* Posts by Dave 126

10622 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

Calm down, internet. Elon's Musk-see SpaceX spacesuit is a bit generic

Dave 126

They can spell consistently. The idea of removing u from colour and vapour was an attempt to remove French influences. English English is a mongrel. A mongrel that engenders fondness.

Dave 126

Re: Double vacuum

You may well be right but I'm tired and drunk so can't do the working.

Dave 126

Re: "Not a movie prop, honest"

I always liked the spacesuits in Alien, the way they looked like cricket pads!

Dave 126

Re: Double vacuum

2 atmospheres in the suit, zero outside, or more easily, 4 inside and one outside.

German police seize 5,000 Donald Trump-shaped dance biscuits

Dave 126

Re: A little off-theme

He was desperate to be seen at the most fashionable nightclubs amongst the cultural movers and shakers back in the eighties, but he was known for not drinking or taking drugs.

Dave 126

Re: Pill Colour

> And now that the US economy is entering the Trump Recovery with gusto

It's a straight line graph from several years back into the Obama administration you fucking innumerate gobshite.

Dave 126

Re: Pill Colour

> I wonder if those people actually taking these drugs view Trump in the same light as most commentards on this thread. I'd guess not

Ravers are Trump supporters? Are you off your tits?! The young men on speed dancing to Happy Hardcore tape pack topless outside a burger van at Glastonbury might be equivalent to Trump's core base, but not the users of a drug that gives a feeling of love and goodwill to all people

Most Ecstasy users I know have a good sense of humour, usually veering towards the ironic, daft or dark. Many of them are doctors, chartered engineers or other professionals. All empirical evidence is that taking some once in a blue moon with good people is good for your mental and physical health. And it is actually scandalous that its original purpose - the treatment of PTSD - hasn't been explored further due to political stigma. We'd rather our servicemen suffer high rates of divorce, prison and suicide instead.

Any more than one death in a few million users (compare to alcohol, or going jogging) isn't due to MDMA but to impurities and substitutes, the result of a Daily Mail-appeasing political political policies. Remember David Nutt was fired as New Labour's Scientific Advisor because he didn't give the 'scientific advice' that agreed with the party line.

For more information, see that infamous hippie rag The Economist.

Google's Android 8.0 Oreo has been served

Dave 126

Re: Aww

The old emojis were peculiar to Android, which lead to confusion when communicating with people on other platforms.

Dave 126

> ANSWER_PHONE_CALLS? Why, in heaven's name?

An on-device answer-phone, perhaps?

Dave 126

Re: Yeah, right

Android device vendors didn't have the best reputation for regular updates even at the time you bought your HTC.

Private sub captain changes story, now says reporter died, was 'buried at sea' – torso found

Dave 126

Re: You can't change your story like that

One gets the feeling the police have had some hunch from the beginning that his original story didn't ring true.

LG schtum over whether Europeans can get the powerhouse phablet V30

Dave 126

The v20 DAC will sound better than most devices playing any music file if you want it to ( it's full DAC eats into your battery life, and doesn't aid a lot of audio like podcasts).

3rd party app (eg Spotify) support for high resolution audio has been added to your settings menu since some Android update or other. Initially it required a work-around to enable.

Dave 126

Re: A 32-bit DAC for audiophiles...

The DAC (and likely amp) is made by ESS, considered to be the dogs bollocks as once Wolfson and Burr Brown were. That it it can play back 32bit files is a by product, not its raison d'etre. Whilst some people might buy the phone and use cheap earphones, there are other Android phones available with other strengths - suggesting that at least some people who choose this phone deliberately will pair it with some decent headphones.

It was LG, ahead of their G2, who contributed code to the ASOP for handling 24bit audio files. Not always useful in a phone (unless it saves you transcoding) but allows for Android-based recording equipment (where the extra headroom is genuinely useful).

Dave 126

Operators plural, possibly. It's Europe in general that the LG V-series has shunned of late.

I quite their flagship strategy: G series being a bit weird and experimental, V series being passably normal powerhouses (stealing back some display pixels from around the user-facing camera seems to be the new trend - see Rubin's Essential Phone, the Mii Mix, and an iPhone 8 rumour. )

Google tells me that a dual SIM 64GB version of the V20 can now be had for around £280, though I'm not familiar with the retailers offering it.

Dave 126

Re: LG UK

> Even if it is released in the UK past precedence tells us half the components will be missing anyway.

