* Posts by Charlie Clark

12082 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2007

Microsoft promises Copilot will be a 'moneymaker' in the long term

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Github copilot is useful for coding

Right, but that's really just showing you the power of the LLM when it can scrape through everybody's code. Or did it tell you where it got which bits from? Doesn't really matter, the domain-specific stuff like programming should make the literate dream a possibility. But, considering there are now open source models out there that can do just as well, how much are you prepared to pay to use it?

Microsoft license shuffle means Power Apps users could break the bank

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Happy

Thanks

Charlie Clark Silver badge

In one of my current projects I've started getting notices from Microsoft that our Power Crapp Environment is running out of disk space. Not sure what it does, though it looks CRMy but it also looks like a solution looking for a problem, like so much of Microsoft's stack. I think the aim is to tick enough boxes so that people think they can use it instead of another solution and thereby put another nail in the lock-in coffin.

Whatever the problem, Sharepoint isn't the solution™.

Can AI shorten PC replacement cycles? Dell seems to think so

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YMMV, I'm currently planning the disposal of some underspecc'd notebooks bought in the pandemic rush. At the time there was a shortage of memory but that has fortunately passed now. Note, these are disposals without replacements. If and when we need new kit, we'll see what the market has to offer but memory, reliability and weight are more important for the vast majority of users than anything to do with AI.

Bernie Sanders clocks in with 4-day workweek bill thanks to AI and productivity tech

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Don't forget the coin clipping to pay for currency devaluation!

IBM CEO pay jumps 23% in 2023, average employee gets 7%

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Shareholder value at work

There will be no clawback in a couple of years when everyone dies of a disease caught from their telephone.

Google brains plumb depths of the uncanny valley with latest image-to-video tool

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Go

Re: But … why?

Hey, would you pass me that sheet of graphene?

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Stop

Re: But … why?

It's research and research doesn't need that kind of justification. But see it as this: this is an assessment of what's possible with "off-the-shelf" techniques at the moment. What can you do with it? And can you detect it?

The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?

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Re: POP3 is horrible

I've done a move painlessly between providers in the past: essentially you're just uploading a load of msgs to whatever format the server prefers. Depending on the volume of message and the size of your connection, this can take a while, but you can plan for it. Some providers also offer the option to migrate mail from the previous account, using the same mechanism but presumably faster.

POP3 is the older and simpler protocol but I do prefer IMAP and I prefer anything over the Microsoft's proprietary shit: MAPI, ActiveSync and the rest of the crap!

Microsoft forges One Teams App To Rule Them All

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Re: "with separate icons on the taskbar"

I almost never use my camera and I usually disable incoming video feeds, but I'm sure it would probably crash that as well. This for two reasons: the fan starts whirring very quickly on my MacBook but I also find talking heads extremely distracting: I spend most of my time watching them rather than what is being discussed.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: "with separate icons on the taskbar"

At least New Teams for MacOS stopped regularly disabling my network connection.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Too little too late

I have to switch between accounts for work as well. But I'd never use Teams for personal use as it's really the worst messenger / chat client I've come across.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

What, you too don't think the biggest issue with the piece of crap is the ability to switch between accounts?

Leaked docs hint Google may use SiFive RISC-V cores in next-gen TPUs

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Joke

I didn't know Cassandra was a CPU design…

Telegram eyes IPO as user numbers close in on 1 billion

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Re: It's all downhill once the bankers turn up

As long as they have revenue, there is leverage: fines are increasingly being based on revenue rather than income/profits which companies love to hide in "double Dutch Irish sandwiches" and other such wheezes.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: It's all downhill once the bankers turn up

For most of the time Durov was happy to pay for development and hosting out of his own pocket. It wasn't until the number of users spiked that hosting started getting, ahem, "webspensive", and he started looking for ways to cover some of the costs.

Telegram has two things that make it really attractive for many users outside the mainstream: it's very hard to block; and it scales really well. This is why it's so popular in Russia and Ukraine. There is also very little censorship, which can have positives and negatives, but groups generally manage to administer things pretty well. The API is also very interesting for developers, in fact, it's what other services might have looked like if they weren't interesting mainly in monetising their users. It's based in the UAE which keeps it out of the arms of many governments, but we'd be naive to think the UAE is magnificently impartial: it isn't and happy to fund freedom fighters / terrorists.

An IPO could be the deathknell for the system if it then becomes all about making money but the capital could also be used to guarantee costs.

Google searches for boss to get grip on climate, energy costs of this AI hype cycle

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Re: Possibly good news

I don't think "AI" in general is the worry for networks. But for service providers like Google, they may be keenly aware of the marginal costs or "surge pricing" if they have to buy electricity to support workload spikes. Client-side inference uses a lot less power.

Energy utilities have bigger headaches like boosting generation and network capacity to support the switch to electrification for transport, heating, etc. They have, of course, traditionally profited from selling more power, but that's only once the capital costs of increasing capacity have been amortised.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Possibly good news

If energy costs, even is somewhere like America where energy is very cheap, become a significant cost factor, then they will intensify efforts like this to reduce energy use. Though there will also no doubt be attempts to use arbitrage to go where energy is cheapest.

