* Posts by Inventor of the Marmite Laser

1300 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2011

Google's AI search bot Bard makes $120b error on day one

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<Brian Blessed voice>

CLIPPY IS ALIVE !

</Brian Blessed voice>

Scammers steal $4 million in crypto during face-to-face meeting

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The information to make the heist must have come from SOMEWHERE. I Wonder if setting airplane mode would have made a difference.

Microsoft boffins contemplate equipping Excel with AI

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Hello, I'm Clippy.

I've been to university and I'm really clever. So what would you like me to screw up now,?

Meta, which pays for web scraping, sues to stop web scraping

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Re: You just can't make this shit up.

One wonders why anyone, anywhere, trusts any of these shysters with anything at all. TFTFY

Shag pile PC earned techies a carpeting from HR

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Nice twist.

Be hessian you again soon

Scientists conclude cats only have three personalities after YouTube clip binge

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If a cat could text you to say how it felt, it wouldn't

BOFH and the case of the Zoom call that never was

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

"I have a cupboard full of old projectors," I warn him. "Some of them are much heavier than that one..."

And so my Friday is now complete.

Happy weekend everyone.

This can’t be a real bomb threat: You've called a modem, not a phone

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: You can't be to careful

Yes you can control when and where but you can't stop it half way through.

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: You can't be to careful

Cool. So the terrorist is described as setting off the controlled explosion. Would make some interesting variation in news reporting.

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: You can't be to careful

I firmly believe there's no such thing as a "controlled explosion".

Show me how you stop one half way through and I might revise my opinion.

What's called Grogu but isn't that cute? Google's leaked answer to Apple AirTags

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

So how long before Google does it's usual trick and pulls it like it has with so many useful products?

Google? Yeah right.

Shot down: Google's grand fancy plan for pro-privacy targeted ads

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

If only personalised ads were actually any use.

I have a fairly low tolerance for:

Being told I can buy what I have ALREADY BLOODY WELL BOUGHT.

Being told about places to buy stuff which I ALREADY BLOODY KNOW ABOUT

Being told what other people are buying AS IF I GIVE A RATS ARSE

Being told what is "trending" as if that was somehow important

Being told what else people bought, after buying something I've just bought as if it was somehow relevant to me

Being offered something a bit like* what I've just looked at in the hope it will stir any interest on me

And people† wonder why folk use AdBlock

* but only in the coke addled brain of some hapless marketing droid

† Yes, I know it is stretching the definition of "people" to expect it to accommodate anyone in Internet marketing but it's easier to type than "fuckwitted addlebrained retard oxygen thieves who are a great argument for abortion to be legal up to at least the 369th month."

Native Americans urge Apache Software Foundation to ditch name

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

What are they going to do if the company won't oblige? Sioux?

Microsoft said to be thinking of sinking $10m into self-driving truck startup

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Hello. I'm Clippy. It looks like you're trying to turn around. Would you like me to stuff your truck through the centre reservation crash barrier?

Microsoft chases Google with ChatGPT-powered Bing

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: My test case

Google also seems awfully keen to poison search results for "Y" with sponsored results it thinks are something a bit like, but actually totally dissimilar to "Y"

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

You don't need an AI to return a list of random Sponsored, irrelevant "results" like Google do when they poison the first page of results to your search string.

Oh, no: The electric cars at CES are getting all emotional

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

I have an EV but I don't think I want one of these.

Forget the climate: Steep prices the biggest reason EV sales aren't higher

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Battery EVs don't like the cold, that's for sure.

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

My affordable MG5 cost <£30k (and it's not a base model), has a published range spec from it's 51kWh battery of 217miles (349km). During last summer I was achieving, on the basis of distance gone from 100% state of charge to a nearly empty battery, plus estimated bit of range left, was 249 miles (400km). It's no Tesla but gets away from the lights comfortably rapidly plus it's a proper estate and not a hatchback.

Alphabet reshuffles to meet ChatGPT threat

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Anything that stops the poisoning of search results with sponsored suggestions has got to be welcome

FCC calls for mega $300 million fine for massive US robocall campaign

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

So 6 cents per call. Make it a fine of $10 per call plus jail time for the directors and their personal liability jointly with the company and that'd be a deterrent.

Why would a keyboard pack a GPU and run Unreal Engine? To show animations beneath the clear keys, natch

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

But is it coffee proof?

BOFH: Come back to the office. Your hotdesk is nice and warm

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: ....there's a general feeling that less people want to show up.

There are more great people around these days. And, of course. Fewer lesser ones.

Boffins' beam forming kit opens the door to more realistic holograms

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

"because all the work is done by LEDs, there are no wires involved in the system" - Huh? Or am I being thicker than normal (Not difficult)

Someone has to say it: Voice assistants are not doing it for big tech

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Has it really taken them this long to get a grip on what was pretty bleeding obvious to most of us pretty much from day one?

BOFH: We're an industry leader … in employing idiot managers

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"Oh I suspect that's the PFY with a tin of petrol – upgrading the Company's fleet vehicles to EVs …"

BOFH 1. Keyboard 0.

