* Posts by Kevin McMurtrie

3538 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jun 2007

Canonical cracks down on crypto cons following Snap Store scam spree

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Good news

The Snap Store usually doesn't work.

Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

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Re: Do they work?

There are usually ad block lists that you may choose from. It pattern matches the request then blocks it or substitutes a stub. YouTube ads can not be skipped but they can playreally fast.

Some lists block trackers and animations but allow static images.

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Devil

50% blocking ads?

Better double the ads to compensate.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite dares to game, reaching 30 FPS in Baldur's Gate 3

Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

There are lots of x86 chips with integrated graphics too. If it has an exposed bus it can support an external GPU. It mentioned DDR5 RAM. As far as I know, that's not relevant to SOC.

Cloudflare says it has automated empathy to avoid fixing flaky hardware too often

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There's a large number of people in the workforce that only know cloud computing. Processes for tracking host health are old school at this point.

A common practice is for every client to log its state into a database and also check to see what its state should be. If a server is missing too many check-ins, you know. If a server awakens from a long coma, it can see that it is out of date and should shut back down.

Google's AI-powered search results are loaded with spammy, scammy garbage

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Coffee/keyboard

"Around 99 percent of Google search results are spam free, we're told"

Hopefully not while you were consuming food or beverage.

Docker launches Testcontainers on former rival Red Hat's OpenShift

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It's not just the software. Docker Hub pulls are throttled per what Docker calculates to be an end-user. Try to use Docker commercially without paying anything and you'll hit your limit 30 seconds into the work day.

The business price is steep, in my opinion. I know Docker is getting to be quite complex, especially with the MacOS and Windows VMs, but it forever has rough edges of an open source project. It's really difficult to depend on it commercially. Upgrades come with silently breaking changes. Random bugs may disappear for months then suddenly spring back to ruin your month.

Russia's Cozy Bear caught phishing German politicos with phony dinner invites

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Ooooh, a Windows screensaver too!

Some 300,000 IPs vulnerable to this Loop DoS attack

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Devil

Infinite error loops?

Error, missing security patch

Error, missing security patch

Error, missing security patch

Error, missing security patch

Error, missing security patch

Error, missing security patch

...

3 million doors open to uninvited guests in keycard exploit

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Re: Any lock is useless if the door is left wide open

IT used to bring those those locks to my desk because I could tumble the dials a few times and open them up. I suspected it that meant somebody had been fired.

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Re: Who needs hackers? [There are Many Dimensions to Hacking]

Expected unreliability makes it even easier than that. There have been many times where I've gone to the front desk because my card stopped working. They ask for my name and room number, then I get a new card.

Exposed: Chinese smartphone farms that run thousands of barebones mobes to do crime

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Re: 1,000 smartphones all hard at work

Laws don't apply is the victims live outside China.

Catch Java 22, available from Oracle for a limited time

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Python got off to a good start because it can do DSL (domain specific language) reasonably well. It can handle the special operations of AI.

DSL in Java is hideous. C++ is far better looking but it is extremely technical. Golang is always hideous for high level operations.

So, AI is stuck with a language that is easy but incredibly slow. Everything runs great as long as you're in a native library but grinds to a halt in interpreted control code. There's also the mess of getting all the native libraries using the same number formats so they play well together in one app.

If Oracle was smart they'd come up with good DSL extensions for the paid Java so they can jump on the AI bandwagon.

OpenJDK could also cheat and import more Scala features. There be dragons, for sure.

Meta sues ex infra VP for allegedly stealing top-secret datacenter blueprints

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Facepalm

Through the first half of the article I'm thinking that maybe he just wanted a personal copy. I've done that. It's interesting to look back and see your progress.

Then "...uploaded numerous of these documents into folders bearing the name of his new employer."

Now I want the worst outcome for him if that's true. How many good people were laid off to pay his salary and bonuses?

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

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Re: US politics is basically

Move fast and break things. Let the next one try to put things back together.

US wants ASML to stop servicing China-owned chip equipment

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Re: Prevent Beijing from advancing its chipmaking efforts Lo

True, just as China cutting tech-related mineral exports to the US will encourage the US to diig their own. Maybe it's better if all of these complex trade relationships are about opportunities rather than needs.

Side note about Taiwan - don't forget that people live there. The people should be more important than politics.

Logitech MX Brio 705 – where Ultra HD meets Ultra AI

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Re: 4K?

Face tracking is typically dynamic crop. The extra pixels eliminate a motorized gimbal.

LinkedIn's turn to fall over: Outage hits thinkfluencer hub

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Re: "An error has occurred."

