Posts by Grikath

Re: Quantum Mechanics?

Ummm... This is stuff at the macro scale. Very much macro.

So definitely not a quantum effect, whichever way you look at it.

Re: Puzzled!

The "it's a gas giant" bit is correct..

Jupiter ( and for that matter, any gas giant) will have Iron Rain somewhere as well. With enough metal content, the inner temperatures will make it inevitable. The difference with WASP is that one side of the planet gets stoked up hard enough that this iron actually reaches the surface layers where we can detect it, instead of being hidden by several 1000's of miles of boring methane, ammonia, and water ice.

Re: Why doesn't the red dwarf bulge too?

It will have a bulge.

However.... A red dwarf is several shades more dense than the outer layers of the, much hotter, real star that we see the bulge on. So it'll be there,only very much smaller, probably too small to detect from here.

Exactly how much.... Well , that's why they put a math boffin on it. Napkin-fu won't cut it here.

All of them should be....

The attack requires the attacker to run his own code on your machine. This means a side channel attack is the least of your worries, since you've been pwned already. Once that happens your flavour of OS or hardware isn't exactly relevant anymore, isn't it?

Re: Better options

"then spend on a case, power supply, disk, USB hub, etc., "

Why? Most people who play around with Pi's tend to already have most, if not all of that stuff... Except maybe the case.. Then again.. Half the fun is making a case for it yourself. Mine's currently posing as an older PS2 while making my "smart" TV actually Do Stuff. I've made several others, in various flavours, for friends. Because it's Fun, and not everyone wants their tech visible.. Hell, one is literally a basket case...

Re: Individual developers not allowed

Just checked the info the App store has on that, and it's not as if they don't allow individual developers.

It's just that they make it pretty clear ( use of services : 7.3 If You wish to use the Services in order to offer Paid Products to Users You must enter into a Merchant Service Agreement with HUAWEI.) that they only allow paid apps if you're a company. Something-something taxes.... It's not as if they're making a big secret out of it. In fact, they're terribly up-front about it, and make the neccessary information blindingly obvious to find.

And honestly, selling apps through an app store is (international) trade, and as far as I'm aware that requires having a company in most jurisdictions. Even if it's just a one-man company. Because something-something-taxes.

Re: Still use Delphi

I think he was referring to memory usage. 4Gb sounds about right for Win10.

After all, when it comes to running programs, it's the bits that sit in memory that matter, not the bits that sit in storage. Although with the rise of the SSD even that becomes a little fuzzy, given that you can park a lot in virtual memory if cutting-edge performance isn't your main goal, and hardly notice the difference at the user end.

Re: Wow, DC is really out to get Huawei...

What national security card?

These accusations are a tad more specific than the "Dey Haz Spai Chipz In Dere. Cuz We Sez So!" guff we've been tired of hearing about so far. And they all come down to "They spied on us!! ( Poor us.. [cryface] )" , even though industrial espionage is so common and bog-standard you should expect it and account for it.

Huawei certainly isn't angelically innocent, but the DOJ had better come up with some solid, and public, evidence if they don't want to come out of this with a scorched bum and an even less credibility in the "we're not a political tool" department.

Re: Carefull

Welll.. I dived into the the Arxiv article, and noted the estimated distance of 485 million light years...

So accounting for redshift, the original opus would have been done in far-UV or low Gamma.. Now that's proper Vogon poetry for you... Gets you right to the bone..

Mayhaps because it is an observatory, not a powerplant?

The telescope is not aimed at the sun as soon as it is visible, and the primary purpose is not power generation, but imaging. The purpose of the cooling system is to get the excess heat away from the optics as fast and efficiently as possible, before it, y'know, melts.

Now, for the sake of argument, it would be possible to do something fancy with the heat with stirlings or other heat-exchange power generation, but it'd run only about a couple % of the time, during actual observations. But for the cost of that kind of infrastructure I'd bet you you could put up a lot of bog-standard solar panels which would also work when you're not observing the sun..

I'd put the money in extra-redundant cooling, personally, and not worry about a couple of "wasted" Joules when that means my equipment won't liquiefy from the heat.

Re: This makes me glad

Not entirely sure about that...

