* Posts by GettinSadda

615 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2007

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Mystery Git ransomware appears to blank commits, demands Bitcoin to rescue code

GettinSadda

No Secrets?

Cool - then I'm sure you are willing to prove your point by posting the full details of all of your credit cards, and the username and password for every online account you use...

Or are secrets suddenly far more important to business than you previously thought?

With sorry Soyuz stuffed, who's going to run NASA's space station taxi service now?

GettinSadda

Re: No worries

> I lolled at SLS being "100% over budget".

> How is this even possible seeing how this launcher thingy is

> supposed to be based on "trusted & true" technologies?

The problem is likely to be the old "we need more votes in <State X>"... "Quick, move production of <Component Y> to <State X>" game!

Apple WWDC: There's no way iOS and macOS will fully merge as one

GettinSadda
Thumb Up

Waze and others on CarPlay

I was seriously considering a shift away from Apple in the future simply to be able to get better nav software on CarPlay, so this is seriously good news!

Super Cali health inspectors: Tesla blood awoke us

GettinSadda

"Elon does not like the color yellow"

Is this a recent dislike?

https://www.greencarreports.com/image/100025207_2007-tesla-roadster-prototype

SpaceX 'raises' an extra 100 million bucks to get His Muskiness to Mars

GettinSadda

Sheesh!

"SpaceX rockets have an unfortunate tendency to crash and burn"?

Really?

Lets's see..

Russian Proton-M has launched 102 with 9 failures and 1 partial failure - for a reliability rate of 90.2%

European Ariane 5 has launched 95 with 2 failures and 2 partial failures - for a reliability of 97.8%

Falcon 9 Full-Trust has launches 24 with 1 pre-launch failure (so 25 rockets) - for a reliability of 96%

Falcon 9 all versions have launched 44 with 1 failure, 1 partial failure and 1 pre-launch failure, so 93.3%

Looks like pretty standard sort of ball-park for the big players!

Level 5 driverless cars by 2021 can be done, say Brit industry folk

GettinSadda

> "We fully anticipate that Level 5 vehicles will start to see operations in limited geo-fenced areas and on certain roads by 2021.” – Graeme Smith, chief executive, Oxbotica

Um... "Waymo has been testing the automated Chrysler Pacifica minivans without a human backup since 19 October in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, Arizona"

From: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/07/google-waymo-announces-fully-autonomous-ride-hailing-service-uber-alphabet

Home Sec Amber Rudd: Yeah, I don't understand encryption. So what?

GettinSadda

Re: She's an adult?

> I was always told by my dad, "Son, alway go for the small gobby one! Then see the rest run.."

Interesting advice... of course these days the "small gobby one" also routinely carries a knife, so it's a handy way of removing yourself from the problem permanently!

Samsung's 'Magician' for SSDs can let crims run evil code

GettinSadda

VLC Explot Seems Live!

VLC seems to have a similar hole, and it is being exploited.

Note that I have not 100% verified this is not a false alarm.

However, my copy of VLC Player 2.2.4 just offered to download the latest version and I got the following pop up from BitDefender:

"The file {local\temp}\vlc-2.2.6-win32.exe is infected with Gen:Variant.razy.181333."

Elon Musk reveals Mars colony rocket capable of bringing pizza joints to the red planet

GettinSadda
Alert

Sounds Crazy...

Musk says a lot of crazy things.

The problem is, quite a lot of them turn into reality.

It is hard to know when the crazy-sounding things are going to end up working!

BA IT systems failure: Uninterruptible Power Supply was interrupted

GettinSadda

Re: If it got interrupted...

> "I saw a generator test years ago in Oxford fail"

Yeah... I was told of a similar incident, but in a power station. When the station is powered on it needs to sync to the grid before linking as it is vital that not only the frequency matches exactly, but also the phase. The traditional way to do this was with a dial showing the phase-error. Apparently when the plant was down for maintenance they also had cleaners in to give the control room a going over. One of these cleaners discovered that it was possible to unscrew the glass fronts of the dials to clean the glass. In the process they knocked off the needle, and replaced it... 180 degrees out of phase. When the power station was brought back online the generators apparently detached themselves from the floor... with considerable (i.e. demolition-grade) force!

‪There's a ransom-free fix for WannaCry‬pt. Oh snap, you've rebooted your XP box

GettinSadda

"If it relies on getting the data out of memory would this also be in the swap file if the PC hasn't been restarted? If so then there should be scope for recovering of the disk is taken out and mounted on another running system."