Don't forget, "Temporarily down for maintenance" to make it sound like it's not a failure, but instead absolutely terrible service scheduling.

Fidelity customers' financial info feared stolen in suspected ransomware attack

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Re: Is there some way to hold identification info offline?

I put all my sensitive information on paper because nothing could be safer. They're all right here... they were there. Maybe over here..., no. Maybe I have backups in the photocopier buffer or its shread bin. I could ask everyone to FAX back copies. No problem. All safe.

Dell exec reveals Nvidia has a 1,000-watt GPU in the works

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I thought modern CMOS was in the 1 Volt ballpark. 12 or 5 Volts is what the synchronous buck converters take in.

HDMI Forum 'blocks AMD open sourcing its 2.1 drivers'

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Another obsolete cable in the junk box

HDMI has too many features that it doesn't do well at. There's power, Ethernet, audio, return audio, and remote control. You can assemble a home theater system with mid to high range components and be certain that HDMI interoperability is terrible. Now the HDMI forum is adding video to the list of things it can't do well.

Goodbye, HDMI.

Companies flush money down the drain with overfed Kubernetes cloud clusters

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Crap code too

I've worked at places where pushing a server near its limit crashed it. Race conditions happened, threads deadlocked, errors caused resource leaks, and excessive buffering ate memory. The study goes along with what they were doing - running at 20% capacity because everything immediately dropped dead at 100%.

I think some in management still believe that "computers are cheaper than engineers." They need to check their hosting costs again.

Hold up world, HP's all-in-one print subscription's about to land, and don't forget AI PCs

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Facepalm

Investors must be rolling their eyes

Subscriptions are great for delivering a continuous stream of new and interesting things. I'll subscribe for maps, news, movies, music, and entertainment. I'll subscribe to things that need external upkeep, like my fiber optic line.

Subscriptions for mundane features that never change after purchase? That proven plan for failure is so old that no investors should still be buying into it. Customers don't.

The Who’s Who of AI just chipped in to fund humanoid robot startup Figure

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Re: Robots are coming for the dirty jobs

It would last longer than I would.

New solvent might end winter charging blues for EV owners

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Re: Fluoroacetonitrile

It's normally going to be sealed up tight. What really matters is what it turns into after it burns. It looks like LiF is very toxic and it puts on a good show while it's being created.

Apple Vision Pro rentals take China by storm ahead of official release

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3 month ROI on rentals

Hopefully the hype lasts that long. Apple might decide to screw developers with enough restrictions that it becomes a dead product.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be coders, Jensen Huang warns

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What about CEOs?

Now that's a job title for AI to take over. Sit through meetings, nod, decide what others should work on, and say things that make investors happy.

Some Intel Core chips keep crashing, game devs complain

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Re: Golem.de looked closer than ElReg...

The only thing sillier than 4095 Watts is trying to do that at 1 Volt, 4095 Amps.

Web archive user's $14k BigQuery bill shock after running queries on 'free' dataset

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According to my calcs, you could build this for $14000. You'd have a much higher drive:CPU ratio than Google, but it would work with patience.

China breakthrough promises optical discs that store hundreds of terabytes

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100 layers?

How many times can you spin-coat before it gets too lumpy? Probably not 100 and still be flat enough for such a high areal density.

If the real-world density ends up in the 10 TB ballpark it might be superior density, but not by enough to become a new product. These days it's not too hard to keep SSD and HDD arrays powered up and running scrubs. I've had my storage server running in various forms since the Blue & White G3 Mac came out. As long as its powered up enough to error correct (RAID or manual backup), it's pretty safe. I've only lost a few files total, thanks to the infamous IBM Deskstar 75GXP failing and incredibly fast rates.

Amazon hopes to avoid labor regulation by simply abolishing national watchdogs

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Another "too big to fail" company?

Amazon's only advantage is everything being in one place. If Amazon keeps sucking more, I doubt people would be too bothered by having to open a couple more browser windows to shop. Amazon is not like supermarkets saving you from driving all over town.

At least for me, all the games going on at Amazon are way more trouble than buying directly from manufacturers and specialty stores.

Rivian decimates staff to put a brake on spending

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Re: There may be trouble ahead.

When somebody runs a red light and hits your car, you will find this to not be true even for current ICE cars.

Ubuntu, Kubuntu, openSUSE to get better installation

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I didn't know that installer was maintained. Subiquity for 23.10 just crashes for me.

Rice isn't nice for drying your iPhone, according to Apple

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Put it in nothing

A vacuum chamber is perfect for drying out electronics.

I'm not sure what the vapor pressure of a LiPo pouch cell is. Maybe set a couple of bricks on top of the phone to hold it together...

