* Posts by Andy The Hat

2049 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Oct 2010

PwC will say goodbye to staff who aren't convinced about AI

Andy The Hat

And the Lord spaketh saying

"Praise AI for AI will make us money without providing benefit to the customer"

"but the Government will bestow us with gifts and grants to build datacenters upon the lands."

And then he whispered

"and lo, we will be paid a second time to use a real person to fix the problems the AI leaves behind."

GOV.UK chatbot gets smarter but slower as LLMs improve

Andy The Hat

Re: Negligence

^^this, simply this.

Hide and sleek: Latest Vivaldi release can tuck its UI away until summoned

Andy The Hat

Re: Somebody check my memory

Those were the days when Opera 6 was the top of the pile and doing useful stuff for users. I paid for it too.

Was my default up to Opera 12 then unfortunately in one release cycle it completely lost its way.

UK splashes £45M on AI supercomputer to help crack fusion power

Andy The Hat

Is 1.4MW particularly beefy for a thunderous, brain stomping, Om-challenging AI entity that's not based on ARM or RISCV power sippers? Sounds a bit wussy to me.

Atomic Britain: UK plans regulatory reset to boost nuclear power

Andy The Hat

"In the UK, at least, the government wants to get the country off its dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets that have driven up fuel prices,"

No, they want to force everyone to use increasingly cheaper to produce electricity whilst insisting on the price being pegged to an inevitably rising price of gas.

This maximises fat-cat-class profit for little effort ...

The day they remove that price constraint is the day I consider that they may be doing something sensible rather than simply greasing their own palms.

Microsoft Copilot now boarding your health information

Andy The Hat

"Data in Copilot Health is protected ... including encryption at rest and in transit, ... strict access controls ... Your information in Copilot Health is not used for model training."

So it's encrypted at all times - except whilst being processed in the cloud in some country, somewhere.

Strict access controls - only those who pay us have access to your data.

The data is not used blah blah - so who's data are MS using, in an ongoing fashion, to assess and modify accuracy of the model?

Musk makes the Macrohard joke again

Andy The Hat

Isn't this the scenario, if not the company, that most of the political classes of the world are investing in?

Citizens mandated to communicate with AI interfaces controlled by centralised AI systems and that all orchestrated by one (eg UK-KierBot Plc) AI?

As suggested, any company just providing a service (in whatever form) should run under AI as there is no physical production, just data flow. You don't even need money as it's figures on an AI's spreadsheet. Thus I believe such a company can be modelled simply as an algorithm or a data function element.

"If it works" is not the start of the problem - who controls the orchestrating AI(s) is the main issue. This is a vision of Big Brother under construction.

Musk's Grok sparks outrage after chatbot makes offensive jibes about football disasters

Andy The Hat

Re: Big deal!

In the UK an individual has the right to be offensive (as has been tested in law) and an individual has the right to be offended (but that is generally not considered relevant in law) unless being offensive continues in such a way that the action is considered harassment.

Accenture tells staffers: If you want a promotion, use AI at work

Andy The Hat

The best, most productive way to perform for the company in any situation is to use the company mandated AI system!

Worker promotion and job security relies on it!

So why doesn't the company actually promote those using it for exams as it's obviously the best, most productive use of their time, rather than sacking them?

AI chatbots waffle on GOV.UK queries, then get facts wrong when told to zip it

Andy The Hat

Re: Agressive hallucination sometimes seems linked to history accumulation.

If I asked a DWP droid about UC I would both expect that person to give accurate information and be legally liable for the accuracy of that information. Where does the responsibility for data accuracy lie with this new "AI" system?

Poland bans camera-packing cars made in China from military bases

Andy The Hat

Digital security in the hands of the experts

At least the UK solar power infrastructure expansion based on chinese tech will be digitally secure ... Perhaps the minister doing the deal needs to be answering questions in Parliamentary committee about it? Oh he did ...

"Minister you are claiming to have made a major deal with the Chinese regarding renewable energy and solar power."

"Ask me any question about it and I'll answer."

"Is it secure - do the chinese have control of a remote cut-off switch?"

"Wibble! Ask me another!"

"What is the cost of the deal?"

"Wibble wibble. This is such fun! Ask me anything relevant, go on anything ..."

"What is this deal actually for?"

"Wibble. Can I borrow a pair of underpants and a couple of pencils please? Go on, ask a proper question this time."

