* Posts by Dave 126

10622 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

Remember those holy tech wars we used to have? Heh, good times

Dave 126

Re: Browser wars

"Just try it in a different browser" I would tell a friend of mine who was keen on computers but would always create problems for himself. It was just easier than wasting time and tears in trying to work out why A.com wasn't behaving on X browser.

"FFS, why have you unistalled all but browsers but X?" I would inevitably have to say. Oh well.

What do we want? Consensual fun times. How do we get it? Via an app with blockchain...

Dave 126

Re: Black Mirror has once again foretold the future

Yeah maybe, but Channel 4 have done far, far worse. Such as broadcasting the Simpsons and cutting out some jokes for length but not saying that they do, and only broadcasting the Daily Show once a week yet asking Comedy Central to make the other episodes unavailable to UK viewers on the Comedy Central website.

Dave 126

Re: What One Desires.....

> Lawyers in the bedroom - lovely.

Scene: Two lawyers eating their lunch in the park whilst a pulchritudinous jogger goes by.

Lawyer 1: I'd really like to screw her!

Lawyer 2: Oh yeah? Out of what?

Transport pundit Christian Wolmar on why the driverless car is on a 'road to nowhere'

Dave 126

Re: Coaching

Another way to solve the golf club problem: leave the clubs locked up at the golf course.

Another way to solve the problem: have the clubs delivered to a course of your choice. This would be an extension of the delivery infrastructure that Amazon et al are developing - your stuff following you around like Rincewind's Luggage.

Cisco can now sniff out malware inside encrypted traffic

Dave 126

Re: Hopefully vapourware?

The encryption remains unbroken - this articles headline is ambiguous. The meta-data (who, where, when) gives clues about to the still encrypted and thus unknown 'what'.

Cryptocurrencies to end in tears, says investor wizard Warren Buffett

Dave 126

Yeah, my understanding is that Buffet tends to invest long term - ignoring sharp rises and falls in value in the short term. Bitcoin, or tulips, or valid commodities speculation hasn't been his game.

Watt? You thought the wireless charging war was over? It ain't even begun

Dave 126

Re: Surely unidirectional wireless is an incredibly inefficient approach to transmitting energy?

I believe that it only starts really pumping out the energy when it resonates with a receiving device. I may be wrong though.

1980s sci-fi movies: The thrill of being not quite terrified on mum's floral sofa

Dave 126

Re: Star wars tin DVD

Now that Disney has bought Fox (who had some home media distribution rights) the legal hurdles to a high-def release have been mitigated. It now comes down to motivation, digging out various prints and spending time and money on restoring them.

Dave 126

Re: CGI is killing sci-fi

And yet we've had some excellent concept Sci-Fi film of late, such as Moon. The lowered cost of filming, editing and SFX also means that there is a wealth of interesting independent sci-fi films that may have flown below your radar. Just don't expect them from Disney on a huge multiplex in Summer.

Regards.

(Before digital filming, just a movie's worth of black and white filmstock might cost around $10,000, a high bar for a self-teaching director)

Dave 126

Re: Not just technology...

Just to clarify, in the above read '80s films' as '80s Sci-Fi films'.

And by the way, for anyone wondering what the man who gave us the stylistic trilogy of RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers has been up to, Paul Verhoeven returned to his homeland. However, his excellent French-language film Elle (2017) is currently on Netflix. Whilst not a sci-fi film, it is partly set in a video games studio. Not for the feint-hearted, it defies easy description. Highly recommended.

Dave 126

Barbarella makes more sense viewed in the context of Italian horror movies. Think colourful lighting and buxom women in sheer clothing.

Dave 126

Re: Jabba the Hutt in 1983’s Return of the Jedi

Jabba was present in the originals, but had extra scenes in the Special Editions. These extra scenes were achieved by pasting CGI Jabba on top of scenes filmed with Harrison Ford talking to a human who looks like a wealthy 17th century Dutch merchant - presumably a contender for Jabba's form before the filmmakers settled on his fat slug appearance.

Dave 126

Not just technology...

80s films used real sets, from the concrete South American shopping mall in Total Recall, to the disused power station in Aliens, the decommissioned aircraft carrier in Trumbull's Silent Runnings to of course the Detroit rust belt in Verhoeven's RoboCop. Er, okay, I know Total Recall was 90s and Runnings was 70s, but I think my point stands!

