* Posts by Dave 62

255 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Aug 2009

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Guilty: NSA bloke who took home exploits at the heart of Kaspersky antivirus slurp row

Dave 62
Facepalm

Brit cyber-spooks give Kaspersky ringing endorsement.

Barclays emailed the other day to say they'd no longer be offering free Kaspersky to new customers.

"The UK Government has been advised by the National Cyber Security Centre to remove any Russian products from all highly sensitive systems classified as secret or above.

We’ve made the precautionary decision to no longer offer Kaspersky software to new users, however there’s nothing to suggest that customers need to stop using Kaspersky."

Barclays showing their cyber security know how is about on par with the average NSA TAO bod. I for one see the NCSC comments as testament to how good it is, or more likely driven by spite.

Your next laptop will feature 'CMF' technology

Dave 62

Form over function

Ironically, here I sit on a (work supplied) HP EliteBook lamenting the death of function, daring not to use the wanky foldy slim-line ethernet port, lest the cable get trapped in it again, requiring brute force and a flat blade screwdrive to pry the f**ker out.

Dry those eyes, ad blockers are unlikely to kill the internet

Dave 62

Re: People who use adblockers...

As above.

I'm perfectly happy to be advertised to, in fact sometimes I even like to be advertised to, provided it's succinct, contains actual product information, doesn't cause slow loading, doesn't cover stuff up, isn't overly showy, doesn't track me, isn't full of viruses, unfortunately none of any of that is ever true.

But even perfectly innocuous not-porn sites can be vulnerable to malvertising, smart phones are still hugely vulnerable and harder to protect or clean, gigantic flash ads eat up your data allowance, take up your whole screen and any attempt to move around to get to the x ends up in clicking the ad, some people even still think ads with sound, at offensive volume, are a good idea.

El Reg is one of the worst for intrusive flash ads, I tried disabling ABP for you once, it didn't last long.

BOFH: I'm not doing this for the benefit of your health, you know

Dave 62
FAIL

What's an expresso machine?

Editorial standards slipping, horiffic.

Not sure what's worse, getting it wrong, or getting it wrong after getting it right.

PEAK PC: 'Most' Google web searches 'come from mobiles' in US

Dave 62

Lies, damned lies and statistics!

Conveniently glossing over that each mobile search is one of several attempts to search for the same thing while using a touch screen keyboard, the number is further inflated by frustrated page reloads because it's got stuck 99% of the way but isn't actually displaying anything, probably because the google analytics/ads hive has fallen over and like most websites these days it relies on that and won't finish loading the fX>!ing content if it can't load the ads.

On top of all that, I generally use mobile, if I'm using it for shopping rather than checking opening times or finding a phone number, for checking prices of things I'm looking at in a physical store, not for actually buying things and if I later go on to buy it through my computer only to be greeted by some ugly upscaled mobile site, I'm probably going elsewhere.

Singapore's PM personally programmed C++ Suduko-solver

Dave 62

Re: Now there's a politician I could vote for

I'd rather they knew a bit of physics, chemistry, biology or even economics.

Google broke own security with April fool gag

Dave 62

Google should just stop doing April Fool's.

The update to the Maps App for last year's Pokemon joke has ruined it for me, ever since my sat nav frequently crashes and sometimes leads me on wild goose chases.

Rand Paul puts Hillary Clinton's hard drive on sale

Dave 62
Coat

Broken?

I might give this a shot if it goes at a reasonable price, I spent my weekend trying to repair a failed a decade ago Deskstar by swapping the heads with a good drive (I now have two dead drives), clearly I need more practice so this could be another project drive for me.

But the listing doesn't say what's wrong with it, no symptoms like "BIOS gives error code 11" or "Drive makes ATAPI noise" so not sure if it's worth a punt.

Reg exec in deluxe roo-skin pen case beernami trauma

Dave 62

Cheap and nasty.

Over priced pen, under priced beer.

I am disappoint.

True fact: 1 in 4 Brits are now TERRORISTS

Dave 62

Twisted their words.

It seems to me Jasper Hamill is twisting what the Met have said, they simply stated that viewing the video could be, in the strictest letter of the law, viewed as an offence and could be used as one piece in building a case against someone or to bolster an application for a warrant, at no point have they said than anyone and everyone watching the video will be branded a terrorist, singled out for cavity searches at airports and have a florists van parked outside 24/7.