Google releases Gemma – LLMs small enough to run on your computer

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"open"

I think The Reg put that in quotes because Google has a web of product pages seemingly never reaching anything that's available to use. I wonder if an AI wrote it all.

Apple promises to protect iMessage chats from quantum computers

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Do they bruise?

https://xkcd.com/538/

Strong end-to-end encryption doesn't mean much if an attacker can still perform a mass attack by compromising a single codebase that is forcefully pushed to all clients.

Persistent memory to replace DRAM, but it could take a decade

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Re: "Bring the popcorn" issues.

It would be excellent for power savings. DRAM bits are just charges in a tiny capacitor. Ii has to constantly refresh all the bits or they fade away.

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Re: Its gonna be hard to supplant DRAM

The idea of combining storage and execution has been around for a while. Applications would be GPU and AI operations, but not so much general computing.

Staff say Dell's return to office mandate is a stealth layoff, especially for women

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Reverse Jean-Luc Picard management

Picard hears a good solution from his crew then says, "Make it so!"

Management comes up with a dumb idea then says the same. Staff is left to figure out how, and wonder if they should still proceed against all common sense.

Also called an "executive order" if you're The Florida Man.

Space nukes: The unbelievably bad idea that's exactly that ... unbelievable

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Re: There's no way there aren't already nukes in space

Nobody needs to have them. You just need everybody to think you do so they blow their GDP trying to play catch-up. Even if you're the only country without them, you still don't need them. Again, convince the other countries that they need to detonate their space nukes as a preemptive defensive move. No need to waste your own money destroying all the sats in orbit.

Forgetting the history of Unix is coding us into a corner

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Re: Not *everything* is a file

"Everything is a file" has similar problems to "Everything is a URL path" in REST.

The file representation only works with tree-like data and simple concurrency requirements. It already starts to get a little weird with some devices having a hardware GUID, and assigned GUID, and a name all at the same time. What if you need to perform an atomic operation but the data is split into multiple paths? COW the base path? That wouldn't work at all.

I'm thankful that the abstractions aren't taken too far.

HP CEO pay for 2023 = 270,315 printer cartridges

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Ink a deal

Can execs get their bonus in ink cartridges rather than lesser-valued stock?

Tesla's Cybertruck may not be so stainless after all

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Re: Denatured alcohol?

You can buy industrial anhydrous isopropanol. I use it for cleaning small hobby projects and repairs. Wiping down a whole Cybertruck with that might cost around $80. There's a pretty good chance you'd set your arm on fire in the process, so reserve another $60000 dollars for 'Merican medical bills too.

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Screw the lemonade stand

Kids can get rich selling Cybertruck stainless steel passivation washes. Stops rust and leaves the car smelling lemon fresh.

Crooks hook hundreds of exec accounts after phishing in Azure C-suite pond

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It's the CF gang

It's the phishing gang that hangs out on a certain crime-friendly site with the initials "C.F." It's high quality phishing that buys clever domain names and has good site cloning. The gang has been refining their techniques on CF, AWS, and Google for years.

I emailed Microsoft security a few times in November when phishing and attacks were suddenly flooding in from Microsoft business accounts. Nothing happened so I blocked Microsoft on my personal server. That fixed it for me.

I checked my server logs now and it looks like Microsoft is mostly, but not entirely, cleaned up.

(CF because The Reg sometimes deletes posts with the full name.)

With $1B to burn on green tech, HSBC seeks Google’s help

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Skepticism-packed opening paragraph

Good work, Reg!

In its tantrum with Europe, Apple broke web apps in iOS 17 beta, still hasn't fixed them

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Tried and true strategy

Piss off developers until they leave. Make OS X repeat the MacOS 9 extinction.

Who creates MacOS 11 to save Apple with a fresh embrace of open standards and interoperability?

IPv4 address rentals to mint millions of dollars for AWS

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Holdout

Pretty much everything has great IPv6 support except Docker. Docker tolerates IPv6 but you're on your own to get the packets routed.

Save the Mars Sample Return mission, plead Congresscritters

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Trollface

The soil

The soil there is a strong orange color, a beautiful orange, maybe the second most beautiful orange on Earth. There's nothing quite like it, but you know, just the other day, I was talking to an astronaut at lunch, and the sandwiches were the best. Not just any sandwich, but...

Tesla power steering probe upgraded after thousands more incidents reported

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Re: Lucky for them...

Old cars were light weight, had narrow tires, and they had a lower steering gear ratio. Parking without assistance was difficult but they were drivable. I imagine it would take incredible strength to control a Tesla without power assistance. And the steering wheel would have to be bolted on correctly.