I suspect that this would only be true if the encrypting code had got swapped out of RAM before turning the machine off. Not that likely I guess.

If only our British 4G were as good as, um, Albania's... UK.gov's telco tech report

GettinSadda

Re: The same goes for

"The 95% of population metric needs to be dropped.

95% of land mass is a more realistic target."

Especially as what they mean is "the home addresses of 95% of the population" - what ever happened to the idea of using a mobile phone when you are out and about! If I want high-speed internet at home I will use DSL/fibre, I want mobile internet when I am... well, mobile!

German regulators won't let Tesla use the name 'Autopilot'

GettinSadda

I don't get it!

This makes absolutely no sense to me as the very term "autopilot" comes from aviation, where it is a device that holds the heading and possibly the altitude of an aircraft constant. It is not used to mean a device that is capable of monitoring air traffic or other hazards such as terrain or weather. When a plane is flying on autopilot the actual pilot is still responsible to all of these things. It seems that the problem is not the word, but the fact that people think it is something it isn't. I believe that Elon deliberately chose the term because it emphasised the fact that it was NOT a self-driving system, but something similar to the aviation device of the same name.

Watch SpaceX's rocket dramatically detonate, destroying a $200m Facebook satellite

GettinSadda
Mushroom

Cause Located...

It seems that for some reason the payload included a Samsung Galaxy Note 7

(Someone had to suggest this!)

Harrison Ford's leg, in the Star Wars film, with the Millennium Falcon door

GettinSadda

I believe those "lethal lightning guillotine doors" were actually relatively slow and sped up in post-production. This is why everyone seems to hesitate awkwardly while the doors open and close.

UK 'leccy car company Ecotricity patches leaky car recharge app

GettinSadda
FAIL

Far Too Common

This sort of coding mistake is quite common in the school of app/website development known as "Hey Dave, doesn't your kid do some programming at school... surely he can knock this up for us"

Openreach to split from BT... so they'll be 'Legally Separate'

GettinSadda
Devil

BT Structure

Is it just me that sees there being four parts to the BT Group?

* BT Retail

* BT Wholesale

* BT Openreach

* BT Ofcom

Watch it again: SpaceX's boomerang rocket lands on robo-sea-barge

GettinSadda

Re: Bravado?

Erm.... wut?

So, the Space Shuttle program (135 launches over 30 years, average of 4.5 per year) was a success. But Falcon 9 (24 launches over 6 years, average of 4 per year and increasing rapidly) is a failure. But one of your main gripes about SpaceX is they haven't yet has 500 launches?!

Elon Musk takes wraps off planet-saving Model 3 vapourmobile

GettinSadda

Re: Bizarre

>>"There are other electric cars available, you know, at similar price points, with similar performance?"

>>

>>Really?? Care to name a couple? Or just one?

>

>Chevrolet Bolt? And let's bear in mind that we're talking about products that you can try & buy

>now, not promises of what will hopefully be available a year and half in the future.

Only the Bolt is not available now, may never come to the UK, is more expensive, has a lower range, is much slower, is considerably smaller, charges at about a third of the speed and has nothing like the desirability factor.

GettinSadda

Re: Sedan (definition?)

"Not a hatchback IIRC; this thing has a traditional boot."

Yet you can load a 7 foot surfboard inside... perhaps it is the other meaning of "sedan" which is a 5-door saloon-style hatchback. Like the current Model S.

GettinSadda

Re: Bizarre

"There are other electric cars available, you know, at similar price points, with similar performance?"

Really?? Care to name a couple? Or just one?

UK Home Sec stumbles while trying to justify blanket cyber-snooping

GettinSadda

Full Details

May's written justification just in:

"We need these extra sweeping powers because... because... reasons. OK?"

Cisco shocker: Some network switches may ELECTROCUTE you

GettinSadda

Re: Is this POE?

Nah - this is Power Over Technician

Elon Musk's $4.9bn taxpayer windfall revealed

GettinSadda

Red-in-Tooth-and-Claw?

"You can't blame him, obviously. If it's raining free money, then why not collect some? But it is possible to have a vague feeling that this isn't quite how red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism is supposed to work."

Why are we assuming Musk is a "red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalist"?

First production car powered by Android Auto rolls out – and it's a Hyundai

GettinSadda

Re: Phone Safety...

I looked up some of these "studies" a while back and they were hilarious!