Now it's not completely beyond the realms of possibility that one might be sent the video, unsolicited, on snapchat or similar, and fined for it, but that's not what the Met said.

Seems Jasper is getting all indignant about nothing.

World Solar Challenge contender claims new speed record

Dave 62

Re: Tesla S?

Actually "start stop" driving does not effect the efficiency of electric cars in the same way it does for IC cars, the engine doesn't keep running while it's stationary. Ok, sure, you have to accelerate again, but how quickly and to what speed? I dare say shuffling along going 0-10-0-10-0-10 uses less energy than holding a constant 100 and while you can argue that force has to be applied to accelerate you have to remember that the F required to hold a speed is proportional to the square of the speed (for aerodynamic drag) and so even if you are accelerating up to 100, until you reach 100 that component of the force is lower than if you were constantly travelling at 100.

There's also the KERS factor, if you are slowing down you are recovering energy, not all of it of course, but some.

CERN data explains how Higgs heavies other matter

Dave 62

Re: femtobarns

Aye but these guys are big time, they've clubbed together to buy a barn.

Begs the question, how many femtobarns are in nanoWales?

I'd like to take this opportunity to table a motion that Barns be added to the Official El Reg Units of Measurement.

How practical is an electric car in London?

Dave 62

Re: On Street Parking

Someone did a study, it was in MTZ a year or so ago, I was looking for it recently but couldn't find it.

Comparing the CO2 output of a modern diesel vs an electric car using typical current UK electricity mix, they were level, with the diesel obviously being more practical.

Now there is the matter of particulates and NOX, which diesels are rather bad for, but gas/coal stations probably produce *some* other pollutants (gas not so much I know, but still *some*).

This, iirc, didn't include manufacture and disposal, but I could be wrong on that.

The reason we're not all chasing electric cars because they are not the best/cheapest/most practical/going to happen soon enough.

Dogevault praying backups work after confirming attack

Dave 62

Cryptocurrency: How does it even work?

Excusing my ignorance as idk how cryptomonies werks but, if the datas has been taken then deleted, rather than just deleted, do the attackers now have the dogecoins and does that mean that in restoring the backup the dogecoins will duplicate those dogecoins and essentially create monies?

I was under the vague impression that each cryptomoney was some sort of piece of data which was sort of sold and traded and moved about?

UK.gov chucks £28m at F1 tech for buses and diggers plan

Dave 62
Alert

Glossy steering wheels? I think you'll find they're all a bit on the matte side, else they'd get slippery when wet.

What the world really needs: A telescopic SELFIE STICK

Dave 62

Re: Not actually a new idea

I have to say the go-pro stick has even been used for "selfie" video to good affect, giving some interesting angles on snow-boarders and the like. The best bit is under all that snow-boarder apparel you can't see them duck face.

p.s here's a song about selfies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdemFfbS5H0 :)

Birds Eye releases 'mashtags' social spud snacks

Dave 62

Re: Mashtags....

mmm mashtags and alphabetti spaghetti would make a delicious if trashy and unhealthy meal. can't wait for these to land in Tesco's freezers.

Will they include some common #hashtags like #yolo, #swag, #suchwonder?

Google will dodge EU MONSTER FINES by 'promoting' rival search services

Dave 62
Happy

story tl;dr but based on the headline alone..

The other day I googled something and the top result was another results page from ask or something.

If I wanted that I'd go there not google. Because, before all this shit at least, google has the best results.

Make good product -> Get punished ??

I mean, I deliberately use Bing just to level the playing field a bit (and it's not that bad, really..) but sometimes the competition is struggling just because they suck.

Virgin Media's flaky broadband network turns Bolton off

Dave 62

Re: A happy customer?

I'm happy with the service, but not with the service.

Never had any connection issues except one time I forgot to pay my bill and it was restored 10 minutes later when at 7pm I called and paid.

But whenever I try to set up a DD the page that process it is broken and has been for months. Plus it's a pain to use because they have their own special combo boxes which don't work.

So after a while I am fed up of manually paying bills (the page for paying individual bills works fine, bar combo boxes) and I try to report this fault. I phone and after going through menu after menu after menu it hangs up on me. I think the fault report on the website didn't work either. Ended up going through facebook (their facebook page is covered in complaints) only to be sent to some secret error report form, which then didn't work, so I reported this on facebook only to be told to email and.. I can't remember if they even replied. I guess it's time to try the DD page again.