Airbnb warns hosts who use indoor security cameras they may face eviction

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Re: "where guests can reasonably expect privacy expectations"

The amount of privacy you enjoy will depend upon the laws of the relevant jurisdiction: more in Switzerland or Sweden, less so in America or China.

This is just a move to give AirBnB plausible deniability and indemnity in case someone thinks their privacy has been illegally invaded.

Securing open source software: Whose job is it, anyway?

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Re: Contributing Back

I'm not alone in disagreeing with Stallman: his position is political rather than philosophical. No strings attached is how I like my open source.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Contributing Back

No, we don't need to break the idea: open source is free without any kind of qualification.

But software development and maintenance isn't free and we might need to look at what kind of models we need to maintain a particular software ecosystem. Specifically if, as is long overdue, software liability becomes a real thing, how do we deal with this? If companies are selling products or services (using open source software) and can be held liable for problems arising with them, then they will be interested in ensuring the software is maintained and documented. I'd argue that the commercial pressure itself is likely to provide solutions.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Contributing Back

I'm not so keen on foundations. They can quickly become bureaucratic ends in themselves that tag on additional and irrelevant goals.

Microsoft sends OneDrive URL upload feature to the cloud graveyard

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It's also very slow. I don't know what mechanism they use for synching but in my experience it's a lot slower than DropBox or Google Drive. Then I remember: Sharepoint is in there somewhere doing its evil shit.

BOFH: I get locked out, but I get in again

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Thumb Up

Rotuine malice

This episode seems like a nod to the career of a certain George Spigot, who has part of his duties as the devil, has to engage in routine mischief: ripping the last page out of whodunnits, scratching records, etc. Not a lot of fun but someone has to do it…

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: German tomfoolery

German swaps Y and Z but also needs space fo äöü… It's the French one that really plays with QWERT giving AZERT IIRC. But even worse are key combinations for square and curly brackets and the like, espcially, if like me, you have switch between OSes…

UK finance minister promises NHS £3.4B IT investment to unlock £35B savings

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Thumb Down

Re: Zero sum game

Have an extra downvote for caring about downvotes.

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Re: Zero sum game

The OBR isn't that bad; it's just that it's too easy to ignore. Other countries have courts that do deal with spending SNAFUs.

Charlie Clark Silver badge
Facepalm

Don't believe the hype

This is just more "cutting waste" bullshit on steroids as the examples make clear. We've now got 40 years of IT to look back on and it's clear to most that, while productivity has increased, costs generally have not been reduced. When e-commerce was the next thing™ I remember someone from IBM sagely noting that, while it would improve processes, it probably wouldn't save costs. This was packaged up in the neat slogan "work smarter, not harder", which is one of the better ones of the last few decades.

Also, given the size of the NHS and proposed duration, this can't really count as investment. No, it'll probably just be the usual creative accounting with budgets for, I don't know, pandemic protection being run down or research projects not being renewed.

Belgian ale legend Duvel's brewery borked as ransomware halts production

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Pint

The end of the world!

Just try and remember what it was like…

EU users can't update 3rd party iOS apps if abroad too long

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FAIL

Re: I hope they get sued out of existance

Apple is actually being quite flexible and accommodating. Laws of the EU do not apply in other countries and they would be well within their rights to be more aggressive.

Not if they wish to continue trading in the EU they wouldn't. All companies wishing to trade in another country must be subject to its jurisdiction.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Who are their lawyers?

Legally, there is no EU citizenship. We are all citizens of member states. The UK left and, yes, much to their surprise many UK citizens living in EU countries (Spain, France, Portugal, etc.) who hadn't bothered to apply for citizenship in their chosen country of residence, did lose the rights that they had previously held.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Who are their lawyers?

Ah, extra-terratoritality.

GDPR explicility allows for extra-territoriality and is part of what is known as the "Brussels effect", which sees countries observing EU without being legally required to. But, in general, the EU, unlike the US, does not try and enforce its law outside its borders. However, your example is a poorly conceived strawman. A better example might refer to the rights of an EU citizen whilst in America, perhaps taking medication prescribed in their native country, though abortion would be unlikely. You have this in the US going from state to state sometimes between counties and bigger states, notably California and New York do indeed enjoy some degree of extra-territoriality.

Charlie Clark Silver badge
Stop

Re: Who are their lawyers?

No one lost their citizenship as a result of the UK leaving the EU.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Who are their lawyers?

Competition law will apply to EU citizens but I suspect that, in practice as katrinab suggests, both apply for when phones are setup: I don't see US citizens suddenly seeing different options when they travel to the EU. But, as I said, it's easier enough to ask for guidance rather than making a criterium up that plainly won't stand legal challenge.

As for Apple being worried about pissing its customers, since when has that bothered them? Most of the fanbois seem happy for the opportunity to be abused and they more than cover the costs for the more recalcitrant ones.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Who are their lawyers?