I don't understand why LG cause confusion by releasing different handsets under the same name in different countries. Korean? Lovely audio. American? Wireless charging. European? Neither!

Dave 126

Re: LG UK

Some friends of mine are currently trying to get a fix for their LG boot loop issue. Fortunately they bought the phone outright so are covered by the Sales of Goods Act (and can insist on a refund if they choose), instead of being messed around by their network operator.

A bit more transparency about the issue would benefit LG. If people know what the issue is and that LG have addressed it, consumer trust will return less slowly.

Dave 126

Re: bigger is best ok?

If you're comparing it to a 16:9 screen then using 18:9 is not unhelpful.

Of course the screen size is still given by the diagonal(in the case of the v30 it's 6"), so more math is required to get the actual dimensions (plus knowledge of bezel thickness), and people concerned with ergonomics will still benefit from knowing its width in relation to an existing headset they are familiar with.

Intel stuffs extra cores into latest mobile Series U Core i5 and i7 chips

Dave 126

Re: Clock Rate, Batteries and Heat.

> Are these for laptops or tablets?

Either/or. The U range is ultra low power, usually less than 20W, so any machine where lightness or long battery life is required but ARM isn't suitable. The presence of a keyboard is irrelevant for some workloads.

Dave 126

Re: OK, I'll bite

@AC

What you say it technically correct, but you miss the point. If the OP's computer is fast enough for his workloads, a new laptop (and do bear in mind the article was about tablet class chips) will be fine, and likely faster than most desktops from 2013.

At least the OP noticed that the article was not about normal laptop CPUs, but about the ultra low power versions for ultrabooks and tablets.

@The Man Who Fell

What you get with newer Intel chips is power efficiency. You can choose a new machine that will either be lighter than your Thinkpad or last longer between charges (which, if you can leave the power adapter at home, means the same). Additionally, the Intel graphics are not the joke they used to be, so if you don't need a discrete GPU then you'll see improvements there, too.

So, Nokia. What makes you think the world wants your phones?

Dave 126

> We can't make them puncture and flame proof without making them bulky.

That's true of *swappable* batteries (swapped on a daily basis)- they need their own robust case. By contrast, *replaceable* batteries (changed once a year) can be made flimsier.

It's a distinction that the people calling for removable batteries don't always make clear.

Nokia's comeback is on: The flagship 8 emerges

Dave 126

Re: Same old, same old

> I just had my Nexus 5 battery replaced by a LG approved service centre for 40£

Mate, you can do that job on a Nexus 5 in a quarter hour with nothing more than a small Philips screwdriver and a guitar plectrum.

I'm not sure of the provenance of my £8 Amazon replacement battery, but it hasn't exploded yet!

Dave 126

Re: Lumia

> The best symbian cady bar Nokia ever made far superior to any S.E or Samsung offering at the time.,

The N95 was a slider not a candy bar, and was not a mainstream model due to its high price and (by the standards of just phones at the time) large size.

Dave 126

Re: Lumia

People talk about how Nokia fumbled projects that would have beaten the iPhone to market, but often neglect to mention how mediocre their mass-market phones were at that time.

After their 6210 era, their colour-screened candy bar phones weren't durable, or as interesting as Sony Ericsson or Samsung's offerings.

Dave 126

Re: Split screen market?

I largely agree with your points, and your conclusion.

Waterproofing is for peace of mind, like insurance. On this phone, the lack of full water proofing may be related to its audio recording capabilities.*

Said capabilities will be handy or invaluable for some people, but not all. (Most MiniDisc players could record analogue audio, but few MP3 players can). The idea of not having to adjust recording levels beforehand sounds lovely!

Not just kids and millennials want to record audio, but maybe the greybeards have already treated themselves to a pricey audio recorder (Proper Sony: knobs and dials all over a magnesium chassis)

Thin phone plus case will still be thinner than fat phone plus case.

*Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams. Douglas accompanies a BBC sound engineer to attempt to record the Yangtze River dolphin. He enquires about special BBC underwater microphones, and is told the standard BBC procedure is to use a standard microphone with a condom stuck over it. Cue 6'7" Mr Adams walking around a Chinese town asking shy shop assistants for condoms, only for them to fetch their managers who try to sell him contraceptive pills instead.

Dave 126

Re: I wonder if any ms execs have seen this film?

Above link leads not to an IMDB entry for the original film, but to a YouTube trailer for the 2010 remake.

