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* Posts by nematoad

1858 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Sep 2009

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Debian faces firmware furore from FOSS freedom fighters

nematoad
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Re: I like Debian, but it has its own share of a*holes too.

"most resources are wasted in petty fights..."

Yes maybe they are, but unless the use of these resource are stopping you from doing something who cares?

People start projects, maintain programs and fork other peoples stuff because they want to. A lot of people are not in it for the money or as a job, they do it for the pleasure of building something that others may appreciate or find useful. Just stopping some of the forks does not mean that the devs will move onto something "more productive".

No one is forcing you to use any of the applications, utilities or OSs that are on offer so why worry about the time and effort other people are putting into their projects. They are not costing you anything in time, money or resources so why all the angst?

See choice is a two way street in FOSS. You have a choice to use or not programs and the devs have the choice in what they decide to work on.

6 0
nematoad

Hard choices.

Using my boxes without proprietary blobs would be nice. Reality gets in the way however and some things need the proprietary stuff to work properly.

Take the nvidia drivers in Linux. Nouveau works, not well, but it works. The trouble is if you want to do anything other than basic computing you really need the nvidia drivers.

I am having real problems with nouveau. For some reason my distro which used to install the nvidia driver for your card, if you wanted to use it, doesn't seem to work on my main machine and I'm stuck with nouveau. With that if I try and play a video I get stuttering, nasty artefacts and sometimes it will just slow to a crawl. I have been helped by my distro's forum and one of the suggestions was because my video card is getting old I should get a new one. That's not going to happen. Have you seen the price of new cards? That is if you can get one, and even second-hand ones are currently out of my reach.

My old card is perfectly capable of doing all that I need, all that's holding it back is the FOSS driver I am having to use. So while in theory having FOSS drivers to go along with my FOSS OS would be perfect, sometimes you have to compromise and use the tools that best meet your needs.

I would love to be able to ditch all the proprietary stuff on my machines, that's why I use Linux, but real life keeps me anchored to stuff I can neither examine or entirely trust.

17 0

AI-powered browser extension to automatically click away cookie pop-ups now promised

nematoad
Stop

Fox guarding the hen-house.

"Some of the organizations forced to implement these pop-ups have designed them specifically to be tricky to navigate, or use dark patterns to fool someone into selecting the opposite desired option,"

Right, I see that from time to time and wish it would go away, but;

"A team of researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Google..."

Right there is the problem.

If you have ever had to click through the Youtube cookie dialog you will know what I mean. Who in their right mind has boxes that allow you to switch off cookies showing the palest of pale blue change when you decline a load of data that Google wants to take for itself? And then goes back to the white original colour after you have chosen?

Aesthetics? I don't think so. It's just one example of Google desperately trying to grab anything they can get about your internet habits.

And they then expect us to believe that this project is for our benefit?

Pull the other one, it has got bells on.

8 0

Day 7 of the great Atlassian outage: IT giant still struggling to restore access

nematoad
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Stop

Re: Could be 2 more weeks according to a Reddit comment

"...and have taken steps to avoid a recurrence in the future."

And so should you by looking to move to somewhere else.

On-prem there is usually someone to carry the can.

SaaS, "Who ya gonna call?"

3 0

Why OpenAI recruited human contractors to improve GPT-3

nematoad

Eh?

"Aligning language models like GPT-3 may make them less likely to generate text that is less toxic, biased, and more accurate,"

Now my parsing of this sentence may be wrong but surely this is an example of a double negative.

If the idea is to try and stop the AI from producing offensive text then anything that stops it from being "less toxic, biased, and more accurate" is not going in the right direction.

3 0

Vital UK customs system outage contributes to travel chaos at its borders

nematoad
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Re: Bit late to blame brexit

"Intransigence and incompetence are the things to blame."

Oh, you mean the government?

Yes, that about sums this lot up, and we still have another two years to put up with them.

29 1
nematoad
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Happy

Re: Amazing isnt it

"The old system lasting almost quarter of a decade."

What 2.5 years?

I would not call that old.

Perhaps you meant "a quarter of a century"?

9 0

The metaverse of fantasy worlds is itself still a fantasy

nematoad
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Re: One Metaverse To Rule Them All

"He's not the sharing type.

Of course he is. You are more than welcome to share all of your personal data with his companies.

Don't ask for any of his in return though.

6 0

DeepMind 'grossly inadequate' at tackling sexual harassment, says former staffer

nematoad
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Unhappy

Re: Google......ah yes......that was then....

