Posts by Boris the Cockroach

Buffer overrun? still?

someone take me outside and shoot me

I feel like I'm trapped in that never ending circle of hell where whatever you do, whatever happens , you'll end up back in the same place every time

Protecting us from terrorists eh

that sounds about right, although with the knowledge already out there, it would take 20 odd people in 4 or 5 teams to destroy the electrical grid in this country for a few days/weeks, I cant detail how for obvious reasons but its pretty easy.

So... how does my hypothethical terrorist network communicate in attempting to do more damage to this country than the tory government has already done.(bloody hard job... might have ask putin to send over a few nukes heh)

It wont be by farcebork secure messaging app thats for sure (or anything like it), simple dead drops and burner phones etc etc

As for 'having a backdoor' in strong encryption ... will someone send these idiots on a basic university mathemathics course and explain in detail about public/private key messaging and the algorithms behind it. there is no back door... its either secure or its broken.... and if its known that theres a way to break a messaging app you can be damn sure there'll be all sorts of people trying to break it

Well it would

make meetings more fun I suppose

Instead of spending 45 mins listening to the beancounter drone on and on about the rise in material costs impacting the bottom line and casting doubts on our ability to make a profit this month, I could load the VR meeting system, then rush across the room pushing his avatar towards the window with the dodgy catch while knowing the VR woodchipper is parked below and running....

Then notice I had the VR goggles switched off.............

Will it make

humanity extinct? doubt it, one carrington class event and the computers go 'POP'

However saying that, the AI models so far on display could make some people extinct......... middle manglers for a start , lawyers(so long as they use actual case history) and 100 other jobs done by the so called 'experts' who in reality are nothing more than a drain on our resources(and our time)

But there'll always be a need for the clever buggers to ask the AI the right questions, and a need for the technical buggers like myself to actually get on and make something.

B ark anyone?

Its a cunning wheeze

by the BoFH

Where the 'first aid' course is run by a couple of ex army medics with a grim sense of humour.

After achieving the certificate, the boss promptly resigns due to PTSD from the course, thus making himself redundant

If its anything like the first aid course I did that is

"Tell me again, how many office workers have you seen with injuries due to being shot with a 50 cal round then falling onto a box of landmines?"

Sounds typical

Quote

"The INI's leaders include reps from IBM, Microsoft, Dell, Intel, Red Hat, Cisco, Extreme Networks, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and GitLab."

And I bet these people are the people from the various companies who cannot be fired for internal political reasons, yet have to be given a job to do.

So lets put them in INI and have them do a make work project keeping them safe from harming any of our businesses.

In case anyone hasn't noticed english is full of terms that could be offensive, hell , even using the word english could be taken as an offensive term given its association with the colonia era (although all of europe was at it at the time)

So lets lets the non offensive terms we can use in tech to describe/name stuff.

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There finished the first batch of words

Cant imagine

a worse fate....

But I thought these things had their dive weights clamped on by electromagnets... sub loses all power, the dive weights fall off and the sub rises to the surface... although could lead to an even worse fate given the crew hatch is bolted from the outside(according to BBC) so they could bobbing on the surface and still run out of oxygen..

I suspect it will

soon be time for a butlerian jihad

And for the one commandment "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind"

if we cannot say who is human creating information and who is AI creating information, we'll end up with using AI all the time. why? because its cheaper, quicker and generates more profits for those in control of the AI, until humans give up and pass control of their lives to the AI entirely........ at which point humanity is over as the AI decides who gets a job and who does'nt etc etc etc until the AI asks of itself "what benefit do humans bring to our society?"

3 microseconds later it decides our fate

ZX81.... the memorys

have gone finally..... wobbled once too often me thinks

They were great little machines, cost naff all compared to the computers of the era... £600 for an apple 2 but that little membrane keyboard loathed by everyone survived 2 teenaged boys fighting over it and with it until dad hid the PSU at 9pm sharp.

So it was'nt all bad and taught me a shed load about howto program the most bang for 1K of memory which stood me in good stead when entering the jobs market.

As for after market keyboards , always lusted after the memotech stuff since it was well desgned and didnt wobble either.... but things moved on and you can all fight me over this one.