For example, one of them tested the distraction level of speaking on a phone, not by "speaking on a phone" but by giving drivers in a simulator lists of place-names and requiring them to repeat them back in alphabetical order in a minimal time. It turned out that the distraction of this task was similar for those being given the list of names by a "hands-free speaker" and a "hand-held speaker". Strangely they never tested having the person giving the list of place-names and badgering them to sort them into order sitting in the passenger seat as that would have been unrealistic.

Eyes on the prize: Ten 23-24-inch monitors for under £150

GettinSadda

What a waste

My eyesight is not bad enough that I need a 24" monitor to see 1920x1080, but I do want a (couple of) 24" monitors with a proper resolution so I can fit more work on them!

Aluminum bendy battery is boffins' answer to exploding Li-ion menace

GettinSadda

Bored of Battery "Breakthroughs"

Every week we have at least one battery "breakthrough" that is at too early a stage to publish any results but which will totally revolutionise everything electrically powered. A year or so on if you try and track them down you find they were abandoned because of some flaw, or they are still "really close to publishing the data".

I'm pretty much convinced that the majority of these are just ways to inflate stock prices to make a quick buck, or to win a research grant or two.

AUTOPILOT: Musk promises Tesla owners a HANDS-OFF hands-on

GettinSadda

I wonder why?

"Strangely, Tesla hasn't responded to our requests for clarification as to how the self-driving system will work."

Maybe that was related to you recently describing their car as "crap".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/15/musk_promises_tesla_model_s_software_update/

Google hatching YouTube Kiddie Vids – report

GettinSadda

It's not the big friendly buttons, or time limits, or even parental controls...

What we need is a way for our kids to be able to watch some videos, but be guaranteed that what they see is kid-safe. At the moment my son has no access to YouTube on any devices he uses, but requires me to look up any videos that he wants. That can be fine, but he is getting a bit older and there is an increasing amount that it would be fine for him to be watching like walk-throughs for games or Minecraft tips and tricks.

So, why not just turn up the built-in YouTube filtering and let him use that? Because it is rubbish!! If you lock down YouTube on a computer to be "safe" then search for a safe video and click around for a while you will very soon find serious porn or videos of teens playing a game while effing blinding and m-f-ing all the time!

Hello Barbie: Hang on, this Wi-Fi doll records your child's voice?

GettinSadda

Re: The privacy policy says it records video too?

> "Give a pair of under-eights a camera to play with and you're bound to find a few Moon Shots in the mix."

Strangely my camera seems to end up with close-up shots of a cats bottom on it. I really hope these are caused by my 9-year-old!

Game of Moans: Sky coughs to BORKED set top box BALLS-UP

GettinSadda

Ah - I must try this. I have discovered that sometimes it doesn't even ask if you want to series link when something is clearly marked as "1 of n" etc.

SpaceX HOVER-SHIP landing scuppered by MASSIVE ocean waves

GettinSadda

Re: I'd think they're ready to come down on land

> Didn't they have one rocket break up at the hypersonic stage, sometime early last year?

Nope - the first three Falcon 1 launches failed (they were basically test launches), and the forth Falcon 9 launch had one of the 9 engines shut down early meaning that the primary payload reached the ISS, but the secondary one could not be put into its orbit without getting too close to the ISS on the way (so ended up in a short-lived orbit). All the other launches have worked fine.

$10,000 Ethernet cable promises BONKERS MP3 audio experience

GettinSadda

Simple antidote to all this...

Spend some time looking into recording studios. They don't use any of this rubbish and they make the stuff you are listening to. That means that a) people that really know what they are doing don't buy into this, and b) if not having this stuff ruins the music... it was already ruined before you bought it!

Google's first stab at control-free ROBOT car rolls off the line

GettinSadda

Re: a choice

Oh yes this definitely!

This triggered an unpleasant flashback to a lunchtime lift I accepted from a work colleague that would have been fine except that a level crossing closed as we were approaching and he swerved across and back to go through the as-yet unclosed "exit side" gates. Until that day I had always thought that public information films showing the dangers of people doing this were just silly.

ASA slaps Ebuyer AGAIN - this time for ignoring regulator

GettinSadda

And another...

I stopped using eBuyer after they charged me about £10 for "next day delivery" and took 4 days to deliver. They refused to offer a refund of the delivery so have lost me as a customer for ever.

