* Posts by David Nash

1434 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jul 2008

Typo watch: 'Millions of emails' for US military sent to .ml addresses in error

David Nash Silver badge

Re: I had/have a related problem

Although it wasn't necessarily "leaked by the university" was it? if an external sender sent a mail to co.uk instead of ac.uk that has not been leaked by the university.

Bizarre backup taught techie to dumb things down for the boss

David Nash Silver badge

Re: UX Design is Destiny

Instead of "to be deleted", better to call it "will be deleted".

David Nash Silver badge

Re: It could be worse

Ha ha, that's me. Everything comes into the inbox and with a few exceptions, that's where it stays.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: You wouldn't file your important papers in the wheelie bin

Ugh, our green bin is for both Garden Waste and Food Waste. It's not pleasant, especially in summer!

David Nash Silver badge

Re: I need my Trash

Probably never been told they can do that. Things don't come with manuals any more.

Producers allegedly sought rights to replicate extras using AI, forever, for just $200

David Nash Silver badge

just because it's a public place does not give you the right to film whatever and whomever you want

In the UK, yes it does.

In the "land of the free" maybe you're not free to do such.

Microsoft whips up unrest after revealing Azure AD name change

David Nash Silver badge

What do you call text messages

I know the comment wasn't addressed to me but "text messages" of course, as you do!

David Nash Silver badge

Re: what font...

Yes corporate fonts and colours is pretty standard stuff.

You're too dumb to use click-to-cancel, Big Biz says with straight face

David Nash Silver badge

Yes and No

Single-click cancel might be a bit susceptible to accidental clicks, and I think most people would accept a single, simple, "are you sure".

However this bit:

"Without understanding why they are being asked to check another box, consumers may either not check the boxes or abandon the purchase altogether due to confusion."

Like the "I have read the terms and conditions" check box, the "I have read the privacy policy" check boxes nonsense we have to go through these days?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: ever mindful of the limits of netizens' mental capacity

And also consistent with our numbering system & notation. For whatever reason humans like what we consider to be "round" numbers. And the metric system is full of them.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: ever mindful of the limits of netizens' mental capacity

It's true about powers of two (an oz vs. 10g) but did anyone ever have to do something like this? Is it really an advantage?

Turning a computer off, then on again, never goes wrong. Right?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: 6 weeks

It's because it was added as a temporary implementation. Of course it's there for ever.

Threads versus Twitter: Shouldn't we be happy the wheels are falling off antisocial social media?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Internet Interoperability Without Central Censorship

Not sure what they did to deserve that. It's true that you can use your own web server to publish information and share the links.

Not really a substitute for chatting a-la twitter but it's a decent way to publish stuff. A business whose web address is a facebook page just looks unprofessional.

Brits negotiating draft deal to rejoin EU's $100B blockbuster science programme

David Nash Silver badge

the "border issues"

The only real issue is NI and that I fear will be intractable.

The other borders are just borders where non-EU citizens and EU citizens are separated to more or lesser extent. These were not created by Brexit.

Microsofties still digesting pay freeze upset by Nadella's 'landmark year' memo

David Nash Silver badge

Re: So, landmark year and, for thanks, pay freeze

yeah, it's not unbridled capitalism vs. North Korea-style communism. It's a continuum not all-or-nothing. That would be a false dichotomy. You can have mostly capitalism with regulation and restriction and socially responsible policies.

You have to give the regulators teeth though.

David Nash Silver badge
FAIL

Re: inhumanity

see also Thames Water, etc.

If AI drives humans to extinction, it'll be our fault

David Nash Silver badge
Terminator

Re: Conspiracy or cock-up?

"So-called "AI" is incapable of wanting anything. It's also incapable of thinking."

That's also what it wants you to think.

And so on...

Crook who stole $23m+ in YouTube song royalties gets five years behind bars

David Nash Silver badge

Some songs are free and don't owe royalties to anyone. If a song is not monetised that is surely the default status. It doesn't mean that royalties are going "straight into the pockets of the streaming services".

Quirky QWERTY killed a password in Paris

David Nash Silver badge
FAIL

Re: All your QWERTY belong to us...

US "International"?

False negative stretched routine software installation into four days of frustration

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Marital Status: British

"Marital status" is a standard phrase and if the person didn't know it means "are you married or not" then they may not have been suitable.

Actually why would someone include that on a CV? I am sure it would not be allowed to request it in a job application form.

UK smart meter rollout years late and less than two thirds complete

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Still resisting the blandishments

Mine has started telling me that my meter has come to the end of its life ("all good things come to an end"). I am dubious. What's the normal lifetime of a dumb meter?

Thousands of subreddits go dark in mega-protest over Reddit's app-killing API prices

David Nash Silver badge

Isn't this just...

"...Business providing service decides to charge for said service"?

If the price is too high, go elsewhere...if elsewhere is not as good, well Reddit are not obliged to give you anything.

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

David Nash Silver badge

Bit of a mixed bunch

Some of those so-called office phrases are used outside of work. I am sure I have heard things like "Deep Dive", it's pretty obvious what it means especially in context.

Some are useful while others are clearly BS.

I didn't see my personal least favourite which is "Revert" misused to mean "Respond".

David Nash Silver badge

Now they know what it's like!

Normally it's the younger generation using words the oldies don't understand!