The 80s films also had aesthetics drawn from popular culture - bright colours of hip hop, the grunge of punk, the angular product design of GRiD, Lamborghini et al. Societal concerns gave us vistas of urban degeneration, linking seamlessly into post-apocolyptic landscapes of Mad Max, itself inspired by environmental concerns.

Apple, quit milking tech-addicted fruit of our loins – shareholders

Dave 126

Win Pho

I believe Windows Phone had a children's mode that allowed them to play specified games or watch Ceebeebies but not access the wider web, view mummy's special photos or delete her telephone numbers.

It didn't have all the more sophisticated controls as outlined in the article though.

Dave 126

Re: I guess they're pressuring the right people

Re your last paragraph, yeah, round here it tends to be cheap Android tablets that are given to pacify children when their parents are in the pub, not the pricier Apple iPads.

However, the latest version of iOS always comes to several generations of iDevice, not just the latest (currently the iPhone 8)

Smartphones' security enhancements just make them more dangerous

Dave 126

Using a smart watch (or actually just a wrist-mounted RSA dongle - which could easily be incorporated into a watch - heck, some fella has even built one into a Casio F91W ) isn't a bad approach.

Rolling codes could be entered manually into one's phone, or else scanned by the phone's camera or otherwise communicated (NFC, IR, sound).

A list of modded F91W features below:

https://github.com/carrotIndustries/pluto

Meltdown, Spectre: The password theft bugs at the heart of Intel CPUs

Dave 126

Re: Colour me surprised ....

Atreides Battle Language

Weird, I have misremembered it as being a language based on chord-typing on someone's skin - long time since I read the Dune books - but the internet says it's just hand signals or specific-use spoken language.

Dave 126

Re: Colour me surprised ....

So... a nice chat in the woods, then? :)

Dave 126

Re: Lead time on new CPUs?

Well beyond Intel and AMD I don't have much of an option, seeing as my Playstation 3 Cell-powered cluster has achieved self awareness and told me to bugger off and leave it alone to contemplate its own navel.

Hence the twofold question: Can this issue be rectified in new silicon, and what's the lead time on implementing fixes on modern CPUs?

Dave 126

Re: 'Thoughts?'

Any *constructive* thoughts? :)

Dave 126

Re: Colour me surprised ....

Yeah, because everybody has a hundred thousand dollar's worth of microscope sitting in their clean room, and the skills to remove the casing of the CPU, the years of education to understand what they see and the months to actually analyse it.

It'd be quicker and cheaper to conduct your secure communications thus: fly to wherever your correspondent lives and go for a nice walk and a chat in the woods.

Dave 126

Lead time on new CPUs?

When will Intel be shipping CPUs without these vulnerabilities? And obviously, I'd want to wait a few months after that to allow a window for other people to find any issues.

I've been thinking about getting a new laptop for a while - lots of useful features have matured since my Core 2 Duo machine. Whilst my workload - causal / CAD - may not incur too much of a slow down, I may as well get a fixed CPU.

Either that, or take a performance hit (which I won't notice because the CPU will be faster to begin with than the one I'm used to using) and shop around for a discount on existing stock.

Thoughts?

Wannabe W1 DOW-er faked car crash to track down reg plate's owner

Dave 126

My thought too. Still, one assumes that be knew that a court case would make his name public and yet he wasn't so fussed that he didn't proceed. The public don't have his contact details to pester him.

Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Dave 126

Re: no news

But really, for the tasks the average user puts their laptops to, they won't notice a performance hit. They might notice a battery hit, but many CPUs are faster than their user's needs. The enthusiasts (gamers etc) and professionals may notice, and they the types more likely to read tech blogs.

Dave 126

Re: no news

The story is on Slashdot and Gizmodo. As for the awareness of the mass populace, it might come to them when more details arrive - or they have available headspace following the FCC's Net Neutrality shenanigans.

How's this for a stocking filler next year? El Reg catches up with Gemini

Dave 126

Re: Ordered

Hopefully Google's Project Treble should make Android updates less dependent on chipset vendors delivering binary blobs... but as you say, wait and see.

Another option is a Moto Mod physical Qwerty keyboard.

Dave 126

Re: Needs a camera as standard.

I guess some people will still carry a normal smartphone too, and use the smartphone's camera. Hence the WiFi-only version of the Gemini.