"an indicator of eligibility"

This is typical of the tech companies thinking that even when they don't get to make the rules, they still get to decide how to interpret the them. However, as Apple lost the case, they are subject to the ruling, which applies to all EU citizens. And it is a right, and not something you have to earn or lose* as decided by a third party. Not doing this could be could be considered contempt, and I'm surprised their lawyers didn't quash this idea immediately to avoid additional difficulties. It would reasonable to ask how the European Commission how to determine this, though proof of id is possible in nealy all, if not all, EU member states, though it won't be that hard.

* It's virtually impossible within the EU to strip someone of their citzenship once granted, unless malice aforethough, fraud, etc. can be demonstrated.

Year of Linux on the desktop creeps closer as market share rises a little

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Black Helicopters

Re: Repeat after me:

True, but I'm also worried about potentially even bigger failures: complete control of a domain. Or, what happens when someone gets control of parts of Microsoft's cloud?

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Repeat after me:

I don't think anyone is suggesting that any company implement everything themselves. There are some perfectly good alternative solutions for pretty much everything you list. Sharepoint itself is an abomination and horrible to work with just for sharing files. What does Active Directory do that something based on LDAP can't? And there are plenty of alternatives to Intune for device management.

I think the clients are key for user acceptance, but there are alternatives for many things: just look at how they manage with mobile devices.

I really am worried by the corporate march to M365 and the updated "nobody got sacked for buying IBM" approach. I am convinced that, as more and more stuff moves onto Microsoft's platform, the risks will just get bigger and we will see some catastrophic failures.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: "Statcounter says"

How representative are the most popular websites of overall website usage?

I think you've answered that yourself in what looks very much like a tautology! ;-) As I said, it's just another easily available dataset which could be used to assess any similar kind of report. Of course, it is itself biased as it relies on the Chrome browser so it will never pick up what the fanbois are doing.

The CDNs, which are generally mutually exclusive, have the advantage of not using third-party requests to collect the data.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Repeat after me:

I don't really care what the clients are running but I do consider the move towards M365 as an example of systemic risk and, therefore, very much something that CIOs should be aware of.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: "Statcounter says"

It may not be biased in the political sense, but it's certainly not representative of the most popular websites. You could do a comparison of sites using the Chrome Lighthouse data to see how much overlap there is.

Akamai used to provide browser info and I suspect Cloudflare and other CDNs could do as well. I suspect any of these would be more representative of the most popular websites than statcounter.

Toyota, Samsung accelerate toward better EV batteries

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Re: Seeing is believing

Toyota has invested heavily in Sodium-Ion batteries. These are heavier than Lithium but much, much cheaper and less risky. Whether they go into cars or other storage systems is moot as currently demand far exceeds supply. The Chinese have the greatest capacity here but there are others and, crucially, materials won't be the bottleneck.

However, I tend to agree with the 30% prediction. Toyota has been in his game long enough, far longer than most of the competition, to know that the drivetrain (electric motors) is more important than the energy storage system, which can stay oil-based until we have something with similar energy density and fuel fungibility so that refuelling isn't the next problem.

Twitter's ex-CEO, CFO, and managers sue Elon Musk for $128M

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Re: Move over Donald

Here, have one of these.

Mind you, mine's a pint…

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Screw that

Employees? Probably. But investment? I'm sure there are still plenty of fanbois lining up shouting "Hey Elon! Have some more of our money! (Nod to a The Day Today sketch about a TV preacher convicted of embezzlement and "heinous parking", but I can't find the link…). But also, until there is proper governance between the various companies, investors keen to lend on A hoping to collect on B…

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Poor

Very literally yesterday's news… but I can't be bothered to post the link! ;-)

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Screw that

He should really have launched a suit himself alleging negligence and used that to beat down the settlement. If this goes to trial he'll lose and will face costs, and potentially additional damages, though I suspect the real loss will be to non-material things like the ability to get good staff and investment.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

Re: Move over Donald

They're scumbags all along, that's one of the reasons they get rich.

Rapid7 throws JetBrains under the bus for 'uncoordinated vulnerability disclosure'

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FAIL

No, it's based in Prague.

Apple gets in on the AI PC hype, claims fanless M3 MacBook Air is fab for LLMs

Charlie Clark Silver badge

No, it's a segmentation strategy designed to upsell more memory at considerably more profit.

Charlie Clark Silver badge

I'd agree with you that in terms of the bottom line, the revenues are a rounding error.

Try and think of it like this, along with the high-margin, low-maitenance creatives that have tradionally regularly handed over cash, Macs are also needed to develop apps for the mobile devices: no developers, no apps.

EU takes a bite out of Apple with $2B in-app purchase fine

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Re: 30% is just too much

I remember that discussions at the time compared the commission with that charged by resellers. But there are two important differences: the content is entirely digital and thus has much lower storage and distribution costs; the markets are essentially monopolies forcing publishers to pay the commission if they want to sell their wares. In an ideal world, competition between stores would help find the optimal level for commission, but, in it's absence, regulators must intervene.