"We are digesting our former employee's open letter..."

Yeah, and everyone knows what happens after digestion has been completed.

Some old flannel, warm words and no intention of doing anything about it after all the fuss has died down.

2 0

Rolling Rhino: A rolling-release remix of Ubuntu

nematoad
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FAIL

Re: YALD

"The Linux 'community' (such as it is) should make perhaps 1 or 2 distributions, and kick the others to the kerb."

And what if the two chosen distros do not meet your needs or include things that you do not want on your boxes? And anyway who are the people anointing the "chosen ones"?

I'm thinking of things like systemd, sudo, snap packages and so on. I have no use for such things but being Linux I can pick and chose, or is world dominance so important that you want to force everyone into a straitjacket, get everyone marching in lockstep and do away with one of the real strengths of Linux, freedom, both to chose how you set up your systems and the freedom to change things if they do not fit your needs.

The Gnome devs will be delighted to read your post, it's the direction they have been travelling in for years.

And anyway who are the people anointing the "chosen ones"? Me, you, Linus Torvalds, Mark Shuttleworth or Uncle Tom Cobley?

4 0

GNOME 42's inconsistent themes are causing drama

nematoad
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Re: I don't think there's very little you can do about it

"It boggles me that the Trinity folks bothered to fork it."

Perhaps that's because they had a different opinion about KDE3.5 and decided that given the mess that was KDE4 they should do something about it.

See the thing about Linux and its ecosystem is if you don't like something you have a choice and can go somewhere else. Peoples tastes differ and just because you do not care for a particular DE does not make it worthless.

Oh, and by the way, I agree with you about KDE4 and was so glad when I came across MATE so I could have a desktop that got out of my way and let me get on with the real purpose of my PC, doing stuff.

6 0

Hackers remotely start, unlock Honda Civics with $300 tech

nematoad
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"You could use the same token to open all the doors and maybe start the engine too."

I agree with you about the uniquely shaped piece of metal but having that, let's call it a "key", open all the doors, filler cap and ignition is a very bad idea.

My Mini Cooper S has a different key for each of those functions and that is generally thought that that adds to the security of the car. Lose one key, not nice but it happens, and you have only allowed access to one of the parts of the car.

With one key to rule than all, lose that and you're stuffed.

1 16

Big Tech revenues under threat from EU law proposals

nematoad
Unhappy

Lucky them.

Lucky old members of the EEA.

It's what has been needed for years now and with the heft that the EU + Norway, Iceland, etc have, this might just bring these monster companies to heel.

Now more than ever I regret the act of self-harm the great British electorate inflicted on us when they decided to leave the EU.

What chance the UK will follow in the steps of the EU and introduce similar legislation? From what I can see, slight to none, and while our European counterparts benefit from this act we will continue to be subject to all the abuses and dirty tricks the likes of Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft can dream up just to fill their already obscenely well lined pockets.

Leaving the EU was always a stupid idea and this sort of thing just rubs salt into the wound.

19 8

UK Ministry of Defence takes recruitment system offline, confirms data leak

nematoad
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Happy

Re: Final straw for the Army/Capita marriage?

"Clearly the RAF and Navy did the sensible thing and jump ship while they could!"

Or in the case of the RAF, bail out.

31 0

Linux Mint Debian Edition 5 is here

nematoad
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Thumb Up

Re: Hmm

"While RPM has some merits, it is a shame that all distributions can't just settle on Apt/Synaptic. "

Then you might want to try PCLinuxOS.

Texstar took APT and modified it so that it works with RPM. It's a treat to use and in the 25 years I've been using Linux it is the easiest way I have found of keeping my systems up to date. And as PCLOS is a rolling release a very good and necessary innovation.

3 0

Heaps of tweaks and improvements incoming with GNOME 42

nematoad
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Happy

Re: version 42

"What happens when you multiply six by nine in the calculator?

The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything ?

2 0
nematoad
Unhappy

All your...etc.

"The GNOME environment continues to both grow and become more closely integrated, subsuming what was once third-party functionality, such as mapping and telephony. "

Good God! That sounds like the systemd manifesto,

What is it with these people, do they want to follow in Apple's footsteps and control everything?

15 1

Google introduces new Cloud infrastructure pricing

nematoad
Unhappy

Hmm.

"align with how other leading cloud providers charge for similar products,"

Cartel, anyone?

6 0

Afraid of the big bad Linux desktop? Zorin 16.1 is here

nematoad
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Happy

Re: Zorin, Ideal for beginners

"Zorin is the only one that works right out the box."