As far as the insano-priced flagship models are concerned you may be right. Then again, sane people don't buy those things. There's a glut of [$currency]200 range smartphones ( provider-shackle free) around that can and will do all the use-cases for a smartphone quite brilliantly and efficiently. Quite a few models as well in that range that specifically provide [port] because people actually use them.

It's only the Gadget-stricken and the Fashionistas that need to suffer from the vagaries of the Designers' pipe dreams.

Re: So what happened to the formaldehyde?

High up in the atmosphere: Joined the natural cycle there.

Dissolved in water: Used as food by bacteria, moving that part of the process into the carbon cycle, effectively making the reaction a one-way trip giving a net O2 yield. Which is why it's considered as an alternative mechanism.

Re: I See Dead People

Not just sceptical, but quite incredulous.

As an entomologist, the professor emeritus seems to have forgotten that the basic body plan of the insect class as we know it here on earth evolved in conjunction with the development of flight in the land-based arthropoda. And Mars, at the best of times, never had much of an atmosphere to fly around in because its mass is simply too low.

Now if any of the things he saw resembled a centipede, he may have been on to something. Those things are basically armored worms with legs and big, BIG, jaws. Their direct aquatic cousins/equivalents are shrimp and lobsters ( also basically armoured worms with legs, and claws to rip you up better..)

And for the minor cost of inventing bilateral symmetry, segmentation, and armor, which does not seem to be too hard as we found that those were already present during Snowball Earth here, we have the basis for something that may have been a higher life form on Mars, as long as it lasted. And $Deity know that both centipedes and shrimps are so adaptible it isn't funny anymore. If they developed, they may have lasted a bit, and we may just find some fossil evidence there someday.

But the body plan of flying insects? Nope...

Re: the UK will go to the polls amid ongoing disinformation efforts supported by foreign powers

I thought that was the Labour manifesto?

Something about bread and circuses, while fanning the fire...

Re: Best petri dish

Except for the simple fact that DNA in and of itself is not the basis for life.

RNA is what makes us all tick over like clockwork. DNA is just for storage. For the IT minded: the HDD my be a vital part of a computer, but it is not what makes the computer work. The actual legwork is done by the processor and other electronics. It's a thing that's often forgotten even by molecular biologists, even though they should know better...

The chemistry of making RNA and its components, and the basic amino acids is well understood nowadays, and it's been pretty much conclusively proven that you actually don't need all that much to make it appear spontaneously in an environment like early Earth ( poisonous hellhole to us nowadays..) if you give it a couple million years. It's actually more or less inevitable..

Now if it will organise into what we call "life" , and how often is the question. We may see evidence in our lifetime if the space agencies get a bit of a move on and get probes to the various Suspects in our solar system.

But the fact is that the chemistry of the "precursors of life" is so basic that it happens literally everywhere it gets a chance, even in space. Which, in my eyes at least, is a Bloody Big Hint we aren't all as special and unique as we like to think.

Re: Weakening Evidence?

Or a host of allegations that crop up decades after the alleged fact whenever there's an election/politics/money is involved in the US....

It's almost as good as Office Bullshit Bingo.

"Because right now, I don't think there's any company that has figured out how to grow [animal cells] at the large scale or at the commercial scale."

We have, for ages, they're called "farms".

As for growing skin... you might want to rethink that.. The organ we call "skin" is a tad more complicated than most people realise. There's a solid reason it doesn't grow back well when damaged..

Re: Dutch

Little to do with "Bravery"....

I'm of the opinion that it's Good Form to appreciate the fact that El Reg is quite often read in the Workplace, so it makes sense to "bleep out" words that will quite likely trigger the corporate filters.

Or make use of the many, many, many alternatives english has for taboo words, but that simply wasn't possible in this case.

Re: Publicity friendly.

Why? Shall I, in thime-honoureth thrathithion, helpfully point you to the header of the section, oh incredulous one?

As an article this has everything expected of a quality Bootnotes article: the WTF?!!ness, the annotations *, the snark, and the whole serious-but-not-serious overtone. It even has an IT angle.. ** All brought to you by a staple name of Vulture Central.

Sometimes there's no pleasing some people....

* The condiment to a proper Bootnotes snack

** Opinions vary whether this is a good or bad thing, as part of the Art and Joy of Bootnotes is often deducing the possible IT angle in the comments.

Re: And again, the BOFH comes out smelling of roses

I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was "none".

