Re: Defense in Depth

During the last two years or so, any obvious malware I've spotted - stuff pointed to by links in phishing emails and such - had an average detection rate of 25% or so on VirusTotal. Which means that if one is stupid enough to click on such links, odds are that he/she will end up with an infected machine despite running one of those resource hogs they call antivirus software these days.

On the other hand, Cisco has just pointed out that advertising on mainstream sites has now become the main vector of infection.

It follows that the single most effective countermeasure these days, is to use an ad blocker. Doing so will deprive online publications of ad revenue and has publishers scream bloody murder - but the publishers should direct their rage to the advertising industry rather than the users and purveyors of ad blockers.

STOP, 'cuz thats what the little icon in the status bar of my browser looks like.

Re: what do the earphones sound like?

Being familiar with Lemmy's stage monitor setup, I bet they'll be pretty loud, probably deafeningly so...

Re: Printing multi-layer PCBs

Better still, print the components too. Who needs a silicon foundry? ;-)

Re: on XP some software won't run w/o admin priviledge

I regard such software (exemptions granted of course for software explicitly intended to run administrative tasks) as extremely badly behaved and will refuse to use them.

Moreover, the reason for such behavior is often outright stupid, such as the software wanting to write to some file (usually in the install dir) to which only users in the admin group have write privilege. If the author of the software can't even get this sort of things right, the software isn't worth the diskspace it occupies.

Re: it also turned a $1Bn *asset* into a $2Bn liability

$2Bn? You might want to revise that figure upward, maybe by a factor of 10.

The problem with nuclear is that, when a major accident happens, things can get extremely costly. In fact, no nuclear facility is insured against major accidents - the payout would bankrupt the insurer.

Consider Fukushima: there are three melted down reactors and a damaged spent fuel pool. It's going to take at least a decade, more likely 3 decades, to make everything safe. It's going to be a very demanding and expensive job, and in the meantime, the whole complex has to be guarded and monitored. If you think TEPCO, or its insurer, is going to pick up the tab you're a little naive methinks. The government, and thus the taxpayer, will be forced to.

Re: Hormesis

Until now, there's no solid case that radiation hormesis (little bit of ionizing radiation is good for you, sorta like radioactive homeopathy) actually exists.

More likely, and more consistent with what we actually know, is that there may be a threshold below which ionizing radiation does little or no harm because living organisms may be able to "repair" the damage caused.

Re: Chaos Computer Club

If the CCC is categorized as "black hat", the so-called Bundestrojaner was supposedly an all-above-board white hat operation?

Re: the P90's in my Gibson ES-137P

Single coil rules OK.

Re: Photographs from the U.S. civil war era are not uncommon.

Consider that those glass negatives and silver halide prints of over a century ago are *very* different from today's film negatives and (color) prints.

A friend of mine, when clearing out the attic of an old house in München, found a packet neatly wrapped in kraft paper, containing a stack of glass negatives: early "tart cards" from the 1920's. They were in excellent condition, even after having endured what must have been considerable temperature and humidity swings for maybe 60-80 years. Modern film negatives or slides would have suffered quite a bit under those conditions: the polyester film base is pretty stable, the dyes that make up the image much less.

Same holds for prints: in those old sepia toned prints, the image is made up of insoluble metal salts. As long as the paper doesn't disintegrate, the image will remain. Modern prints are dye based, and while the dyes used are reasonably stable, they will only last if stored under carefully controlled conditions.

Re: Why Not?

People do not have a characteristic impedance. They are not transmission lines. People merely have a (very variable, depending on lots of conditions) impedance. And the reactive component is insignificant in most cases anyway.

And while it is technically correct that (in most cases) it's the current that kills you, it is extremely unlikely that voltages below a certain level will result in enough current to be lethal. Therefore, only voltages above this level (generally set at 48 V) are considered dangerous.

Re: Fell at the first hurdle (almost)

Valve amps are merely a rather inefficient way to add some harmonic distortion to your audio.

I condone, even endorse, their use in musical instrument amplification. But Hifi is supposed to be about accurate reproduction, remember?

Now, I won't be telling anyone to junk their perfectly functional old McIntosh driving their Klipsch horns. Period gear has its place. But if you really need 1kW/ch, a valve amp is merely a case of extremely resource-inefficient dickswingery. Go solid state fer chrissake.

tell us what you think Apple's 4,700 US staff actually do

My best guess at a breakdown would be as follows:

R&D: 50

Slick Design: 20

Bean Counters: 230

Tech Support: 10

Department of Truth: 4,390

Firearms are for wimps...

My old Precision Bass has a decal that says:

"This instrument kills fascists *and zombies*"

'nuff sed.

Depends on the monitor you use.

I have one of these "plug-through" monitors, it measures instantaneous voltage, current, and phase angle (and thus power factor). Picked it up at the local supermarket for a few quid.

With very light loads (less than say 10VA) it's not that accurate, but otherwise it works well, even with highly non-linear loads such as switching power supplies. Verified that by plugging in an old ATX PSU and applying various loads to its outputs while monitoring voltage and current waveforms with the classical tools of the trade.

Using said monitor on various pieces of electrical equipment has resulted in some interesting observations...

* Power consumption of CRT displays does indeed vary significantly with average brightness;

* So does the power consumption of my P4 desktop machine according to processor load;

* Modest but nonetheless significant (amounts to about 3 quid on a bi-monthly bill of 80 quid) power savings can be had by switching off ancillary equipment such as modems, routers and switches when nobody uses them;

and so on and so forth.

Re: Electric burns?

Mercury has been outlawed in consumer batteries for quite some time now (more then 10 years IIRC), at least in the EU.

When I look at any email...

... it will not run absolutely anything whatsoever, since my mail client ignores any scripting the mail may contain, and doesn't open attachments by itself either. And no, it's not some antiquated unix mail client that runs in a terminal window, it's a contemporary GUI based program with all the bells and whistles required, and still in active development.

Guess...

(of course, I avoid webmail like the plague)

re: ductio ad ridiculum...

... is what the so-called "sceptics" (well let's just call them deniers shall we) achieve by pulling out ever more improbable arguments to make their case, now long past the point where serious scientists are willing to waste their time to rip such idiotic theories to shreds.

No wiki required to cook up the above definition.

If the 3D printing industry is going to stick...

... to the same pricing models currently in vogue for 2D printers, a 3D printer will cost less than a pair of sneakers, but using it for printing out a pair of sneakers will cost a fortune.

Separation of system and user data...

... could be easily done on any windows system as far back as win2k - I've stored my user profiles on a separate partition for donkey's years using said OS.

However, there used to be many applications about that insisted on saving user data in their install dir - but it ain't fair to blame the OS for that.

Well...

... those who are in the habit of 'liking' consumerist crap like cock-a-cola, nike, apple, and such IMHO deserve everything they get.

On the other hand, if my profile pic were to appear next to a 'sponsored story' about the local recording studio or my favourite rock'n'roll hangout where I'm a regular to the point some people think I'm staff, I wouldn't be in the least disturbed :-)

no...

... he was on acid while he "intelligently designed" this one.

Re: hear hear

The thought adding artificial engine/exhaust noise crossed my mind, but if you'd want to use anything that even remotely resembles available hardware you'd be limited to a 125cc two-stroke wail - which can be reproduced at the required sound pressure levels through a horn system of relatively modest dimensions. Forget about imitating a large four-stroke, the exhaust note of such engines have powerful low frequency components which means you'd need a trailer to carry the required subwoofer, and the power consumption might be a liability too.