So basically, the service is fine but the customer service is hopeless. But I thought VM were consistently top ranked for customer service, which doesn't bode well for talk talk..

Foot-loving cat burglar nicks THREE THOUSAND individual socks

Dave 62

The smell of feet..

"These cats love the smell of feet," she said. "So if I took my shoes off around the cats they would all come and roll in them and steal the shoes."

But.. what does this say about the underwear?

Optical Express 'ruined my life' attack site wins Nominet takedown battle

Dave 62
Pint

Re: My Experience

Bravo! Have a pint.

Might I be so bold as to ask how long ago you had the surgery and whether there is any hint of your eyesight returning to it's former state?

Google Glass pics will BAFFLE admirers: Nudge nudge, WINK WINK

Dave 62

this will end well..

considering the number of people who have set their phone to send everything to facetweet automatically and don't even know it I really don't think adding the risk of accidental photos is a good idea.

taking a piss and get something in your eye? now your wang is on facebook.. doh.

Microsoft releases wonderfully loopy experimental GIF-jiggler

Dave 62

My first thought was that it was what was being used on bing too.

Not sure the format matters if it's the same technique to generate the frames, this is a matter of image processing.

I believe the one with deer had a ghost deer on it, so clearly the technique can produce artefacts.

Or.. you know... ghost deer.

Still a hard G.

Also pretty sure GIFs never went away thanks to certain imageboards and that sort of website and whether or not *real* vines are gifs, vines aren't necessarily gifs (unless gifs have audio??).

It's not like all selfies have to be jpgs..

Tales from an expert witness: Lasers, guns and singing Santas

Dave 62

Re: "I could write a book about these stories, and it wouldn’t be fiction."

I think I'd buy that too.

Bit embarrassed that I didn't know that about reverse gears though :s

I've never owned a car where you didn't have to wait though, something to do with the engine reaching idle, which can take some time (more than you'd expect from a normal run down) as the idle valve or etb will usually slow it down over the last few rpm to prevent it dropping too low or whatever (not my area :p), you can't pull forward then immediately slam into reverse, particularly if you've still got some forward momentum.

It is utterly baffling and infuriating when the trade do this, "the profession" generally prefer to do it right, get a root cause, make sure it doesn't happen again. I don't understand why car makers don't try to enforce a little honesty on their main stealers.

Vladimir PUTIN officially HARDER than CHUCK NORRIS

Dave 62

I read that as "bum him" :3

He could have been such an icon, martial arts hero, doing the tiger conservation thing, fighting off bears, riding around topless.

But he's a bigot and no one likes him.

I do think it's about time that any organisation with any shred of social responsibility stand up to this.

This means you IOC and F1 management .

Ultimate electric driving machine? Yes, it’s the BMW i3 e-car

Dave 62

Re: how precise is a piece of string?

Seems autocar have done this properly and bothered to point out that the range extender not only gains 150kg (though I think I've seen bigger figures elsewhere) but also gains 0.7s to 60. So if you want to (supposedly) beat an M3 to 50 you have to sacrifice range.

But no one anywhere has yet told me what the engine is (i.e. fuel type, aspiration, what cycle it runs etc.) some are saying it's a BMW bike engine but I don't buy that and the power output is something pitiful and I don't imagine that running off the RE engine all the time can maintain full pace and no one has made any mention of what happens when that happens. I imagine BMW are deliberately being cagey about this but someone should be asking the question of them and frankly reporting the answer or lack thereof. I'm actually perfectly ok with this type of limitation, it's how I would do it.

The weight of the RE is also rather large for the relatively small tyres isn't it? Although I think autocar said the rears were wider (on the RE at least).

Really needs deeper seats too, are the flat seats really somehow much lighter? iirc 1 series seats are quite bad too though.

Dave 62

Re: how precise is a piece of string?

oh please, that is standard and accepted practice.

aanyway, I reckon "desirable" really is the most important trait for electric cars now, I need to drive one of these to be sure of comfort and NVH but it sounds like it pretty much does what a regular car does now, the only outstanding points are:

>battery life, I'm not sure what study of real-world used EVs, HEVs and REEVs has been done or what lease deals exist.

