* Posts by JDX

6847 publicly visible posts • joined 28 May 2010

'Earworn Wearables' will save the day (wireless earbuds, but cool name for your D&D halfling)

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They're not the right words? Headphones are things you wear over your head... watches are devices whose purpose is to tell the time. Using those terms for anything that goes in your ears or on your wrist is inaccurate.

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Head mounted displays

For a moment I thought they were talking about hats. Now a baseball cap with an e-ink panel you can edit from your app... there's an idea!

How bad is Catalina? It's almost Apple Maps bad: MacOS 10.15 pushes Cupertino's low bar for code quality lower still

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Re: Apple is deprecating Macs

Yeah they rearchitected everything to 64 bit just for fun.

Stalker attacks Japanese pop singer – after tracking her down using reflection in her eyes

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Re: Just dawned on me....

You can see a lot more reflections in sunglasses...

That lithium-ion battery in your phone or car? It has just won three chemists the Nobel Prize

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Re: Goodenough is still working

They can already be recycled though apparently not the Lithium right now (or at least, people don't bother because it's cheaper to mine more).

So the down-votes seem a trifle harsh. Though at surface level a clean, wonderful way to improve the environment, there are a lot of negative impacts starting with the huge mining works required to fulfil a rampantly increasing demand for Lithium and other minerals.

Those who are really keen on the environment should be clamouring that the processes we use to replace older technologies are as good as possible. Unless you want to be protesting Lithium Fracking in your garden in 2040.

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Why now?

We often see awards given years or decades after the work involved - in Physics often because it is waiting on someone to figure out how to do the experiment to prove the theory for instance.

But these have been in mass production for a long time now so why is 2019 the year they get the nod? Is it just political alignment with the Crusties?!

GNU means GNU's Not U: Stallman insists he's still Chief GNUisance while 18 maintainers want him out as leader

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I'd totally missed that previous September article, first I'd heard of any of this (and it took me a second to realise this was Stallman not Torvalds who I'm used to seeing in the headlines!)

I'm glad El Reg published that interview, it was interesting.

Astronaut Tim Peake reminds everyone about the time Excel mangled his contact list on stage at Microsoft AI event

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Re: AI and Machine Learning

It's true that not all companies have a problem for which AI/ML are suitable, though at a high level all companies are run by people making decisions which IS a role for these technologies.

But to conflate that with "it's a solution needing a problem" is clearly a terrible argument. Not all companies need super-computers, but developing ever better super-computers is not a solution looking for a problem.

Not to mention that science as a whole is OFTEN generating solutions to unknown problems. So many real life applications are built on stuff that was pure academia and turned out to be useful.

Microsoft has made an Android phone. Repeat, Microsoft has made an Android phone. A dual-screen foldable mobe not due until late 2020

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Windows 10X

The slabtop will use Windows 10X, which is described here: it's essentially a flavor of 'doze that's customized for dual-screen gadgets. And by that, Redmond means it has tweaked the user interface so it makes sense on two side-by-side displays that may be held like a half-open book in your hands, for instance. It also lengthens the battery life for these sorts of handhelds, apparently. It can still run stuff like Office, Win32 software, and so on.

I thought W10 has excellent multi-monitor support anyway. Doesn't quite seem worthy of a new OS variant?

The mod firing squad: Stack Exchange embroiled in 'he said, she said, they said' row

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Re: Surely it's just a bit of civility

I'm pretty sure people should be allowed to be an ass though. People are asses on SE all the time, for whatever reasons. I don't think they should be banned simply for that.

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Re: Good riddance!

Where "bigot" is anyone who holds views different from you, and anyone can become a bigot when their views stay the same and society changes theirs.

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Re: no one has been able to invent new pronouns that sound natural as drop-in replacements

I agree with you that it seems cumbersome when you are talking about a specific person you know. But I was thinking the other day in fact, if you don't know the other person's gender - their name is hidden or not informative or whatever - it happens quite naturally. e.g. I would struggle to write about Boris Johnson using non-gendered terms, but if I was writing about "the prime minister" it would be entirely straightforward.

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Why is it even an issue on SE?

I have no idea the gender or assumed gender of anyone asking or answering questions on SE sites. Why would I know or care about LlamaObamaDingDong44467's personal life?