For those who saw it, you may not have noticed but I have basically paraphrased Milliband's responses. I'm not sure which was worse, his complete ambivalence to questions about cyber security of power infrastructure developments or that he thought the whole thing was funny.

Capita taps Microsoft Copilot to dig it out from UK pensions backlog

Andy The Hat

I fully expect Capita to have an in-house designed and built system system that does not allow any data out to remote MS servers or allow personal data get even near the smell of an external LLM ...

/cynical mode: off/

Microsoft engineer speedruns Raspberry Pi magic smoke in five minutes

Andy The Hat

Amazing!

An entire story devoted to "plug something in wrong and you may fry it".

Is this the slowliest, FAKIEST NEWS! day story ever?

Sudo maintainer, handling utility for more than 30 years, is looking for support

Andy The Hat

Re: Remind me...

It seems that the only way that FOSS can work commercially and ethically is to not be free to commercial users. How the hell that works I've got no idea.

Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

Andy The Hat

Re: Not a Trump thing.

I remember Margaret on Facebook during Covid. She'd been an established expert in parenting, road pothole repairs, returning worn stuff to Sainsbury's and knew everything about shades of eyeshadow. Lucky for us, during Covid she had just turned 19 and was able to give us great advice as she was now fully qualified as a leading expert in global pandemics, viral contagions and containment methodologies (qualifications cited: she had a really bad cold once, an std twice, knew how good bleach was in the toilet and could two-thumb type) ... Looking back on it, I wonder if she was orange?

Andy The Hat

Re: Not a Trump thing.

upvote as that comment works in both directions

Latest Vivaldi release surfs a wave of anti-AI sentiment

Andy The Hat

That is the whole argument - most of the time the user doesn't want it and the user gains no benefit from it, so why has so much time and effort gone into ramming it down our throats?

Simple answer to that question is that it is to the benefit of the browser publisher ...

Andy The Hat

Re: AIdvertising

"Oh, like a reverse CatBlock, you mean? :-("

Excellent - there was a cat now there's sh*t ... we could call it LitterTray

Andy The Hat

Re: ('AI', huh) Yeah (What is it good for?) Absolutely nothin' Uh-huh, uh-huh

"It's too big for his small hands anyway !!!"

Not sure about that, I think you'll find he has the biggiest, safiest, orangiest hands in the Kingdom, like those of a fine Librarian ... "Oook!" ... just without the librarianship ...

High Court to grill London cops over live facial recognition creep

Andy The Hat

"Sarah Jones, crime and policing minister, said facial recognition technology "is the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching.""

Maybe if you are looking for criminals who committed crime X but that's not the same as routinely tracking the movement of journos or opposition politicians or people protesting and that data is being (illegally) stored ...

UK digital ID goes in-house, government swears it isn't an ID card

Andy The Hat

Re: It's not an ID card

I don't believe the economics of the situation are the problem per-se as there could be significant benefits to a single id (been there and have several t-shirts) but what is a problem, perceived or actual, is the misuse of the data by the state or "threat actors" either intentionally or due to complete incompetence of the Government. If I lose my driving license it's cancelled and I get another one, if my entire digital persona is compromised what happens then? Who am I? How do I prove my id when my entire ID is invalid and can be recreated in minutes by someone on the web to buy aubergines from Sainsbury's?

On top of that, perhaps "Simons did not rule out the scheme being required to sign into social media accounts" could actually mean all access to the internet has to be logged via digital ID as a "age verification" to "protect the kids". That may not be misused by this Government, they are probably too incompetent to do so, but what if a Trump-esque figure takes over and wants to track journalists or political opponents or Jews ...? The digital ID is not only who you are but also where and when you are - that is dangerous.

Notepad will now tell you all the ways Microsoft has enshittified it

Andy The Hat

Great

I for one think it's a great idea ... I really love pointless bloat and AI in all my systems. I may even buy a new Co-Pilot PC to enjoy it's irrelevant features.

Did that sound overly sarcastic?

£45B savings remain theoretical as UK digital roadmap delayed again

Andy The Hat

Historical questions.

Exactly how many times over the last 30 odd years have we been told about major government efficiencies due to "computers", "digitisation" and now "AI"?

Exactly how much and how many times in those years have savings actually been generated?

In the current climate how exactly will giving money to incumbent US monopolies save us money or secure our personal data privacy?

Given what's happening, is the HMRC still "saving taxpayer's money" by sending all our tax information to the US for analysis (because the USA is a great friend who we can trust with our privacy) or have they dropped that contract on the basis that the USA is run by an autocrat who doesn't give a monkey's about treaties or privacy (both proven) or anything else (probably, apart from money and being richer) ...?

