends, but basically you got 30 days before it started plying up.

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Re: Too late the hero

Your domestic XP machine, if behind a standard NAT router/firewall is only really vulnerable when it has an active internet connection. So if all you use it for is reading El reg and the BBC say, the likelihood of catching any malware is very low.

Interestingly, recently been using a Windows system that has Avast installed, along with the Avast “secure” browser which by default uses Bing for search. I have found the experience educational; Bing will return more results in the first pages that are either dubious or will result in the AV blocking as “source of malware” if you try and visit than Chrome…