Guys like the old geezer are worth their weight in gold when dealing with obsolete systems like that.

Plus that that 3.5 grand bill is far cheaper than having to refurbish the whole system with modern stuff, which incidentally also means Having To Do Actual Work and Risking Pesky Audits (both feeding off each other, risking a lack of available carpetry and wear and tear on shovels) and a missed opportunity to re-enforce the notion of quiescent compliance with the Boss for BOFH and PFY.

Re: I watched a documentary about that Chocolate Factory the other night...

Because the Chocolate Craving is a predominantly female thing? With anecdotal evidence suggesting that "predominantly" goes up to 95% for the gender bracket once a month...

Makes sense to ensure your flavours match the preferences of that particular half of the population....

Re: "The story really doesn't add up"

And I am not claiming it is other than it is. We share the same bafflement, and I am reading this as a Cloggie seeing proof that the world has gone batty..

You also have to agree that given the readership of El Reg, and the shedload of Office Bingo most of the commentards have had to endure in their professional careers when dealing with applying the logic needed to tell the electronic morons we herd versus expectations of Manglement and Commitee Meetings, this story raises a "couple" of warning flags.

If we failed to spot the glaring holes, we would simply not be suited for our jobs.

Re: Smarts drink tea or Drink tea makes smarts

Well, judging by the language used the doctor is suffering from a case of cultural bias. "Strong stable connections" in the brain are, as far as I can remember from my lectures in brain physiology way back when, more a result of regular reinforcement than imbibing magic potions.

But there's an easy control... Someone in the UK pick this up...

As pointed out in the comments, tea is a staple beverage in the UK. As a nation it has both people who live their life as regular and "healthy" as clockwork asians, and people who live their lives less ...regulated. It also has the NHS and, at least in theory, a shedload of brain scans ( with casus/anamnesis) of people who fall in either category ( or any other control you'd like to apply).

It's almost a given that the UK being the UK a hefty portion of those scans fit the "must drink at least 4 cuppas a week for 25 years" criterium mentioned in the article. So there should be no problem getting a large enough sample to test pro/con the doctor's statement.

This, and a couple of other issues re: brains, could keep an entire department happy for years. With pretty decent IgNobel potential as well..

Someone has a cousin looking for a dissertation subject?

Ummm the belgian fruit beers start with beer.. Quite solid stuff alcohol-wise as well.. In which then fruit is soaked ( traditionally the sour cherries they call "krieken" ), originally to preserve it, the added taste to the beer is a bonus.

Later the added-flavour thing was done with fruit juice added to the still-quite-potent beer. Mort Subite ( sudden death ) and Verboden Vrucht ( forbidden fruit ) come to mind as well-known brands. Handle with care, they tend to trip up the unwary..

I don't know what to call the unholy concoction featured in the article, but beer it is not, nor would it be allowed to be called that in the civilised parts of the mainland. ( The uncivilised parts deal with this hipster shyte in a more time-honoured and more terminal way...)

Re: Interesting phrasing

It's nice to bash on Cr*pbook, but let's be honest. They're by far not the only one... All the Alphabet companies are just as bad, if not worse.

Even with Stuff turned off, Blockers applied, etc. ( with the result that certain sites become next to unuseable because they generate more "GDPR/Privacy" compliance popups than a 90's pr0n site..), it's my general experience that any site using ads can *still* pinpoint your position within a mile or so within a couple of visits.

I do tend to move around a lot, so that one becomes....obvious... after a bit...

Re: French telecoms

Methinks auntie forgot that when you're married to a military commander of a furrin' nation with a posting in foreign country A, it's generally a Bad Idea to have your home adress in foreign country B without prior arrangement.

Something about secure lines, borders/jurisdictions ( this is when europe still had Borders...) , and the hoops telecom companies have to jump through to arrange stuff like that. I'm not surprised embassies got involved.

Re: Why would you take that talk to BlackHat?

"The real question is why anybody would now pay to go to Blackhat, given its organisers appear to be happy to present utter tosh purely because someone threw money at them."

Well... Every convention needs a comic relief act?

Besides.. I can see a proper BOFH use a thing like this to thin the herd of possible PFY's a bit.. The pill..errm.. partners presenting the thing effectively Carpeting themselves like this lot is an added bonus.