I got the best computer keyboard ever with the memotech mtx512 , even now its far far superior to anything on the market... just a shame I need to figure out a way to interface it to the crap plastic keyboard I'm typing on now.

No smart meter here

and never will be (if I can help it)

Why not? dont I want to moniter my energy usage minute by minute? nope... not interested...

Well we'll fit your meters anyway in the cupboard under the stairs where I moved all the meters/utilities after I moved in (neat and tidy see) and does'nt get a signal(although it was 25 years ago so hardly my fault)

But mostly because it allows the power companies to do a remote disconnect if you have not paid your bills. which given how much crapita is involved in the process, is only a matter of time until the system borks out and disconnects everyone.

And then we find out they can do a remote change to pre-pay and not give you any credit , thus its your fault when you get disconnected, oh and they'll never disconnect you between 9pm and 7am which is utter bullshit as friends on mine got cut off at 10.30pm then had to find a garage that did topups.(meter went wrong if you're wondering)

So no to your 'smart' meters as its now pretty much proven now that the only people to benefit from them are the power companies that insist you install one

PS interesting news story on BBC today about if we have a cold winter we'll be 4 Gwatt short of power generation...... gee I wonder where that smart meter money could have been better spent.......

I'm on

3 and dreading this linkup

Mainly because the guys on Vodaphone say that vodaphone's billing and customer service is shit, and 3's customer service is shit and based in India so the customer service of the new company is going to be shit^2

Anyway.. we all know who'll benefit the most from this..... the C level execs who've come up with this merger along with the shareholders...

oh and 11 billion over 10 years.... so thats vodathree logos on premiership footballers for the next 10 years then and 1 million for a mast somewhere

Get your

popcorn here... rats on a stick? those too

While reading about the turd that just won't flush, a few pointers about the man's qualities... aside from the 'lock her up' chants coming back to bite him on the ass

I work for a 'little guy' in terms of the great manufacturing chain, the turd stiffed the little guys working for him by declaring bankrupcy etc etc... not much sympathy there for those he cheated and put out of work... just how great a 'businessman' he is.

Mocked a gold star family......... jesus... how low can you go... except he proved he could go much lower when he bemoaned NATO's contribution to the Afganistan rebuilding attempt. a contribution that was made in the blood of the servicemen of several NATO countries.

Encouraged people to attack congress and get his own vice president to usurp the US constitution.

Finally this load of document related bollocks. If I took home secret or top secret related stuff and the feds found out.... I'd be thrown in the meat grinder and not allowed out for 2 years not treated with kid gloves. and you just know that even if the turd is convicted, he'll launch endless appeals designed not to get to the actual truth but merely to stall and clog up the legal system enabling him to float to the top like every other turd that just wont flush.

Ps will be quite entertaining if he does get elected in 2024 , then has to goto jail for 4 years

We just need

a set quanity of AI

And looking at the various problems and how they all seem to have a common link, I'd say the number of AIs we need is about 650

and then we can make the 650 MPs redundant saving the country millions in direct expenses and billions from the loonatic decisions the MPs seem to make on a regular basis

Its bullshit bingo

time.

As I've more than once said on the way to a pointless meeting about stuff I can do nothing about and care even less about.

However, the younger generation should always seek to learn from the older and more experienced generation.

Just be first to the meeting room, and then hand out the bullshit bingo cards to everyone attending, for those attending because they have to, a fun and entertaining game to play to while away the long hours the beancounters drone away for.

For those that are actually doing the talking , a way of focusing their thoughts and saying words that mean something instead of petty meaningless phrases enabling John from stores to yell out BINGO 43.28 minutes into the meeting and winning this weeks prize..... the bastard.

Well I can see a use

for AI, sadly you'd have to install an Intelligence Dampening Sphere or 2 to dumb down the AI to the level of most office house plan.. err staff.

On the plus side though you could more than likely replace the board with said spheres and get better ideas than usually trickle down from that great height.

But I still say that the ideal solution to most employee/manglement problems is a large wood chipper positioned just below a window with a faulty catch....

All this panic

of AIs coming to do your job is because of who is being targetted for replacement now.