Then you might want to take a look at Q4OS. It's smart enough to know that its running in a VM and will automatically install the Virtualbox additions for you. It doesn't get any easier than that and is quite a nice Debian based distro with the Trinity desktop environment.

Smart and it looks good, pity about SUDO and systemd though.

5 0

Dell opts out of Microsoft's Pluton security for Windows

nematoad
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Re: The two faces of Pluton... external facing switch and internal facing switch.

"...today's 2022-03 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 21H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5011487), that resulted in a kernel fault, "

Interesting, my sister has just bought a Windows (spit) laptop and as I was trying to do something with it the other day it stopped me in my tracks and demanded that I update it. I had no option but to agree so walked away from the thing as it did "The magic" (quote from the initial setup). So it looks like it did get that KB.

If it has bricked the laptop it might allow me to nuke the OS and put a decent one on instead, PCLinuxOS in this case. So although there might be wailing and gnashing of teeth in the short term this update may be a blessing in diguise.

3 1

NHS Digital's demise bad for 55 million patients' privacy – ex-chairman

nematoad
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WTF?

Re: Sad but true

"As such, I don't visit GPs, hospitals etc."

Idiot.

You might be fit, young and healthy but that is not true for everyone.

So what if you develop cancer or some other life threatening illness? Are you going to self-medicate for those as well?

A lot of us have no choice, we have to rely on the services of the NHS and in the UK we are blessed by being able to do so.

So what is your answer to the problem of some people associated with the NHS wanting to make money off of people's most personal and sensitive data?

In your case it seems to be to try and side-step the threats but it might be better to actually do something about it and put curbs on the acquisitive tendencies of those at the top of the medical hierarchy

19 1

Ukraine seeks volunteers to defend networks as Russian troops menace Kyiv

nematoad
WTF?

No help required!

"...to form a negative image of the Russian Federation in the eyes of the world community,"

I'd say that they were doing a pretty good job on their own.

It would be ironic if the Russians were hit with some of the malware they have been inflicting on the rest of the world.

One lives in hope.

46 0

Americans far more willing to hand over personal data

nematoad
Unhappy

"... close to 60 per cent of people globally believe it's worth allowing companies to access their personal data if it means a better user experience,"

Aye, fat, dumb and happy.

Are they really aware of the Faustian pact they are making with the likes of Facebook and Google?

I think a lot of them are not.

29 3

Comparing the descendants of Mandrake and Mandriva Linux

nematoad
Happy

Sons of Mandrake

PCLinuxOS is my favourite of the three I have tried. It seems to be more polished generally and with it using a modified APT and Synaptic, one of the best distros I have used when it comes to keeping my system up-to-date. Being a rolling release it can be a bit of a lottery when it comes to things breaking. That has happened but rarely and Texstar and his devs soon sort things out. The community is a good place to go when you need help and the forums are full of knowledgeable, friendly people. That said I have temporarily moved to Mageia as I was having severe problems with PCLOS. Things were not working and although I did manage to get some of then sorted out with the help of folk on the forum, in the end I jumped ship.

I first looked at Open Mandriva. Despite what they claim I don't think that OM is a direct descendant of Mandrake/Mandriva. Things have moved too far away from the original. The use of Calamares as the installation utility being the first thing that hits you. The use of SUDO is a personal hate of mine. I never know what password to use and to my way of thinking letting any user have root privileges is just asking for trouble. I just could not get on with this distro so I took a look at Mageia.

I tried Mageia in its very early days and although it was OK it had a few rough edges to it. These have long since been done away with and the distro is pleasant and easy to use. Its not as polished as PCLOS. A lot of things that need to be done after a fresh install are harder to do with Mageia, A case in point is the hassle I had switching from double to single mouse click. It took me two days to track down the toggle to change the setting. In PCLOS the option is there in the control centre. Software is another sticking point. RPMDrake is not as clear or as easy to use as APT or Synaptic and there are some gaps in the programs available. I had to side-load Palemoon as it is not in the Mageia repo.

So far I have been lucky and have not had any problems with systemd. From anecdotal evidence when something goes wrong you can be in real trouble. Fingers crossed on that one.

The Mandrake derivatives have inherited one thing that makes them stand out from all the other distros I have tried. The *drake suite of tools. Diskdrake is surely the easiest of all the partitioning utilities and I don't know why more distros don't use it. Hardrake, printerdrake and most of the others are, in my opinion, top notch and I miss them when they are not available.