>real world fuel economy is like when running in range-extender mode (as in quite literally how many miles per gallon you can get, considering the conversion efficiency).

Otherwise it replaces most hatch backs which will never need to tow or do anything else particularly stressful and it's faster than most people will ever use.

/post

Dave 62
Headmaster

how precise is a piece of string?

Excuse this first paragraph, this is just an aspie engineer being aspie..

"aluminium, carbon fibe and plastic" is hardly precise. Firstly, by carbon fibre, you mean CFRP and by plastic you mean a polymer the precise nature of which you do not divulge and I suspect that by aluminium you in fact mean an aluminium alloy. Furthermore you make no mention of the precise P within which the CFR is contained nor the nature of the CFs and their orientation nor do you mention the precise construction of the overall composite structure or the manner in which it is affixed to the other structures.</aspie>

An E92 M3 (as pictured) will do 0-60 in 3.9 seconds with M-DKG and ~4.1 without so I seriously doubt it's going to be slower to 50 than a car which takes 3.7 seconds to get to 37mph and 7.2 to 60, that would imply it does the 37-50 sprint in 0.4 seconds (assuming the slower manual box M3) and 50-60 in 3.1 seconds.

Yes, those numbers stack up don't they? Was my mum driving the M3?

I have nothing against the i3, I think it's an impressive car and it's commendable that BMW are pushing the boundaries like this AND I quite like the looks!

They only need to knock 95kg off the weight and 0.5 seconds of the 0-60, add 44mph to the top speed, give it wider tyres (say 205) and a proper driving position and ride height, bin the ABS and it'll be about as desirable as my current car (a 10 year old Clio :p).

Here's what YOU WON'T be able to do with your PlayStation 4

Dave 62

I don't think I'll bother.

The only question is, when PSN goes paid, what happens to PS3 online games?

Only a merciful BULLET can really save a RHINO, say Texas hunters

Dave 62

Re: future of the species..

I just figure.. if you're going to kill it, why waste it?

The hide will no doubt make excellent leather, the horn can be used for whatever Chinese medicine (I'm sure the black rhino stuff is extra magical!), the meat can be used for meat and all the rest, Tesco's shepard's pie.

I always wonder if our regular food animals are also skinned for our animal based clothing or if the two industries operate separate supply streams. Trouble is, if you google this, the first 50 pages are emotive bullshit.

Dave 62

future of the species..

Human driven evolution of the species towards a more docile nature.

As I suppose we have done to some extent with dogs, cats and cattle.

So what will they do with the remains? Boots and gloves from the hide? What does Rhino taste like?

Does the permit include rights to the spoils or can they raise further funds through the sale of these ultra exclusive items?

Imagine that, a once in a lifetime meal of black rhino steak.

Volvo: Need a new car battery? Replace the doors and roof

Dave 62

Re: Bang the car, short the battery

also wtf is a rally bar? do you mean a strut brace?

not sure how a stiff bonnet helps here though, unless it attaches rigidly both ends (a typical bonnet catch won't work here) plus stiff bonnets have crash safety implications maybe? I think they have to deform x amount for pedestrian safety, or at least there has to be a certain clearance to any properly hard bits.

Dave 62

Re: Bang the car, short the battery

I'd be worried that one damaged cell could overheat and then it cascades and CFRP is known to burn rather easily, as are most Ps I suppose. It could be that the important bits are (and they surely are) located under a nice protective layer. How thick and strong this is, who knows? But if the actual electrical cell was the surface layer that'd be.. well surely you'd then have charged body panels.. now I know you can pick your average car battery up by the terminals and not feel a thing but if you drop a spanner across them you get a bang. Could there may be safety implications, particularly at petrol stations? Or am I failing at electricity?

Intrigued as to what this wonder material is, if it somehow makes batteries which are lighter than the alternatives, i.e. better energy density, all they need to do is locate it in a sensible place.

Microsoft's swipe'n'swirl pic passwords LESS secure than PINs, warn researchers

Dave 62
Angel

most commonly used password?

Just as today we have some very common passwords, things like monkey, passw0rd and babygirl, if passfondles become the norm I'd wager that some common themes will emerge, hearts around a loved ones face, two circles with a tall interconnecting arc, you know the sort of thing.