Surely SE should follow national/state laws here, not dictate their own anyway?

Quic! Head to the latest Chrome version and try out HTTP/3

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Re: So, turn the Internet upside-down over this?

Agreed it isn't the end of the world but when it DOES happen it can be very annoying. A real-world use case for me is that my garage is just inside my house WiFi. So My phone tends to keep lunging between WiFi and 4G, which is actually a big PITA. The simple solution is I just disable WiFi when I go to the garage but it is clearly a weakness in the underlying architecture that I should need to.

If you tend to use free WiFi in places like Costa, McDonalds, etc then I would imagine walking down the high street (if your town still has one) can be irksome as your phone keeps latching onto WiFi for brief periods - and those WiFi are often bad in the first place. I fairly often find I'm somewhere without internet because my phone connected to a WiFi that isn't really working.

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Facepalm

Re: TCP backoff

Yeah, Like IP4 who needs anything newer

The Wun Show: Douglas Crockford has been sniffing JavaScript's bad parts again

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Re: Wun thing to say.

just add comment fields to the JSON objects ;)

UK Supreme Court unprorogues Parliament

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If I wanted to read something copy-pasted from BBC News, I'd go there. The whole point of El Reg is their vultures have at basic specialist knowledge which makes the stories here worth reading. Simply parroting non-IT news... this isn't a news aggregation site.

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Re: As the saying goes you get the government you deserve

They have been at work. I don't think you know what prorogation means. Sitting in parliament is a small part of an MP's job - if anything they should've been using the extra time to focus on their constituencies.

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IT Angle

I don't come here for news!

Every dog has its day – and this one belongs to Boston Dynamic's four-legged good boy Spot

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I had initially thought this was a robo-toy but it seems aimed slightly above that. I wonder how much it costs?

As others have said, the specs don't seem that great. When you consider they have robots that can sprint, dance and jump, why is this limited to a slow walk?

Hinkley Point nuclear power station will be late and £2bn over budget

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10 years late for only £3bn extra? Bargain!

Boffins build a tiny nanolaser that can be inserted inside our cells

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Hurry up with the nanobots already!

Emergency button saves gamers from sudden death... of starvation

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>>Go outside and kick a football, FFS

He posts anonymously on an IT forum

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Re: Life is short.

Like posting comments about it.

Your ugly mug may be scanned yet again – but at least you'll be able to board faster at Gatwick

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Re: no data would be stored for longer than a few seconds

If you're worried about people tracking your data, you REALLY do not want to be in an airport, period. I don't see this making much difference?

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What time is saved?

When you are boarding a plane, it takes 2-3s for someone to check your boarding pass. You then end up queuing to get into the plane and to your seat - surely there isn't a bottleneck here? We'll just move the queue/scrum of people to the other side of the desk!

Linux 5.3 kernel bundles new, cuddlier, swear-free Torvalds with AMD Radeon Navi graphics support

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Not really justified, no. You have to ask yourself:

- if you worked somewhere where that was how you were treated, would you stay?

- would you talk to your children like that

- how would you react if someone else talked to your kid like that

- would you talk to your spouse/partner like that

- how would you react if someone else talked to your spouse/partner like that

- if your spouse/partner talked to you like that, what would your response be

I totally get that we don't all have to be nicey-nicey all the time, and someone doing something wrong needs to have that made very clear, but this isn't army boot camp. We don't need to 'break' people.

MIT boffins turn black up to 11 with carbon nanotubes that absorb 99.995% of light

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Re: Father Ted

Phew, I was worried we had the H2G2 reference but not the FT one until I saw this.

Lights, camera, camera, camera, action: iPhone, iPad, Watch, chip biz in new iPhone, iPad, Watch, chip shocker

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Re: Not even parity

If you buy a product from a US company but it arrives on a ship from China what is the rule here?

Although - ARE iPhones shipped from China or from the US?

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Re: Not even parity

Donald said it so it must be true.

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Flame

Re: Not even parity

As well as VAT, you can blame the EU. They are the ones who secured the trade deal with the US that includes import duty.

Once we Leave I'm sure we'll have a free trade deal likety split

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Re: Subscription services

In the US, how many TV services are there? Quite a few to choose between and it has lasted decades.