My system admin days are long in the past now and my boxes are no longer my job or a hobby. I guess that I have reverted to a plain user with a few admin rights, so although any of these distros would suit someone like me wanting just a simple and easy to use computer there may be others who prefer a more hair-shirt approach.

Oh, in case anyone asks, I use the Mate desktop as I cannot get on with KDE or Gnome these days.

5 0

No help for IT contractors on IR35 tax errors

nematoad
Joke

Duh!

"This means that HMRC collects more tax in total than is due."

A feature and not a bug?

Seriously, HMRC should be dragged to the bar of the House of Commons and made to explain itself. Or is it true that HMRC is above the law?

Or at least thinks it is.

18 1

UK.gov threatens to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

nematoad
Happy

One word.

Tor.

If it's good enough for the US Navy.

It was developed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory. it's good enough for me.

0 4

Nobara Project brings whole bunch of extensions so you can frag noobs on Fedora 35

nematoad

Maybe not.

"Gamers demand high performance over more traditional Linux virtues such as reliability or security. "

Then they are misguided and if they introduce threats and security problems into Linux then I suspect that they will get short-shrift.

If they want to live in a Wild-West sort of place where performance is all that counts and security takes second place then I would suggest that they stick to the Windows ecosystem and leave those of us who value stability, reliability and security to an OS that does offer these things.

Of course I would like to be able to play games without all the workarounds but if that means painting a big target on my system saying "Malware welcome here." then I will keep using Wine and all the other offerings available to us.

1 4

UK government responds to post-Brexit concerns and of course it's all the fault of those pesky EU negotiators

nematoad
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Re: Brexit was One Long Snivel.

"...taken as a group, the populace are not well informed or clever enough to decide their own political destiny."

The trouble is all the alternative solutions are worse.

Do you really want to live in a country run like China or Russia?

Winston Churchill once said:

"Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

2 0
nematoad
WTF?

No kidding.

"Meanwhile, the incalculable cost of non-participation continues to rise."

Yes, quite right.

There is a saying which is apposite:

Look before you leap.

If you leave the club then don't be surprised if you don't get to enjoy all the benefits that membership gave you.

Instead we were sold the fantasy that "Taking back control" and "A global Britain" would solve all the problems that having been building up over the past few years,, Now that reality is starting to bite the likes of Bill Cash are whinging that we can't have our cake and eat it too.

God, it makes me wonder if these fools can walk and fart at the same time given the level of intelligence and knowledge being exhibited by this government.

36 5

Indonesia bars financial institutions from offering crypto services

nematoad

Confusion reigns.

I do wish that people would stop using the word "crypto" as shorthand for cryptocurrency.

When I read the headline I thought "Wait a minute, a bank is stopping people encrypting their dealings with the bank?"

It turns out on reading the piece that it was on the dubious practices of the cryptocurrency world and not what I had originally thought.

Now I know that in writing a headline you need to be concise and attention grabbing but I think that this example was downright confusing.

7 0

How to polish the bottom line? Microsoft makes it really hard to claim expenses, say staffers

nematoad

Ah, yes.

I once had the dubious pleasure of using an internally developed stock and finance control system when I worked at an oil refinery.

To say that the interface was convoluted would be a gross understatement and after inching my way through I found that funnily enough I was the only one able to get it to work (sometimes). The whole system was controlled with the use of managerial sign-offs via a managers personal code. The trouble was there was no central database of the codes so to put a purchase order through you had to run around looking for the right person, who sometimes did not remember what it was! The orders had to be done with an inflexible syntax and it was so easy to mess things up and you had to start again.

Things came to a head when our department manager came up to me and said "Can you put through this order to pay the refinery's telephone bill, please?"

It turns out that the bill was overdue and BT was unhappy and making threatening noises.

I fought my way through the system, got his authorisation code and asked how much the bill was "£215,000" came the reply. It was getting close to the end of the day and and the manager and I were sweating a bit to see if the bill would go through the system.

It did and the 'phones still worked the next day.

4 0

'95% original' film star Spitfire could be yours for a mere £4.5m (or 0.05 Pogbas)

nematoad
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Re: The Mosquito has a credible claim

Well the Mosquito was a damned good looking aircraft, as most of De Havilland aircraft are but the Spitfire is surely one of the most beautiful things ever made, and to watch them going through their paces over my house in the summertime is a thing of joy,

But best ever aircraft of all time? It depends on what you mean by best. The Spitfire could not carry the load of a Mosquito but it was a better interceptor. It did not have the legs of a P51 Mustang but then it was not designed for long range work.