'Anonymous' to Reg hack: We know SEA leaders' names

Dave 62
Meh

Re: 'Anonymous' to Reg hack: We know SEA leaders' names

well shit.. I'd better tell my friend Abdul he's had his name wrong all these years.

Netflix dares UK freetards: Watch new Breaking Bad NOW or torrent it?

Dave 62

I for one welcome our new more logical television programme distribution.

Haven't got round to watching BB yet as I'm currently binging on BSG.

Ye Bug List

Dave 62

Re: Thanks for the spot?

sorry, I keep forgetting when I post here.

Win 7 and FF 22.0

Dave 62

Click "withdraw"

Click "return to forum"

page keeps reloading.

same if you click the second "withdraw" (and by the way the withdraw confirmation screen is not very.. ergonomic (or a similar word to that))

ULTIMATE cuppa contenders prepare to go mug-to-mug

Dave 62
FAIL

green milk? are you girls?

and where's the Jacksons?

How do you drive a supercomputer round a Formula 1 track?

Dave 62

Re: 15 to 16 Mb per lap

woops.. just realised when I exported my data to ascii it created multiple files (different sample rates), it's actually more like 450MB for 20 minutes, with 13 signals.

F1 think they're hi-tech :p

"they don't transfer all the data" what I mean't was how do they send what they do send!

At that rate you'd think they were using semaphore (is that what all the blokes with the flags are for??)

Dave 62

Re: 15 to 16 Mb per lap

So how are they reducing it? Because if you reduce the time resolution (same as reducing the sample rate) you can miss a pressure spike entirely or you can get aliasing effects or.. stuff. Although 5-6MB per lap might well be the most you can reasonably use in real time. Although next year they're going to need to measure all manner of turbo temps and pressure and waste gate position and idk.. do they already monitor knock?

This is all stuff that can give them the info they need to tell a driver to short shift or switch to mode 7 or avoid low-rpm high load or whatever.

Dave 62

Re: 15 to 16 Mb per lap

I just plucked a random log from some dyno work and over 20ish minutes it came to 120MB in ASCII (and more in a proprietary format (???)), that's just a few sensors (13 I think) and this is in road car work and logged over 10/100 I think ethernet. meanwhile F1 cars have, what did the article say? 300 sensors? So assuming a super short lap of only 1 minute (Monaco is >1:10) they'd gather 320MB over 20 minutes (this is with an extreme super fast lap, the 15MB figure probably belongs to more like a 1:40 lap, Monaco is 78 and the article mentions 50), that's with 300 sensors, less than 3 times the MBs with more than 20 times the sensors. Their logging rates can't be too fast!

So now I'm thinking, just how do they transfer the data from car to garage?

I mean we know they monitor temp and pressure for tyres (*4), oil, fuel and probably intake air, temp for brakes(*4) and pressure on the hydraulic system and KERS battery temp and probably state of charge and engine speed and probably gear and brake fluid pressure and probably temperature too so that's er.. some signals being beamed to the garage. So what protocol are they using and how much could they be transferring in "near real time"?

As for the "ah, you mean 3D printers" comment. F**k off :p

Unreal: Epic’s would-be Doom... er... Quake killer

Dave 62

Prong

DM-Prong, Voodoo 3. In its day it was awe inspiring.

The rifle with spikes on it. The eightball loading animation.

The green glow of goo.

Then there was UnrealEd, then there was UnrealScript.

Epic! You stole my youth!

Jaguar to open new car-making factory in Blighty (virtually)

Dave 62

I'm confused.. what does it do?

Ok, I get that, it "simulates", but what does it simulate?

It just sounds like a bunch of buzzwords.

Data mining! Simulation!

Erm.. ok?

Reg hack prepares to live off wondergloop Soylent

Dave 62

I can't see how this is any different from Nurishment or any other fortified protein shake type thingie. I've lived off nothing but Nurishment and redbull for a couple of days.

But 3L of that gloop? Noo thankyou. If they can get the volume down to 1L a day or even into pill form then it's worth considering, but as it is, you may as well have normal meals.

FLABBER-JASTED: It's 'jif', NOT '.gif', says man who should know

Dave 62
Facepalm

Re: Bow to the creator

OHEMEFGEE.

I just came back here to see if anyone had said anything about the other thing when I saw this "Shaun" thing.

Lolwat?

also:

>hurr look at me XKCD joke xDxDxD

¬_¬

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