What code is running on Apple's Secure Enclave security chip? Now we have a decryption key...

Dave 126

Place a painting over your safe, and then paint a picture of a safe on another wall! Tromp L'oeil!

Dave 126

Re: reall_adf

> Except as a 'normal user' just because i can look at the source code, doesn't mean it makes any sense to me, or that i can fix it.

Indeed. A couple of years back, a team of researchers completed their audit of Truecrypt, am Open Source application. A team of them. And it took them some time. What hope a normal user? Given this, the principle of a user being able to audit code (or rather the whole kaboodle of software and hardware) starts to appear a tad dogmatic.

Since Apple's selling-point is partially built atop a reputation for security, it is in their interests to have been thorough - and pay an internal team or two to review their code. That is not to say they are infallible, of course.

Tomorrow, DreamHost will square up to US DoJ to avoid handing over 1.3m IP addresses of anti-Trump site visitors

Dave 126

Thanks for expanding on your point. Sorry if I misunderstood - the phrase 'all sides' has become a bit loaded of late!

Dave 126

I'm not sure what equivalence you're trying to draw here.

And you are in no danger of being hypocritical if the idea of the government collecting names of its detractors in such a broad way.

Dave 126

Re: Trump brings out the best in people

> he is the POTUS. And I hate to kick a man when he's down.

He's down?! With his gold plated tower, spare house on Pennsylvania Avenue, children in good health, attractive wife, as much golfing time as he wants, and millions of dollars?

I thought 'down' is when you're struggling to make rent payments and your dog dies.

Dave 126

> If the Republicans acted this poorly to Obama, he would have played the race card.

And who was it who kept claiming that Obama wasn't born in the USA? It was Donald Trump. Despite a birth certificate, despite notices in newspapers at the time. Trump has done nothing but devalue truth, and thus Americans' trust in each other. Putin has been using the same methods in Russia for years.

Russia's answer to Buckminster Fuller has a buttload of CGI and he's not afraid to use it

Dave 126

Re: Weight

Rails.

Not that I'm supporting this concept. The guy reminds me of a 3D Studio Max fanatic I knew on a course years ago.

That said, the whole point of concepts is to be presented and then either knocked down or picked up. If this bloke's role in life is to generate lots of ideas for others to filter, then fair enough.

Dave 126

Re: Emptier

And also:

> This is not any less credible than Elon Musk's now weekly bids for research cash

Really? The people actually putting up money might beg to differ.

Comp sci world shock: Bonn boffin proposes P≠NP proof, preps for prestige, plump prize

Dave 126

Re: Isn't this related to chaos theory ?

My understanding is that Chaos Theory is that tiny differences of input (too small to measure… so you don't actually know the start variables with 100% accuracy) can result in huge differences in output in a system with interrelated parts (hence the iteration). If you took the input 2.0000001 and ran your model of a complex system, your results would initially look much the same as if you had used 2.0000002... but after some iterations the results would differ drastically.

By contrast, the topic of this article is that some mathematical questions are sodding hard to solve even if you have perfect, accurate figures for your input.

[I'm a bit vague on my terminology, please put me right if I'd made mistakes! ]

President Trump to his council of industry CEO buddies: You're fired!

Dave 126

The Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternative history in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh. The novel follows the fortunes of the Roth family during the Lindbergh presidency, as antisemitism becomes more accepted in American life and Jewish-American families like the Roths are persecuted on various levels.

Dave 126

Re: Fascists marching in the streets

Being British, we don't have Freedom of Speech protected. However, Freedom of Speech does not give you the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema anyway.

In any case I'm more interested in protecting Freedom of Informed Discussion, which isn't the same thing. First up, the noise levels need to be turned down - politicians, media, PC brigade, rabble rousers, FOX, anything that acts as a distorting filter. No-one should be barred from the the discussion for the views they hold at the outset - because the point of discussion is change them, or to open to be changed by them. Sometimes people with reprehensible views have genuine grievances but have grasped at the wrong solutions. Sometimes they feel their problems have been brushed over in the past, and they might be right. Sometimes they are just jerks.

Not another Linux desktop! Robots cross the Uncanny Valley

Dave 126

Re: The effect is not only visual...

1991 Gulf War: BBC reporters on analogue satellite feeds, if noise then lots of 'snow' like a dodgy VHS tape. Reporter's face moved naturally like a human.