But in one thing the Mosquito was the best, it was there at the right time, with the right people flying and maintaining it and we all owe a debt to the machines and people for keeping us free of the evils of Naziism.

13 0
nematoad

Merlin 66

It has always puzzled me why when after RR had developed a two speed two stage engine they went and cropped the impeller. The whole point of the Merlin 60 series was, to the best of my knowledge, an attempt to boost the high altitude performance of the engine. So why alter it to boost low altitude performance?

I note the the Seafire L3 was not fitted with this engine but a Merlin 55 also with a cropped impeller, so why the difference? Surely it would be better to settle on one engine mark optimised for low altitude performance than to spread your energies in producing a lot of variants.

I am sure that there is a reason for this but I have not been able to find it after looking for years.

3 0

Version 7 of WINE is better than ever at running Windows apps where they shouldn't

nematoad
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Unhappy

Re: It's true the old addage...

"Let's save that for Microsoft & see if it gets any better."

It might go mouldy, no chance of it getting better.

God knows, its had enough time already.

11 0

Vulnerabilities and censorship tools among hot new features in Beijing's Olympics app

nematoad

Just two words.

"Shove it."

2 0

It takes more clicks to reject their cookies than accept them, so France fines Facebook and Google over €200m

nematoad
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WTF?

"...ludicrous, unlawful fake penalties..."

Unlawful? Who says?

It's the French imposing this fine for activities conducted on French soil so unless the US and France have a secret treaty which says that US companies only answer to US law when ever they conduct business in France then the fines are lawful.

As for ludicrous, well if Google wants to play on French turf then they must accept French rules, and if they don't they either pay up or leave.

I have no idea if you are a US citizen but a world exists outside the US with their own laws and sovereignty.

47 0

Windows giant seeks Pluton-ic relationship with chipmaker: AMD first out of the gates with Microsoft's security processor

nematoad
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Stop

Re: Excuse my ignorance, but ...

"Making sure you only run genuine, verified Microsoft-certified software..."

My sister just bought herself an el-cheapo Asus laptop. When I got dragged in to set it up, I had to fight with something called Windows 'S' mode. Now not having used any MS stuff for over twenty years this was a bit of a shock. What was more of a shock was the error message spread across the screen complaining about an "un-verified" program and did I want to install it? Personally I wanted to un-install the whole bloody mess and put a decent OS on the damned thing but it wasn't my laptop so I was stuck and it took me a long time to get rid of 'S' mode so that I could get on and setup the laptop as requested. Time wasted and temper definitely frayed but I got there in the end.

Oh!

The 'unverfied' program I was warned about?

Something called"powershell.exe" No idea where that came from and I didn't install it as I had been warned off.

Thanks MS.

7 2

Tesla disables in-car gaming feature that allowed play while MuskMobiles were in motion

nematoad
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Re: Removing distraction = good

"... they definitely aren't the only one."

For roundabout connoisseurs I would like to give the Whirlies roundabout in East Kilbride an honourable mention.

I was horrified when I first tried to navigate it but after a while it became second nature but it was always a bit fraught, for me at least.

The alternative are traffic lights and if anyone has seen Coppins Bridge in Newport Isle of Wight I think that they will agree that roundabouts are better.

2 0
nematoad
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Unhappy

Re: Removing distraction = good

"There are lots of accidents on UK roundabouts..."

Yes, you are right about that.

I remember driving back from, I think Montrose to Glasgow, on a road that was new to me when I nearly came a cropper. There were two roundabouts joined in a sort of figure of eight, something I had never seen before and I was on the second roundabout before I knew it. Luckily there wasn't much traffic about and I just missed some oncoming vehicles.

There was a small sign warning of the roundabouts but it did not indicate that the two were joined in the way they were.

Just remembering it gives me the shivers as I was driving my Mini Cooper S and would have had little or no chance if someone had driven into the side of the car.

4 0

UK's Defra and Ministry of Justice facing £120m IR35 tax bills thanks to inaccuracies in assessing contractors' status

nematoad
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Re: Recovery

"Ultimately HMRC is at fault through CEST"

You may be right but unfortunately they can quote Judge Dredd's punchline:

"I am the law."

They will manipulate the law so that it serves them not justice or fair play.

10 0

RAF shoots down 'terrorist drone' over US-owned special ops base in Syria

nematoad
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FAIL

Re: Technically fantastic but...

Al Tanf... a "relatively low-cost, high-impact tool"

Not if it takes a £200,000 missile to knock down a small drone.