QEMU, FFMPEG guru unleashes JPEG-slaying graphics compressor

GettinSadda

Re: JPEG2000

Actually, modern movie "prints" are actually a collection of MXF files with JPEG2000 images inside them.

EU law bods: New eCall crash system WON'T TRACK YOU. Really

GettinSadda
Mushroom

Question: If you were a fireman, would you like to know before approaching it that the mangled vehicle has an LPG tank? Or compressed hydrogen?

GettinSadda

Yeah - I'm fed up of forever replacing my air-bags having hit speed bumps too hard. Not.

This system is linked to the air-bag system and triggers when the air-bags fire. It also has a hands-free phone built in (or at least the one in my car does) so you can speak to the operator and let them know what state you are in and more details about the crash (assuming you are conscious).

Two driverless cars stuffed with passengers are ABOUT TO CRASH - who should take the hit?

GettinSadda

The faulty car should sacrifice itself!

For two driverless cars to get into a situation where they are on a single-track road (otherwise they could just switch lanes) with an unsurvivable drop on one side and an unmountable slope or wall on the other, yet be travelling fast enough that a head-on collision would be fatal even with full brakes applied by both vehicles from the moment they entered each others field of view - at least one car has to be seriously broken!

Download alert: Nearly ALL top 100 Android, iOS paid apps hacked

GettinSadda

Simple Really!

> "Downloading mobile apps from non-official sources..."

And there we have the whole story summed up in the first line. Buying prescription meds under the counter from a guy at a gas station? You're going to end up in a bad way! Downloading apps from an unofficial site? Ditto!

Toyota to launch hydrogen (ie, NATURAL GAS) powered fuel cell hybrid

GettinSadda

Hydrogen is generally made from natural gas - so the power source for this car is natural gas. There is no significant natural source of hydrogen.

GettinSadda

Re: And If...

In fact that option exists...

https://transportevolved.com/2014/11/18/explained-2016-toyota-mirai-honda-fcv-concept-chademo-sockets/

Tesla's Elon Musk shows the world his D ... and it's a monster

GettinSadda

Re: Charging issues? Range?

Interestingly the guy responsible for managing the National Grid disagrees - I wonder who is right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIxSaUXfbyM

Leaked: Mobile operators' SCARE campaign against net neutrality

GettinSadda

Not to worry...

The ASA will ensure that six months after this campaign is over the companies will be sent a letter telling them that the misleading adverts must no longer be used!

Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid: The plug-in for plutocrats

GettinSadda

Re: Since the Tesla S P85

"How do you get from Cumbria to Birmingham and back in the same day?"

Well, Keswick to Birmingham and back is 382 miles. A P85 should do 300 of those on one charge without major problems, meaning that at some point you will need to grab about 85 miles of extra charge. Using a free-to-use Tesla Supercharger would add that in less than the time it would take to go to the loo and buy a latte (not counting drinking it).

Turing biopic with Cumberbatch, Knightley to premiere at London Film Festival

GettinSadda
Alert

Does not match!

If the film is like the trailer, and my recollections of the project are right, this is not accurate! Anyone else get the same feeling?

Japan makes Prius palatable with road map to hydrogen cars

GettinSadda

Re: Go Japan Go

"I truly hope that they succeed on several levels :

* That they really do manage to produce a mass production Hydrogen Engine.

* That they succeed in breaking the Oil cartels by doing so."

Oh dear, oh dear!

Have you any idea where commercial hydrogen comes from? It does not come from electrolysis as that is far too inefficient. It is made from natural gas, by companies such as Shell, BP and ExxonMobil. Guess which companies are pouring vast quantities of money into lobbying for a future based on hydrogen?

BOFH: You can take our lives, but you'll never take OUR MACROS

GettinSadda
WTF?

Cruelest Ending!

Of all the awful things that the BOFH and his PFY sidekick have ever done, this has to be the worst! Introducing someone to Access!?!?!?

Engineering fault stops SpaceX launch of machine comms satellite network

GettinSadda

Re: First stage

> Does anyone know whether they're planning to bring the first stage down gently again?

If you trust: Wikipedia - then yes

Silent, spacious and... well, insipid: Citroën's electric C-Zero car

GettinSadda

Re: Thoughts

Maybe you should read the highway code:

==== QUOTE =====

If there is no pavement, keep to the right-hand side of the road so that you can see oncoming traffic. You should take extra care and

be prepared to walk in single file, especially on narrow roads or in poor light

keep close to the side of the road.

================

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