2003 Gulf War: Reporters on a digital satellite system. Any noise caused blocking, pixelation, and jerky inhuman movement.

tl;dr even a very fuzzy blurry moving image can look very human looking if the movement is appropriate.

Dave 126

> The study also suggested that this may have even reminded people of the kind of behaviour exhibited by humans with psychopathic traits.

The A2s always were a bit twitchy.

How to build your own DIY makeshift levitation machine at home

Dave 126

The laboratory mice aren't going to enjoy this - they can hear up to 75kHz, dogs up to 45.

Thinking of lab animals, didn't the bloke who got a Nobel prize for graphene once get an Ig Nobel prize for levitating a frog, thus becoming the first person to bag both prestigious awards? Yeah, he did:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Geim

Strip club selfie bloke's accidental discharge gets him 6 years in clink

Dave 126

Re: He confused a Selfie Stick & a gun?

I didn't read any mention of a selfie-stick - I assume he was taking a photo of himself posing with the gun. Still, the article was so full of references to bulges and discharges that it could cause confusion.

Taken a while but finally here's the first proper smart-home gizmo

Dave 126

Re: Want/need?

> That's quite a big thing to set aside. If something is totally pointless

Good to see you thinking about people with limited mobility there Pen-y-gors. Whilst I hope you are in good health today, I must sadly observe that the human body doesn't last forever. Damned biology.

It does you no harm to let the first adopters and their inexpensive IoT lightbulbs start to iron out the creases in a framework that could help people continue independent lives for longer. We won't all be able to afford a young helper at our heck and call when infirmity strikes us. Damned economics.

And in the mean time, with a bit of imagination, this stuff can be fun.

Outage outed: Bing dinged, Microsoft portal mortal, DuckDuckGo becomes DuckDuckNo

Dave 126

"CMOS" as a sample test query?

Each to their own, I guess. I always use "Cats" to test if my browser can access the internet... maybe there is some psychological reason that we both use four* character strings beginning with the letter C. I can think of another, but that's more if a test of whether Safe Search is turned on.

* Like an ATM PIN

The cheek of it! Beach bar owner shoots nude bather in the booty

Dave 126

Has anyone else noticed that the fashion for young men to wear their jeans so low that everybody has to see their boxer-shorts clad arses has only come about since BB guns have effectively been banned?

Dave 126

Not enough evidence? Wasn't there a UK police helicopter overhead filming the nudists? I hear that's standard practice now!

[Helicopter icon / Paris icon / beer icon ]

Chap behind Godwin's law suspends his own rule for Charlottesville fascists: 'By all means, compare them to Nazis'

Dave 126

"I didn't know that gorillas could talk"

"Well we prefer not to let on about it. If people knew we could talk, the conservatives would enslave us and the liberals would train us to operate machine lathes.. and who the fuck wants to operate a machine lathe?"

- Robert Anton Wilson

Dave 126

Re: Godwin not applicable here

> Are there really people so demented that they think Trump has some secret sympathies for these people?

They're not secret, his relationships with members of the KKK and other groups, they are well documented. Whether Trump is in sympathy or just knows who a chunk of his victory base is, is another question. Certainly leaders of some of these groups took Trump's refusal to condemn them - when directly asked at a press conference - as affirmation. Again, all documented. Watch Sunday's edition of Last Week Tonight, on YouTube if you have to. Those HBO dollars buy a big team of researchers.

Dave 126

As any fule kno:

Under capitalism, man exploits man whilst under communism it's the other way round!

Dave 126

Re: The Law is an Ass

Oh Homer! Note the way that Frumious Bandersnatch replied to you courteously, and expanded upon what Godwin's Law means - he did not call you a Nazi, a crypto fascist, an idiot - not indeed did he make any ad hominem attack on you.

What really stifles meaningful debate is when people start comparing each others to Nazis and the whole conversation breaks down. It was that sort of argument that Godwin was seeking highlight way back when.

Dave 126

Re: Godwin not applicable here

On Sunday night John Oliver said that Trump's reluctance to condemn them was a 'reverse Godwin's Law' - in that the last person to mention Nazis in the debate loses by default.

Are Asimov's laws enough to stop AI stomping humanity?

Dave 126

Drafting laws

In some respects, drafting laws is a bit like programming ( or not: Discuss!) in that people are trying to describe a course of events and steer them before they happen. If laws were drafted so well that a robot could understand them without ambiguity, perhaps there would be less room for lawyers to wrangle.

This is just a thinking point, not a serious suggestion!