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Re: Peak tech

The improvements in cameras on phones in recent years really is quite staggering. When you think just how little space they have, and how much old-school optics has been replaced with clever software. These are things we didn't believe possible a decade ago.

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Low-price Watch 3... did you leave this news out on purposes?

Because it was one of the bigger stories.

Astroboffins baffled as black hole at center of Milky Way suddenly a lot hungrier than before

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Re: "never seen anything like this in the 24 years we have studied"

But they are also studying other BHs. That's how we're able to talk with some confidence about stellar life-cycles including our own sun - which we have likewise been watching for only the blink of an eye.

Now on Amazon Prime: The Amazing Shrinking UK Tax Burden

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CT is daft anyway

OK, let's try that again: Vulture rakes a talon on Samsung's fresh attempt at the Galaxy Fold 5G

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Re: They can't find a demo model without bend artifacts?

The question becomes whether bend artifacts are game over, or something users can live with.

It seems I rarely see anyone whose phone screen (or screen protector) doesn't have at least one crack, and many people have badly starred screens but find them usable - can't even be bothered to get a £5 replacement protector and fit it.

So possibly this won't really dissuade people, your brain might filter it out after a short time?

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I like the idea

But this is a very early version. Look at the first iPhone or iPod compared to the later models. They pretty much nailed the iPad first time but that's unusual.

I hope they keep on working on the idea but I don't want this model.

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Re: Why?

People said the same thing about the iPad. They invented a form factor.

People said the same about 2-in-1 devices. This was less successful.

The fundamental idea of a small, large screen, is very much welcome. Whether putting that in such a bulky 'small' container is useful remains to be seen.

Finally! A solution to 42 – the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything

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re:Real mathematics is done by mathematicians not computers.

That's just hopelessly out of date. Many proofs are computer-aided now. Figuring out how to use computers to find proofs that cannot ever be done unaided is a part of modern mathematics.

Quite old now, but Fermat's last theorem is a good example.

Be still, our drinking hearts: Help Reg name whisky beast conjured by Swedish distillers and AI blendbot

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Re: 50ml?

I read it as cl, how disappointing

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Re: Pish and tosh

The further you go, the more wrong you'd be.

I'm not sure why you felt it was important to tell us "I only like Islay whisky"... WGAS?

Aquavit etc, the root of Scotch, was barely drinkable hooch.

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AzuLikeIt

AI'll Have Another

AzureAsking(I'll have another)

BallmerCurve

Loss-making $15bn hipster chat biz Slack suddenly less appetising to investors as it predicts deeper losses

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Re: I just don't get these massive losses

Very good.

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Re: I just don't get these massive losses

But even in Ruby, just figure out how many users you can service on a single server. I'd bet tens of thousands, maybe an order of magnitude more (or even 2) given a single machine can run that many for real-time gaming.

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Re: Slack

That's just nonsense. It's very useful just like IRC and such things.

"Hey Bert, what was that STL trick you mentioned the other day"

"Jane, can you reboot the server for me"

etc

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I just don't get these massive losses

Slack is a genuinely useful product, which unlike Twitter et al has directly paying customers. The central software really can't be that complicated so:

For the third quarter, Slack said it expects revenues of between $154m and $156m – 46 to 48 per cent year-on-year growth and a loss of between $47m and $49m, both slightly higher than expected.

How are they even spending $47m on anything, let alone spending more like $200m? I wouldn't know HOW to spend $200m.

It seems all these companies are started in someone's garage for about £50 and then suddenly cost hundreds of millions once they get well known. Are losses actually losses, or do they just borrowing and borrowing?

Q. If machine learning is so smart, how come AI models are such racist, sexist homophobes? A. Humans really suck

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One point to make is that IF there were such correlations to be made, an AI would be objective to make them. It's political/scientific suicide to do any work suggesting differences due to race. Of course that's for almost entirely good reasons but DOES mean pure science can be blocked in areas where social/political feelings run high.

We can see this already happens - some crime statistics will get you called racist if you mention them even though they are objective facts, whether or not you try to explain WHY they are like that.

More on that monster Cerebras AI chip, Xilinx touts 'world's largest' FPGA, and more

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Re: Quake 3 FPS

That's because it's IO-limited (disk).

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Neural nets aren't sorting algorithms. I'm not sure Machine Learning is either, but that's not an area I feel comfortable making any statements on!