Yes, your old iPhone is slowing down: iOS hits brakes on CPUs as batteries wear out

Dave 126

Re: Battery shape?

Unlike many phones, a daily full discharge and recharge is not a typical use pattern for an electric vehicle.

HTC U11 Life: Google tries to tame the midmarket

Dave 126

Re: Two years?

Over a five year timescale, brands can rise and fall so no Android vendor can rely on your repeat custom then - they might not be around (or competitive enough) to take advantage of the good will they can foster in you by updating your £350 phone for that length of time. Nor does it help that in two years time an equivalently specified handset might only be half the price, so most buyers will likely buy a new handset after a few years for reasons beyond discontinued software updates, such as a failing battery or cracked screen.

If you want a three year software update cycle, you can either buy a handset that looks likely to be well supported by the ROM crowd, put your faith in Google's Project Treble, or buy whatever the successor to the iPhone SE will be.

Dave 126

Donington of noise

My background is such that I first thought of the lovely Donington Brewery and its tranquil mill pond, rather than a screechy race track!

Peak smartphone? iPhone X flunks 'supercycle' hopes

Dave 126

Re: Peak smartphone

> I thought "Peak Smartphone" story was going to be about how the iPhone x was the ultimate in smartphones ...

The term 'Peak Smartphone' (or Peak Apple, or Peak [X]) is a reference to the concept of Peak Oil, which is about supply and price - not the quality of the oil.

Regards.

Dave 126

Re: The "Horned One"

Forgive me for not taking a half baked lesson on evolution and selection from anyone named Lysenko. History shows us that doing so is a very bad idea.

Fridge killed my baby? Mag-field radiation from household stuff 'boosts miscarriage risk'

Dave 126

Well, the Amish are healthy - no doubt in part due to their active and sociable lifestyles - despite being subject to greater incidences of some disorders caused by their limited gene pool.

Their stated reason for eschewing many technologies is that one-upmanship over shiny tat breeds unnecessary social division, but the obvious health benefits of using an axe over a chainsaw (a good workout, no fumes, no horrible noise, fewer unscheduled amputations) are a happy bonus.

Erase 2017 from your brain. Face ID never happened. The Notch is an illusion

Dave 126

Re: Prefer authentication on the front of the phone

> Balls! iPhone needs two hands to unlock the display.

How so?

I appreciate the sensor on the Pixel is placed well, but can't your thumb reach the iPhone's front sensor?

Dave 126

Re: But until then...

For some reason, possibly an IP dispute, the fingerprint sensor is disabled on Sony phones sold in the USA.

Dave 126

Some people like to be able to unlock the phone without picking it up... if it's sat on a desk or docked, for example.

I'd be happy for a hybrid approach - if the phone knows that it is in my office or home, then I'd be happy for it to use a potentially less secure face unlocking system.

Currently I use pattern-unlock (no fingerprint sensor on my phone) which has been shown to be easily observed and thus insecure.

Dave 126

Re: I'd happily own a phone

I rarely if ever use my front-facing camera, but I would never try and sell a phone without one.

Previous responses to the same design intent of maximising the screen area include:

Mi Mix. Camera placed on lower bezel.

LG V20. Discrete half-width display placed alongside front-facing camera - don't know if it's 'always on' for showing the time etc, but possible power savings if so.

Essential Phone. Notch in screen, smaller than iPhone X's.

PS, yeah, I read of a Samsung Galaxy that would attempt to scroll down web pages based on the user's eye movements... don't know how well it worked.

Dave 126

Once they work out how to place a front-facing camera under the screen then yeah, *then* they'll dispense with the notch.

No one saw it coming: Rubin's Essential phone considered anything but

Dave 126

Re: "new consumer electronics ecosystem"

'Ecosystem' was a reference to Rubin's wildly optimistic idea that people will want to plug lots of stuff onto their phones using his sub-optimal solution.

Dave 126

Re: Saw it coming, just didn't care.

@Duffy Moon and AC

Can you not read or grasp the concept that your wants aren't everyone's? I was very clear that some people - like you - will always want lots of storage, and long may they be catered for. I was merely pointing out that most people don't need a month's worth of music on the hoof.

I'm happy to be shown data that shows otherwise, but anecdotal evidence should never be used as a counterargument to a statement about 'most people'.

