General Tech News

[Mel81x+]

Military device with biometric database of 2K people sold on eBay for $68 | Ars Technica

You really can't fix dumb. This device ended up on eBay and got shuffled around till someone found it and reported it. This may have been classified information, but it also highlights a massive flaw in so-called "intelligence" components of the military or whatever they are calling the folks with guns who protect us now. How someone didn't have a policy to destroy this device is beyond me.

I have insider knowledge here so I'll say this, I used to work for a company that had a division which did hardware RMA and one of their customers was Apple (Apple was the contract holder and they just supplied the hardware). They'd sell them tons of hardware components, MCUs, EDRAM, etc. and not once would they allow something to come back from their customers because they would personally go there and destroy the device with a special machine which literally shreds the metal and then melts it like a T-1000 in T2. And, once it's a glob of paste they still wouldn't let that thing out the door or the server space. They were so secretive about their customer data that they'd put funny SKUs on components just to ensure that no one knew what exact kind of hardware was being sold. Corporate customer care for security trumps national security measures and that, to me, is worrying. 

[Mel81x+]

Thats how it started

And this is how its going.

So, as a person who works in this industry sees it all. Would you really take a sick leave if you knew that they were just axing folks? This after they just did a 60+ billion acquisition and they are now investing heavily in ChatGPT for Bing. One could argue that with an AI doing all the hard work and a trainable model the need for a lot of folks in that division is really going to get watered down. Sad stuff but it was always coming. And, this is just the start.

[Mel81x+]

Lightyear stops production on €250,000 solar-powered EV | TechCrunch

The irony in this is that they started with a price that automatically boxed out the segment of the population that you want solar in the hands of so you can actually see a change. Charging 250K for a device/vehicle/robot-assistant/spouse-replacement is not the way to ensure that energy consumption is controlled. I don't get why companies don't see this. Sure, make a 250K vehicle but if you make a 40K one with infrastructure options you'll get to being a billionaire faster. 

[Mel81x+]

I'd hate to be a person that fucked up in this lady's house. 

[Mel81x+]

US DOJ Preps Antitrust Suit to Block Adobe’s $20 Billion Figma Deal - Bloomberg

Apparently the DOJ is also looking into the Microsoft acquisition of Activision as well because it could be deemed as anti-trust for the amount paid. I honestly can't see how. The Adobe one, however, was a huge slap in the face of the design industry because they came along and tried to shut down an avenue completely. I wonder how many designers have now paid into the Adobe ecosystem only to realize that Figma might not be a part of the deal anymore. 

[Mel81x+]

EU seeks input on making tech companies pay for ISPs’ network upgrades | Ars Technica

So let me understand this right, the EU wants Google, etc. to pay for network upgrades to telcos and the telcos who continue to charge customers can take that money + the money this would potentially push into their coffers to do what exactly? Is there really such a big burden on the network upgrade vs the cost to the consumer out there? Genuinely curious to hear from the EU folks on here.

[MUFC]

Have a tech type question for anyone who can answer it. I have my C drive which is my primary drive. This drive has the capacity to store 102GB but I only have round 6GB free left. 

There is a Data (D) which has 926GB free from a possible 931GB. Can this drive be used as my primary drive? For storing, saving and other tasks?

[Mel81x+]

54 minutes ago, MUFC said:

Have a tech type question for anyone who can answer it. I have my C drive which is my primary drive. This drive has the capacity to store 102GB but I only have round 6GB free left. 

There is a Data (D) which has 926GB free from a possible 931GB. Can this drive be used as my primary drive? For storing, saving and other tasks?

I'm going to assume the operating system is Windows. What I would do instead of swapping D as the primary which btw is a bad idea is try to move as much data from C to D, even if its installations, etc moving them to D isn't a bad idea considering how far Windows has come with the way the operating system works. 

P.S. 6GB of free space on a primary drive must mean Windows is hunting very hard for disk space to write stuff to for optimized performance.

[MUFC]

35 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

I'm going to assume the operating system is Windows. What I would do instead of swapping D as the primary which btw is a bad idea is try to move as much data from C to D, even if its installations, etc moving them to D isn't a bad idea considering how far Windows has come with the way the operating system works. 

P.S. 6GB of free space on a primary drive must mean Windows is hunting very hard for disk space to write stuff to for optimized performance.

Cheers, I'll move some stuff over to D. Is there anything you'd recommend not moving over?

[MUFC]

PS yeah it's Windows 10.