A toast to being in the right place at the right time

David Nash Silver badge
Facepalm

Who are these people...

...who remove a mains plug from its socket without checking, or apparently even wondering, what is on the other end?

AI weapons need a safe back door for human control

David Nash Silver badge

That sounds too similar to the M.A.D. deterrence theory.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: AII upgrades?

GSA is too misleading because it doesn't indicate that the AI will make stuff up. Calling it a search algorithm suggests that everything it comes up with was found out there somewhere. That's exactly how that lawyer recently got into trouble in the case in the US.

Google changes email authentication after spoof shows a bad delivery for UPS

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Lack of SPF

Same....I use a couple of domains via IONOS for my email and some family members. Recently this gmail bounce thing started, had to figure out the SPF via IONOS, which fortunately they make easy for slightly-technical users but non-techies would have no clue about adding an entry to a DNS, or even what DNS means.

Then a month later, same on another domain. They seem to be rolling it out gradually.

Man sues OpenAI claiming ChatGPT 'hallucination' said he embezzled money

David Nash Silver badge

ChatGPT is known to "occasionally generate incorrect information"

Shouldn't that be "Regularly"?

But this is the fault of the user, as many have pointed out. Like that previous case with the guy suing an airline who got fictional previous cases from ChatGPT because he thought it was a kind of "Super search engine".

Hopefully the fact that this is not the case is becoming more well-known.

That old box of tech junk you should probably throw out saves a warehouse

David Nash Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: The boss chucked mine out

Don't worry they will probably scrap all these safety rules soon saying they were EU red tape.

Phones' facial recog tech 'fooled' by low-res 2D photo

David Nash Silver badge

Irrelevant, whether or not your xenophobic rant is justified. That was just one of a list of manufacturers mentioned with similar issues.

Don't panic. Google offering scary .zip and .mov domains is not the end of the world

David Nash Silver badge

Re: pointless

"There's far more content hosted on sites in domains in the original gTLDs and ccTLDs than I'll ever get to. I don't see any need to pay attention to anything sitting in any of the new TLDs."

My understanding was that the context was blocking emails, not talking about which web sites you choose to surf to.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: pointless

Isn't that like blocking a whole country just because some scammers are there? or taking it to the extreme, some spam comes from a .com domain so .com must mean spam? Clearly that last one is not true but it's only a matter of degree.

Someone should be able to buy and use a valid domain without being tarred by the scam/spam brush.

Tesla batteries went from fully charged to fully disabled after botched patch, lawsuit claims

David Nash Silver badge
Angel

Re: HBpowerwall

He's got his own Solar System....wow!

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Taxes

My home charger is just a socket with an RCD. Why would I want an app when all I need to do is plug the car in?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Taxes

Clearly different people have different ideas of "the sticks"! There's a tube station=not the sticks.

David Nash Silver badge

I read it as "don't buy an EV if you don't have a house with off-road charging". Not "you must move house".

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Everybody throttles

That's untrue. It notifies you and you get the choice to do it or not. I don't recall whether it will automatically do it eventually.

Cheapest, oldest, slowest part fixed very modern Mac

David Nash Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Bridge technologies

That's what I immediately thought too...

Australia asks Twitter how it will mod content without staff, gets ghosted

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Those funds are needed, in part, because Twitter is moderating less content

> You're still accesable over the Internet regardless of where your business is physically registered to.

So if Twitter don't care about Aussie laws they won't complain if the Aussie gov tries to block it. Seems fair.

Professor freezes student grades after ChatGPT claimed AI wrote their papers

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Citations/References and ChatGPT

Exactly like the guy who was told by ChatGPT that he was dead, and provided with a realistic-looking but completely made-up URL from The Guardian for his obituary.

BT is ditching workers faster than your internet connection with 55,000 for chop by 2030

David Nash Silver badge

Did I get this right?

We'll all have FTTP by the end of the decade?

Cisco: Don't use 'blind spot' – and do use 'feed two birds with one scone'

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Get a life, hand-wringers & namby-pambys.

The lack of downvotes on Jake's post is very telling.

Owner of 'magic spreadsheet' tried to stay in the Lotus position until forced to Excel

David Nash Silver badge

Re: If the only tool you have is a hammer....

The average user has no idea what a database is, so they don't turn to one when they have a requirement that needs one.

Whereas they are familiar with spreadsheets and if the requirement seems to be like a big spreadsheet, that's what they'll use.

I do wish all the "helpful" formatting (convert to date etc) was turned OFF by default though.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: ping

I just assumed this, it's pretty obviously alluding to sonar. Never heard any [b]acronyms for Ping.

Tesla wins key court battle over Autopilot crash blame

David Nash Silver badge

Sounds like what a learner would do before they realised the default option is slow/stop in case of emergency. Panic instead of instinct, not sure what to do so do nothing!

Thanks for fixing the computer lab. Now tell us why we shouldn’t expel you?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Hacking an airport

You were lucky....some authorities might regard connecting to 192.168.0.1 as hacking, especially after entering the default login, irrespective of your motives.

Support chap put PC into 'drying mode' and users believed it was real

David Nash Silver badge

A [nother] rather tame "who me"

But the comments make up for it!

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Buying time

Or ignorance. Turn "off" then "on" - if you don't specify a delay between, not everybody will put one in.