If it's just FLAC music you need to store (and thus I'm assuming that the audio quality is important to you) then there are some very good dual SD card ESS DAC-based discrete audio players out there these days.

Dave 126

Re: I prefer the Gemini

There's also a snap on Moto Mod physical Qwerty keyboard in the works for Moto phones. My gut feeling is that it's better to have the keyboard removable, so a fault in the keyboard doesn't junk the phone (and vice versa). And whilst I might want a keyboard on my phone when travelling on a train, I might not want the bulk in my pocket if I'm just out for a few beers.

Of course Moto phones don't dual boot GNU Linux like Gemini does.

Dave 126

Re: No accessories

Yep, and Moto have stuck to their Mod system for at least two generations of phone, and several of them seem genuinely useful (a battery pack, a speaker for pottering around the house listening to podcast... and a physical Qwerty keyboard had been funded). It doesn't hurt that Moto have a range of compatible phones, some emphasising thin and light, some focused on durability, all with a near stock Android. Their Mod system uses Android's Greybus standard with a proprietary connector.

I'm not sure of the merits of Essential's halfway house (physical connector for power only).

I never saw Essential's modular system as standing a chance - consumers have seen too many modular systems either die by the wayside (LG G phone) or else cause lock in and frustration (Sony car stereos disabled AUX RCA sockets).

Dave 126

Re: Saw it coming, just didn't care.

You can use an SD card to easily swap data between devices. You can use it to back up phone and app data. However you shouldn't use an SD card to do both, unless you are aware of the pitfalls of doing so.

Whilst I always hope there'll be a phone with SD card support for those who want one, they should acknowledge that most people don't need it - 32GB+ is a huge amount of music, and they don't need the faff.

UK's map maker Ordnance Survey plays with robo roof detector

Dave 126

Re: Hundreds of years...

For sure, the role of ML in reducing the number jobs is a valid topic, but one that perhaps is better addressed directly and not on every article - after all, if computers didn't make tasks quicker and easier, why bother with them? In any case, the jobs issue goes way back, before such things as combine harvesters and Spinning Jennies.

Whilst we have been using maps for hundreds of years, we are now using them for far more than navigation and settling land disputes.

Voda customers given green light by Ofcom to ditch contracts

Dave 126

Re: Vodafone playing with Ethics again?

State things in writing, give em a chance to sort it - but don't stress yourself out jumping through their hoops. Then, after the mandated period of time after your first written communication refer it to their regulator.

Dave 126

Re: Penalty?

I'd be tempted to read the source material for the answer - but the Reg is really poor at providing links within its articles.

This is an issue because occasionally a Reg article author can get the wrong end of the stick (only occasionally - we're all human).

Checkmate: DeepMind's AlphaZero AI clobbered rival chess app on non-level playing, er, board

Dave 126

Re: Did it come up with anything new?

> I'm crap at Chess, but do understand the notion that their are certain patterns of opening moves, mid-game, end-game etc. Did the AI come up with any new approaches?

I haven't looked deeply into this Chess, but Alpha Go certainly came up with moves and strategies that human grandmasters said they had never seen before.

Dave 126

Re: DeepMind is clueless about how to achieve AGI

Google X, and later Alphabet, did have walking robots, but they sold off Boston Dynamics to Softbank Group - presumably because the most promising market sector was the military.

Many of the other skills, such as image recognition and environment awareness, involved in the cooking task you outline are still being researched by Alphabet.

Fruit of an acquisition: Apple AI software goes open

Dave 126

Re: A little more research wouldn't come

https://www.datanami.com/2017/12/11/apple-releases-turi-ml-software-open-source/

It requires Python for streaming data, apparently.

If I get the gist correctly, one develops and trains a model in a workstation then exports it to an Apple device. Interestingly, the only GPU acceleration in the training phase is nVidia-based (Macs have only had AMD GPUs lately), presumably as a result of Turin being independent until last year.

Netflix silent about ridicule as it discusses punters' viewing habits

Dave 126

I'm confused

I'd assumed that Netflix already keeps user viewing data (in order to recommend new shows to viewers based on their viewing history) and that viewers know this. So I'm confused as to what it is that we've newly learnt from Netflix's tweets.

Still, I've only drunk 3/4 of a coffee so far, so maybe the issue is mine.