[Mel81x+]

24 minutes ago, MUFC said:

Cheers, I'll move some stuff over to D. Is there anything you'd recommend not moving over?

nothing really. windows is good at ensuring you dont make mistakes

[MUFC]

1 minute ago, Mel81x said:

nothing really. windows is good at ensuring you dont make mistakes

Nice one, will pay you via Visa Debit 

[MUFC]

Anyone been on WhattsApp today? New feature allowing you to follow channels. Not going to use it but still it's a new feature.

[Dr. Gonzo]

On 17/09/2023 at 23:52, MUFC said:

Anyone been on WhattsApp today? New feature allowing you to follow channels. Not going to use it but still it's a new feature.

Sounds like they're trying to implement some discord features to try to capture users on their app rather than have them on some other messaging app.

[MUFC]

29 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Sounds like they're trying to implement some discord features to try to capture users on their app rather than have them on some other messaging app.

So they're trying to compete with our site

[CaaC (John)+]

Quote

Next Big Thing: safer cyber – a new paradigm for pragmatic cloud computing

There are many practical problems associated with cloud computing. For a start, cloud computing is basically an infrastructure that is owned by a third party – we, the users, don’t own the hardware. Yet we entrust our data to this third party.

To me, the analogy is like having some money, or something very precious, and leaving it with your neighbour, or even your neighbour’s pet, to look after......

 

[Bluebird Hewitt]

Random question, but has anyone been using this 'new' Teams for work?

Doesn't look much different, but annoyingly I don't see any meeting pop ups when someone starts a meeting, so end up being late or accidently miss up. Bloody stupid.

Checked the notifications and don't even have an option for it to pop up. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Bluebird Hewitt

[Mel81x+]

1 hour ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Random question, but has anyone been using this 'new' Teams for work?

Doesn't look much different, but annoyingly I don't see any meeting pop ups when someone starts a meeting, so end up being late or accidently miss up. Bloody stupid.

Checked the notifications and don't even have an option for it to pop up. 

Microsoft Teams?

[Bluebird Hewitt]

16 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

Microsoft Teams?

Yep. Had this 'new' version at the end of last week and it's a little quicker, but generally pointless really.

[Mel81x+]

1 minute ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Yep. Had this 'new' version at the end of last week and it's a little quicker, but generally pointless really.

Ah yeah they got rid of that weird electron framework which was horrible on RAM so now everyone has to wait about a year before it stabilizes with the new framework. Weird really because this is a company that has a history of building some really stable voice-chat apps and they can't get this right.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

2 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

Ah yeah they got rid of that weird electron framework which was horrible on RAM so now everyone has to wait about a year before it stabilizes with the new framework. Weird really because this is a company that has a history of building some really stable voice-chat apps and they can't get this right.

Thankfully I still have the older one on my work's laptop, so I'll likely use that again before using this 'new' one more.

[CaaC (John)+]

Quote

Batteries for the future

In a speech delivered at the Australian Energy & Battery Storage Conference in Sydney earlier this year, Tim Jordan, Commissioner of the Australian Energy Market, highlighted one of the major challenges confronting Australia as the country transitions to a renewable energy future.  

“By AEMO’s current calculations…61 GW of storage capacity is needed by 2050”, he said “That’s 17 times current levels.”  .........

 

[Harry]

Hey,

I'll be leaving my current job soon.

I'm wondering if it's possible to take a few files and documents with me when I leave, but it seems to have been blocked by the IT department.

Does anyone have smarts about this?

Obviously not anything sensitive but just a few things that would be useful to me to remember.. 

IT controls have come a long way in the last decade from when I changed jobs previously. Any ideas @Mel81x @nudge?

[Bluebird Hewitt]

1 hour ago, Harry said:

Hey,

I'll be leaving my current job soon.

I'm wondering if it's possible to take a few files and documents with me when I leave, but it seems to have been blocked by the IT department.

Does anyone have smarts about this?

Obviously not anything sensitive but just a few things that would be useful to me to remember.. 

IT controls have come a long way in the last decade from when I changed jobs previously. Any ideas @Mel81x @nudge?

Better prospects in your new role?

Only things I can think of from the top of my head are sending them from your work to personal email (I've done this myself for uni related work or data as needed) or put them on a USB stick if possible, neither of which are recommended as they can be tracked and blocked as you mentioned.

[Harry]

17 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Better prospects in your new role?

Only things I can think of from the top of my head are sending them from your work to personal email (I've done this myself for uni related work or data as needed) or put them on a USB stick if possible, neither of which are recommended as they can be tracked and blocked as you mentioned.

Yeah I think so. When company politics is getting to the point of leaving you jaded it's time to move on...

I know for sure USBs are blocked, as is Google drive and drop box... I think Microsoft OneDrive is still accessible through the work computers, but can they actually track what I would drag from my desktop into that?