Don't these aircraft have guns any more, or are the lessons learned by the USAF in Vietnam no longer remembered?

9 0

Intel's mystery Linux muckabout is a dangerous ploy at a dangerous time

nematoad
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Re: Open source in general is there to be subverted

"...a greater interest in and supply of decent Open Source hardware...and the latter is still some way off.

Most of the hardware I have works well under Linux but then I check if it is compatible on the various Linux compatibility lists. It's the software that gives me problems, especially drivers.

Having just spent the better part of last week struggling to get my system to use the NVIDIA driver for my video card I have to say that there is ample room for improvement in the handling of drivers in Linux. With the help of some knowledgable people on the PCLinuxOS forum I eventually got my rebuilt box to accept the use of the proprietary driver as the Nouveau one was failing miserably and screwing up the functioning of the whole system. In the end a step back from the current kernel installed as a default to an earlier one, in my case 5.10.81-pclos1, did the trick but if the Nouveau driver had been better I would not have had all the trouble I did have just to get a decent output on my monitor.

It goes against the grain using proprietary stuff on my Linux boxes, one of the reasons I started using Linux, but if the alternative is a sub-optimal experience, it's one I am prepared to live with until such time as the FOSS offerings are as good.

2 1

Revealed: Remember the Sony rootkit rumpus? It was almost oh so much worse

nematoad
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Happy

Re: You have to wonder

" USB killer devices that would discharge a huge burst of electricity into the USB port?"

No need for that.

I remember working one day when I got an anguished call from an Australian manager of the company where I worked. Remember, he was Australian and I was then working in the Republic of Ireland, so how did I get the call?

It turns out he was over in Ireland sorting out some plans to move operations from there to here, or something like that, it was a long time ago. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he had apparently mistaken the land line 'phone socket for an RJ45 and plugged his laptop into the telephone circuit.

Now the voltage on that circuit is about 48 volts so did the poor NIC and laptop no good at all. In the end I had to 'phone his network manager in Australia and try and sort out the mess. This was at about 11:30 AM our time so the manager was not amused to be disturbed at home in the evening and let me know of his displeasure.

In the end we got his account details and set up a temporary replacement for him and that was the last we heard of the affair.

You can't plan for stupid.

12 0

Intel updates mysterious 'software-defined silicon' code in the Linux kernel

nematoad
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Thumb Down

Re: The plan is obvious

"VSEC stands for “Vendor-Specific Extended Capability,”

More like; "VSEC stands for “Vendor lock-in,”

Start using some of the "secret sauce" in these chips and you're stuffed.

11 0

Computers cost money. We only make them more expensive by trying to manage them ourselves

nematoad
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Re: Free to get locked in?

No,

Grangemouth.

0 0
nematoad
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Re: Free to get locked in?

As someone who has worked in IT at an oil refinery, a steel works and at a financial services call centre amongst other places, the thought of someone else having control of the servers at any of these places leaves me cold.

The point is who do you trust? The people on the ground or some faceless entity located miles away? If the oil refinery was to blow up, and at the site I worked it had happened. Not all of it of course but part of the cat-cracker landed in the chemical site's canteen about half a mile down the road. If it had been caused by a cloud based IT failure who would be to blame? The same goes for the steel works. Remember these are potentially dangerous places.

As for sites handling peoples financial details I don't think that regulators would look too kindly on anyone outsourcing their IT, conceivably to another legal jurisdiction.

There are good reasons for keeping IT in-house and the issue of trust is one of the main ones.

21 0

Samsung wheels out new silicon that turns cars into 5G-fuelled entertainment hubs

nematoad
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Re: Furhter to the photo

"...Kit from that Hasselhoff vehicle of the eighties."

Knight Rider.

Oh, and the car was called Kitt.

4 0
nematoad
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Unhappy

Re: What is a car?

As someone who is never going to get a "smart" phone the question I would like to ask is: Can all this stuff be removed from the car and it still works?

At the risk of being thought a Luddite, stuck in my ways and hopelessly old-fashioned what I require from a car is that it gets me from A to B reliably and cheaply, What I don' t want is some smart-arsed computer telling me where to go and how to drive, I'm quite capable of figuring that out for myself.

Added to which is the potential of a greatly expanded attack surface for all manner of ills. Would you trust the likes of Ford or Toyota to scrupulously keep all the software and firmware updated? Or would that involve some sort of paid subscription?

No, as a firm believer in the Unix philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well they can keep their mobile computers. I'll keep mine on my desk where it belongs.

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