BOFH now goes forward to the Regurgitated Half Masticated Cheese Sandwich Cup

Shocker: EV charging infrastructure is seriously insecure

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

I drive up to a petrol pump, have my standard Visa card read. I fill up. I have my Visa card back. I leave.

In contrast, I arrive at an EV charger and check who the supplier is. Especially if it is run by one of the mail oil companies I check if the thing is dead like one in three of their fleet. Oh goody, it isn't.

I check if I have their app or maybe their RFID card. I don't so I get my phone again and join their website

Oh. No phone signal. No WiFi either. Now I'm screwed.

Why did EV charge network providers take a working model and then stamp on it?

Go ahead, be rude. You don't know it now, but it will cost you $350,000

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Re: Well, manglement ....

Give 'em time

BOFH: Don't be nervous, Mr Consultant. Come right this way …

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Microsoft mulls cheap PCs supported by ads, subs

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Re: And in about 12 yrs

And something like one version in three (or is that two?) being an even bigger steaming pile of faeces that anything before it.

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"the benefits of the cloud and Microsoft 365"

Being what, exactly?

Government by Gmail catches up with UK minister... who is reappointed anyway

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Take her personal phone and stick it in a blender

Meta fined record-breaking $24.6m for deliberately ignoring political ad law

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: Untill these judgments

Perhaps instead of an absolute maximum have something like "$25m or 2.5% of global turnover, whichever is greater".

So have ads placed via an "independent" Meta subsidiary which conveniently happens to be worth about fourpence.

Weird robot breaks down in middle of House of Lords hearing on AI art

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"a version of Designer will be integrated into the Edge browser at some point."

So how will MS get people to use it?

No, working in IT does not mean you can fix anything with a soldering iron

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If you aren't programming with a hammer it's not real engineering. TFTFY

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: Mandatory tech support

Donkeys years back when I were a lad, we had a series of school visits to local industry to see how the real world worked. One visit was to a UK manufacturer if test gear - a Big Name at the time but I'm buggered if I remember who as I've been asleep since then.

One of the things that I do remember was their service shop. All instruments that arrived were de-cased, chucked in a sink and thoroughly washed, before spending a day or two in a drying cabinet. Someone expressed surprise and was prompt told the kit had been designed to be properly cleaned and serviced.

Chew on that Apple.

Charge a future EV in less than five minutes – using literally cool NASA tech

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

That's 4.23 miles per kWh in imperial units. Or 48.6 k Linguini per kWh in Vulture Central units

Those screws on the Apple Watch Ultra are a red herring

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Well I'm still not paying the iDiot tax.

Malwarebytes blocks Google, YouTube as malware

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Google, YouTube malware? Who'd a thunk it?

Don't want to get run over by a Ford car? There's a Bluetooth app for that

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge
Coat

Well, they Mustang somewhere.

China discovers unknown mineral on the moon, names it Changesite-(Y)

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: Curly -- or Straight?

All this talk about pasties brought a holiday memory back of a "Kurdish pasty" from a vendor whilst I was on holiday there a few years back in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales. Despite the weird concept I can confirm a high state of yumminess.

Twitter datacenter melted down in Labor Day heat

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"If we lose one of those remaining datacenters, we may not be able to serve traffic to all Twitter's users,"

My heart bleeds for Twatter. Positively BLEEDS.

Not really it doesn't. It'll just stuff those companies whose customer service is so shite that they rely on (anti)social media rather than phone(not premium rate) and email (not web forms).

Microsoft to stop accepting checks from partners

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: Social Commentary

It's a good idea to retain the cheque, just in case there is a need to check the cheque has been properly handled.

USB-C levels up and powers up to deliver 240W in upgraded power delivery spec

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: I predict excitement

Upvoted just for "yutz"

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: Coming soon

I've already seen on the 350kW EV chargers, that the cable is water cooled.

They're still bloody heavy cables though.

The internet's edge routers are all so different. What if we unified them with software?

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Standards are a wonderful thing. That's why we have so many.

Excel @ mentions approach general availability on the desktop

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Re: Gerrof my lawn!

@John69 Think about it for a bit.

Google hit with lawsuit for dropping free Workspace apps

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

The cloud

Someone else's computer

Someone else's rules

Someone else's prices

Someone else's right to change one or more of the above, any damn time and any damn amount they like.

Microsoft hits milestone to replace datacenter generators with fuel cells

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Re: Hydrogen - Fuel of the Future

Also how the hydrogen will be stored. IIRC, standby power systems tend to spend a lot if time just - er - standing around. Hydrogen is a tiny molecule. Diesel is enormous. Diesel doesn't tend to percolate through walls and joints of containmemt. Hydrogen is a bit different. There's also the tendency of hydrogen to affect materials with which it is in contact - hydrogen embrittlement. Interesting.

BOFH: Selling the boss on a crypto startup

Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

Has anyone tried that Marmite with chili? It's not bad. I also happened across a jar of Marmite XO. Both rather nice.

I've also not long finished a jar of crunchy peanut butter with Marmite. Very moorish.