Price, battery life, performance – that's how you sell PCs

Andy The Hat

At the moment, I get the impression that the killer apps (how much do I hate that term?) are those that turn off AI and personal data vacuuming in apps.

Congress throws NASA a lifeline, leaves Mars sample mission to die in the dust

Andy The Hat

Re: Mars samples.

I'm sure "biggly" isn't a word. "Bigglier" is ...

Sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that! PCs refuse to shut down after Microsoft patch

Andy The Hat

issue

Problem is if you start a forced shutdown and it's initialised a bios or firmware update ... kill that process and turn off your machine, permanently.

Who thought it was a good idea for Windows to randomly apply BIOS updates without massive alarms going off?

Starlink to lower orbits of thousands of satellites over safety concerns

Andy The Hat

strange idea

the last thing you want is greater ballistic drag for satellite longevity and fuel efficiency. Conventionally you wait until end-of-life then deorbit but, given the way SpaceX works, are we actually looking at the reduction in altitude of older satellites to be able to get them out of the way a bit quicker and give orbital elbow room to overlap with their newer, more powerful replacements in the original orbit?

Hong Kong’s newest anti-scam technology is over-the-counter banking

Andy The Hat

Re: Yep, the right step.

Virgin Money are now part of Nationwide and they are the ones who were keeping branches open ... just making them difficult to access by not opening on Saturday mornings and stuff.

DVSA's clapped-out booking system gets bot slapped as new boss rides in

Andy The Hat

This is just the start ...

You think it's bad now but as the thousands of OAP mandatory retests to avoid losing licenses come into force the system will become an absolute nightmare.

I assume HM Government thought of the issues with the underlying system before implementing that policy so they must have an immediate plan of action ...

Microsoft security update breaks MSMQ on older Win systems

Andy The Hat

Am I reading this correctly?

For higher security, we are giving write access to a system folder that didn't require it before?

Cabling survived dungeons and fish factories, until a lazy user took the network down

Andy The Hat

Stealing terminators could be avoided with a bit of heatshrink.

I had a fully working mixed 10base2/10base5 line - except for three unconnectable machines in a class room (often the machines would move along the line so one day it's be number 7, 8 and 9, the next it'd be number 8, 9 and 10 or no issues at all). Done my head in until I found a bad connection under a secretary's desk (proper IT crowd moment ...) which was causing a reflection and killed the signal for about 6m, 50m or more back up the line ... Depending on temperature, activity or what it felt like on the day, the dead spot wandered a bit so either killed machine 7 or 10 but never both.

Andy The Hat

Re: Ah, the joys (?) of 10Base2

"avoid vampire taps entirely, and use crimp-on type N connectors" ...

Wuss ... what's wrong with soldered N-types? We used them because we couldn't afford the stupidly expensive crimp tools at the time.

Terminating cables for an extension on a bouncy, damp, 2nd floor, flat roof in the middle of winter with a 240V soldering station and a hot air gun (to shrink sleeving over the joint as I was even conscientious back then) was fun.

UK minister ducks cost questions on nationwide digital ID scheme

Andy The Hat

Re: > Anybody know when the next predicted apocalypse is? I've had enough.

"Don’t you just like Musk: full of doom and gloom with no offer of SpaceX to intercept…"

Totally agree. All he had to do was build and launch a fleet of ships and set up an Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator just before we discovered the alien object**, then intercept the pesky thing ... He just had one job to do ...

Now the only possibility is to lob a Falcon 9 at a target heading away into deep space with plenty of room for Trump to sit in an airless fairing and shout crap about aliens about invading the Earth ... could be benefits after all ...

** by any definition it's an alien object but being steered by an alien Uber-comet-steerer is unlikely

Digital overhaul at UK's NS&I bank is £1.3B over budget and 4 years late

Andy The Hat

From my experience, do they actually have a computer system?

London left buffering as Hyperoptic backup link refuses to boot

Andy The Hat

Maybe it was a couple of spare pairs in the same cable run ...

UK space sector 'lacks strategic direction,' Lords warn

Andy The Hat

"a dedicated Space Minister"

That is brilliant job!

Surely not even a UK minister could fail to earn their new salary if their sole responsibility was for checking the presence of space occasionally ...

Colt gets greenlight for £2.5bn London datacenter splurge

Andy The Hat

"will run entirely on renewable energy through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA)"

In non-marketing speak:

"We are going to by the electricity we use from the grid".

