I have never used Twitter / X, but I would just like to point out that "misinformation" includes anything that does not agree with the currently mandated "scientific consensus", much of which is BS.
Posts by plrndl
482 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Feb 2010
Twitter, aka X, tops charts for misinformation, EU official says
Microsoft: China stole secret key that unlocked US govt email from crash debug dump
NASA experts looked through 800 UFO sightings and found essentially nothing
Having a camera doesn't make you a photographer.
To take a decent quality photo or video of a distant moving object, you need near-professional quality equipment and skills, and you need to be prepared before the object comes into view. If you don't believe me, try whipping out your phone and photographing a passing bird.
Judging by what I've seen on the internet, most people with smart phones can't take a decent picture of a cat sitting in front of them.
Plagiarism-sniffing Turnitin tries to find AI writing by students – with mixed grades
About Time
This is a clear demonstration of the pointlessness of testing students' ability to regurgitate what they have been taught.
Maybe it's time to start testing their ability to do something useful with what they have learned.
Unfortunately this may result in academics having to do some real work.
UK Prime Minister wants £800M to spend on big British iron
Europe to consult on making Big Tech pay for the networks it floods
Death of the Dinosaurs
This is a suicide note for the Big Carriers.
If they succeed in getting Big Tech to pay for the bandwidth their customers use, Big Tech will simply build their own networks with cheaper, faster technology and put the carriers out of business. They will then buy up the assets for pennies on the £/$/€ and laugh all the way to the bank.
Unix is dead. Long live Unix!
Re: About 15 years ago... Linux tries to become all things to all people
Linux IS "all things to all people". It currently runs on everything from the top 500 supercomputers, the majority of phones and tablets, to the tiniest of IOT devices.
The fact that one can port it and adapt it to suit one's dreams, whims, or marketing fads, (and others can embrace. adapt, or reject them) is arguably its greatest strength.
The crime against humanity that is the modern OS desktop, and how to kill it
Re: Marketing Skills
The best marketing people work for marketing agencies, where they get the best paid and most interesting work. The second rank work for companies like Apple, who are noted for the quality of their products, and their advertising. Marketing people in other companies are mostly third rate at best.
Regarding IT people, I have been heavily flamed on this very site, for suggesting that their first duty is serving the company's needs, rather than to the escalation of the IT budget.
Marketing Skills
There is only one reason why a “marketing person” needs to change a product, and that is incompetence. A person with real marketing skills can sell a given product to a desired market.
The person who needs to copycat whatever is currently trendy in marketing circles has no marketing skills whatsoever.
Is it time to retire C and C++ for Rust in new programs?
BOFH: Who us? Sysadmins? Spend time with other departments?
Elon Musk had secret twins in 2021 with Neuralink exec
FBI and MI5 bosses: China cheats and steals at massive scale
Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? Consult our cynic's guide to desktop Linux
Original killer PC spreadsheet Lotus 1-2-3 now runs on Linux natively
Not Perfect
WordPerfect was popular with two finger typists. For real typists, WordStar was the only choice. Unfortunately, most IT decision makers (ie buyers) belong to the former category, and the latter category (who are mostly female, and did most of the actual typing work) had to suffer with an inferior tool.
Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop
Re: "Linux Desktop"
Multiple distros and desktops is only a problem for the terminally (sorry!) stupid. Any sane Linux newbie will start with a quick google, which will tell him that Linux Mint / Cinnamon is the best beginner's choice. He will then download Mint and boot into it. A quick play will establish if it works with his hardware, in which case he can install it. Simples!
If you're daft enough to start with Arch, Slackware, or some hackers' favourite, you will get what you deserve.
'Bigger is better' is back for hardware – without any obvious benefits
Still No Voice Dictation
Most of the people who are smart enough to communicate with a computer directly with language, are already doing so, They're called computer programmers, and they have to be specially educated to do so. Most humans don't have sufficient grasp of the syntax of their native language to communicate clearly with one-another, let alone with a strictly logical computer.
Maybe with another 20 years of development of quantum computing and AI, we will have a computer capable of understanding typical human babble.