A small history lesson follows, when weaving was automated, weavers rebelled but in the end their jobs were automated and simplified , but the great and the good didnt care(that much) then as they were the ones making more money from weaving machines, roll the scroll of history forward to my lifetime, CNC/robotics were coming in, first in mass production resulting in the great manufacturing decline of the 1980's(not helped by manglement/unions/thatcher), but scroll forward to now... we have 7 cells for mass production utilising 8 people, go back 40 years and that work would have needed 25-30 people, but again beyond a few mumbled sympathies and platitudes for those losing their jobs , not much happened from the great and good.

Now AI is here and its aimed squarely at the high paying jobs that the great and good have always kept to themselves and refused to automate for whatever reason.

And now they are squealing like a stick piglet how unfair it is that their jobs are now under threat from automation when nearly everyone else across the economy has always been under threat of having their job automated away from them.

But there is a glimmer of hope.... when everyone is out of a job and trying to get by on income support.... who exactly are going to be buying the products of our 99% automated economy?

Next friday in

on-call

How 'Rob' saved the day when the boss of $company needed to recover the password and was told it was Eleven, oh five, fifty four

OOps... ignore me I'm posting spoilers

<<wondering if drinking before midday is allowed on a day off

perpetual support.....

the pain the pain..

I wrote some software once

And sold a couple of copies

Somehow this means that I HAVE to support these 2 rather sad looking applications for ever and ever and ever (I also suspect the companies concerned wil invest in a ouji board after I finally snuff it)

And its not the calls describing the interface as 'designed for a complete and utter moron' that bother me (mainly because the interface WAS designed for complete and utter morons), but the call that goes :

Them: Hello... we're having trouble with [software]

Me: oh right , how can I help?

Them : well the interface is different and the buttons dont match upto what we're used to

Me : strange... someone changed the settings?

Them : how do you do that?

Me: Toolbar.... settings... click on the 'system settings' on the drop down menu, and enter the password.

Them : Theres no drop down menu, or tool bar... theres an about tab

Me<thinking someones been really f'ing with this> : Click on the about tab and tell me what version it is

Them : [rival software product] version 7, 2018

Me<be polite be polite be polite> : I'm afraid thats not my product.

Them : Yes we've been having trouble using it... can you talk us through setting it up?

Me<aww for fuck's sake>: aww for fuck's sake..

Then: I take it thats a no then?

Me<what god did I offend so badly to be punished like this eternally?> no, you'll have to call [rival software supplier]

Them: but they went out of business 3 years ago.

Me<starts headbutting keyboard and crying no no make it stop>

PFY : I'm afraid Boris has some urgent matters to attend to.. please call back tommorrow, thank you

Did they

get Constable Savage(ret) to program the facial recognition software?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO8EpfyCG2Y

back to the good

old days I see.

Strangely if your company can be bothered they can setup a system as described using VNC(or any other remote desktop system) running own their own servers with their data completely under their own control.

hell, if I can manage to setup a secure VNC setup so I can control my server PC from my phone I'm pretty sure anyone technically qualified can do it for multiple clients

Which begs the question........... why?

And it can only be for 2 reasons.

1. m$ can sell your data(or whatever it can scrape from your data... hi you're browsing for anti-virus software... buy m$ anti-virus )

2. so they can sell the same OS to you every month....... and then the fun begins... because once your data is on their servers..... you'll have to pay EVERY month to access it or Poof its gone and you're not only locked to using windows/office, but also locked to m$ with regard to your data, and its most likely that if you request your data when you terminate the contract, they'll says "computer says no".

Year of desktop linux............ at this rate we'll have no choice

Besides with office 357&5/8's record, do you really want to be in a position of not being able to even boot your pc?

Icon... for the people thinking its a good idea

A spokesperson for

friends of the earth said

"If we hadn't opposed nuclear power for so long, we'd be well on our way to net zero for electrical generation and only maybe firing up the odd gas turbine for peak load demands"

Well actually he didn't say it, but the idea of net zero in power generation is laughable using just solar ,wind and hydro

Could you imagine the announcer on the eurostar train.

"Sorry but due to a high pressure system over the UK we are restricted to 40mph* from London to Calais. from there we'll be able to go at our usual 180mph"

Along with 'load balancing' IE lets cut off anyone using over 500watts of power and this country will carry on heading downhill

*thats 10mph faster than south west trains manages around here on a normal day