Head meet tree dying at the alter of AI power generation.

Digital ID is now less about illegal working, more about rummaging through drawers

Andy The Hat

But that doesn't get used enough to harvest lots of loverly jubbly data.

The first thing you'll notice on the yet-another-new-government-portal website will be the scream of 184 "absolutely essential" cookies being dumped onto your machine followed by the declaration that your data *will* be shared with "trusted third parties".

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

Andy The Hat

Re: It must have been transported...

Given the level of activity off our local colony, it appears that unwary floating sea ducks could be under sealed and cease to float.

BBC probe finds AI chatbots mangle nearly half of news summaries

Andy The Hat

Partially correct.

A mission decision was taken rather than returning them to Earth on an earlier flight or using other means available (eg a specially flown Dragon capsule).

They were not stranded (unable to return) however many rags at the time *did* suggest that was the case.

At the worst they could have risked using the tin can they arrived in ...

UK.gov vows to hack through regulation to get benefit from AI

Andy The Hat

What a complete load of robots ...

"Milton Keynes Council has won a £781,817 portion of the pot to pilot the licensing of robots that could clean and de-ice pavements."

This doesn't allow for hi-tech maintenance and IT administration overheads, or the funds committed by Milton Keynes council to the project, or the ongoing annual running costs ...

You could just gainfully employ a few people with brooms on basic wage ... or is that a silly idea?

SpaceX's Starship explodes again ... while still on the ground

Andy The Hat

Why bother testing?

No other spacecraft has ever blown up on the pad because it's all super safe and most people on TikTok think testing is boring, so last year and a complete waste of time.

I presume most of the commentards believe the pad area is empty when these tests happen simply because the siren is too loud...

Mozilla frets about Google's push to build AI into Chrome

Andy The Hat

Re: Excellent

So many things I don't want or need but will suck my data into an LLM somewhere on planet Google.

UK govt promises digital reform in spending review. We've heard that before

Andy The Hat

"Digital efficiency"

Yep, another digital sh*t show incoming!

Microsoft slows Windows 11 24H2 Patch Tuesday due to a 'compatibility issue'

Andy The Hat

reasons ...

Perhaps the issue is the "cause to fail to run on incompatible hardware" incompatibility patch requiring another patch because Win11 still actually works on incompatible hardware by bypassing the patched patches ...

Just let us run it on older hardware, we know it does! We may be mad but you could make money out of us and we could have a stress-free life. Give up the fight!

The UK wants you to sign up for £1B cyber defense force

Andy The Hat

Re: Refreshing

Here's a load of money Officer, go do AI and cybersecurity stuff. If we reduce the military budget and get rid of most of it we'll be able to spend money protecting the systems we haven't bought ...

Don't get blinded by the emporer's clothes - Orange talks crap, Starmer speaks in parseltongue

Andy The Hat

"the new Command would protect all military networks from attacks,"

A) the "command" would do no such thing, it would coordinate the purchase of software and hardware from "trusted third parties" and AI companies.

and

B) isn't this software/network hardening supposedly part of GCHQ's remit via the National Cyber Security Center?

SpaceX resets 'Days Since Last Starship Explosion' counter to zero, again

Andy The Hat

"Spin it all you want, this was a failure."

Criticise all you like, this was a test.

Test fails are as much part of the scenery as test successes otherwise there's no point in testing..

In reality

They couldn't do a door test because the ship was already spinning too fast.

They couldn't do a relight test because the ship had no attitude control.

They couldn't do a heatshield test because they had no reentry attitude control.

Until they sort out why the hotstage damages the engine compartment of a block 2 (but not a block 1), nothing will advance ... but you can't hotstage on a test stand so be prepared for more "failures".

Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves

Andy The Hat

What does AI learn?

When will AI actually be denegrated to what it is, a glorified search engine and data manipulation tool?

Take in data, manipulate, throw out data.

There is no intelligence, information awareness or analysis of either the accuracy or quality of data ingested. Quantity is king.

Classic GIGO with a positive feedback loop.

Andy The Hat

Re: "an article I read on Litvenyenko"

Given that Litvinyenko/ Litvenyenko is an Anglicized version of the original Литвиненко, I'm not sure there's any sort of argument to be had about spelling unless you are actually an expert in Russio-Cyrillic to English translation methodologies and semantics.

The Americans can't even spell English properly so what hope has a pseudo translation of a Russian name using a completely different alphabet got?