Help, my IT team has no admin access to their own systems
Fans of original gangster editors, look away now: It's Tilde, a text editor that doesn't work like it's 1976
When product names go bad: Microsoft's Raymond Chen on the cringe behind WinCE
At Essex University in the 1970's, the University proudly introduced an internal telephone system for the student residential towers. It was of course called the Towers Internal Telephone System. They didn't realise what they had done until after the directories had been printed, with very large initial capitals on the cover. Much merriment ensued amongst the students.
The dark equation of harm versus good means blockchain’s had its day
Crypto for cryptographers! Infosec types revolt against use of ancient abbreviation by Bitcoin and NFT devotees
Mind Your Language
Specialist terms that become known to the general public via the media WILL be corrupted. There is no escape from this. Language changes. For example idiot, moron, cretin, imbecile, spastic all started life as medical terms for specific conditions. "Paedo" has become a general purpose insult for school children. Life goes on.
You forced me to use this fancypants app and now you're asking for a printout?
BOFH: What if International Bad Actors designed the vaccine to make us watch more Steven Seagal movies?
Chocolate beer barred from sale after child mistakes it for chocolate milk
Re: Beer Definition: Hops
Originally in the UK, ale was brewed from water, malt and yeast. Beer was ale flavoured with hops. Other flavourings produced ales, not beer.
More recently the definitions have become somewhat muddied. Young's, for example refer to their draught beers as "ales", while their honey flavoured product (bought in from a deceased brewery) is called a beer!
Scientists reckon eliminating COVID-19 will be easier than polio, harder than smallpox – just buckle in for a wait
Till Death Do Us Part
The medical industry makes vast profits from treatment of illness, NOT from curing it. A patient cured is a customer lost.
This is the fundamental problem that needs to be addressed before we can expect technology to give us better health.
Meanwhile, I'm off to the pub. Got to keep my spirits up.
Global tat supply line clogged as Suez Canal authorities come to aid of wedged 18-brontosaurus container ship
NHS looks to the market for advice on one system to replace two separate, giant Oracle ERP and HR systems
What a Hancock-up: Excel spreadsheet blunder blamed after England under-reports 16,000 COVID-19 cases
Venerable text editor GNU Nano reaches version 5.0 and adds the modern frippery that is scrollbars
Contact-tracer spoofing is already happening – and it's dangerously simple to do
We strained our eyes with Lenovo's monster monitor: 43.4 inches for price of five 24" screens
Gospel according to HPE: And lo, on the 32,768th hour did thy SSD give up the ghost
The wheels on the bus go round and... Oh dear. Chancellor Sajid Javid unveils spending review
Be still, our drinking hearts: Help Reg name whisky beast conjured by Swedish distillers and AI blendbot
Iran is doing to our networks what it did to our spy drone, claims Uncle Sam: Now they're bombing our hard drives
Um, I'm not that Gary, American man tells Ryanair after being sent other Gary's flight itinerary
More nodding dogs green-light terrible UK.gov pr0n age verification plans
Holy moley! The amp, kelvin and kilogram will never be the same again
Oi, you. Equifax. Cough up half a million quid for fumbling 15 million Brits' personal info to hackers
Australia blocks Huawei, ZTE from 5G rollout
Amazon, ditch us? But they can't do without us – Oracle
Re: Of course they're still spending...
"Sure, and when Amazon is the only retailer left, come and tell us how you are enjoying their prices, once they no longer have to undercut anyone."
In business, your profit margin is your competitor’s collateral. No-one could get backing to compete with Amazon, when it had 0% profit margin. If Amazon reaches a monopoly position and hikes its prices, competitors will rapidly emerge.
Select few to watch World Cup in 4K high dynamic range colour on BBC iPlayer
Crypto-gurus: Which idiots told the FBI that Feds-only backdoors in encryption are possible?
Chrome adblockalypse will 'accelerate Google-Facebook duopoly'
Can Spam
Most advertisers are stuck in 1950's TV mode where you spam people as relentlessly as you can afford. This is no longer acceptable, and this is what Google is tackling. Advertisers need to recognise that targeted advertising is the only way forward. Facebook in particular has enormous capability to target ads, so that punters are unlikely to see ads for stuff in which they have no interest. Unfortunately for the advertising industry,this means sobering up and doing some work.