Posts by Catkin

Batterygate bound for Blighty as UK court approves billion-dollar Apple compensation case

Re: Its a weird one

That's quite charitable towards Apple. They have a history of borderline-gaslighting the user when people start noticing their product limitations, like claiming display replacement issues on iPhones were down to shoddy third party components until someone took the time to swap them between two brand new iPhones.

In this case, the throttling is less likely to be immediately attributable to the OS than reduced battery life or crashes (caused by an aged battery being too weak to support full CPU speeds) and could easily be attributed to poorly written applications. This insulates them from immediate negative publicity and the risk of having to pay for bulk battery replacements. As per usual, they're fairly arrogant about the possibility of being caught in the act.

Asahi Linux goes from Apple Silicon port project to macOS bug hunters

Why, Apple?

I can't see any reason at all for a recovery mode inheriting any settings from the installed OS. By definition, if you're running recovery, there's something terribly wrong with the OS.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act celebrates a quarter century of takedown notices

DMCA and hosts

I disagree that the DMCA should have anything to say about the relationship between those hosting content and those generating it, as far as legitimate submissions are concerned. If a given host is too burdensome with its T&Cs* then the creator should take their business elsewhere or self-host. If offering up content to a large platform is beneficial due to a larger audience or private hosting is excessively costly, then there's the quid to the quo of host content monetisation.

*It might be reasonable for legislation to require clear T&Cs to be enforceable.

World checks it's not April 1 as Apple signals support for full US right-to-repair rule

Re: Part Pairing

>and if thay then insist on a " portal to authorise those part swaps," for hardware out of the legal support period , surely this'll be seen as direct sabotage of people's rights and the law updated if they cant be roundly whipped for it already?

I think Apple will (sadly) easily get away with that, given that they were able to get a prohibiting clause dropped from the legislation. I don't see how they'd be in any more danger for causing sabotage outside of the required support window.

Part Pairing

I was able to make a 5th generation iPod better than any available at the time of release by upgrading it with solid state storage and a colossal battery (occupying the space where the thicker hard drive was). It can now play music continuously for around one week and has the capacity to back up that endurance. If I had to use an internet-facing portal to authorise those part swaps, I likely wouldn't be able to because they're third party and, even if it were supported, it would only be by Apple's good graces if the portal were still available after the 17 years since its first release.

It is very much in Apple's interests to shutter any mandated support the minute they are allowed to.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is now available ... if you pre-ordered

Re: Missed opportunity

If your oven goes high enough, prop it up and put it in.

First Brexit, now X-it: Musk 'considering' pulling platform from EU over probe

I'm not disagreeing with the concept of the state or the broader idea of legal restrictions on corporations. Rather, I disagree with legislation like the online safety bill because it is poorly written, excessively broad legislation based upon magical thinking. If certain speech needs to be criminalised, let it be criminalised in the clear with tight definition (nulla poena sine lege certa). The issue with direct editorial control is that it allows manufacturing of consent on a level that corporations can only dream of.

Whether your writings are the most divinely inspired flowing tracts of objective truth or the ramblings of a drunken idiot, it is up to others to decide whether they wish to listen.

The difference is that you and I are free to make new websites but if the state has total editorial control then no one is ever able to point out their moral or legal failures without their permission. In the case of the online safety bill, the same tools it demands to catch child abusers would also end the ability to whistleblow or do anything else which requires anonymity. For example, the photos and videos of British leaders and opposition partying during lockdown would have been easily supressed and traced if the government of the time had decided to do so.

This goes well beyond the usual giving up of liberty for safety; you're cheering the foundations of a potential insurmountable, permanent hegemony because someone is writing something objectionable in a place that you can choose to visit or not. My deepest fear is that people who make comments like yours aren't simply ignorant but, rather, understand what they're supporting.

Re: Who watches the watchers

Sounds like you've had a little too much to think.

I'd take endless amounts of "vacuous" commentary being readable by those who want to read it over a bill that puts that much power in the hands of the state. That is to say nothing of the wider atrocities it will enable in time.

Google - yes, that Google - testing proxy scheme to hide IP addresses for privacy

Re: Pardon my lack of trust

Thank you. I did mean DNS over HTTPS by 'HTTPS'. The person I replied to had typed "DNS over HTTP". Thank you, also, for the explanation.

Re: Pardon my lack of trust

Do you mean HTTPS and, if so, what's wrong with it compared to the alternatives?

Re: Pardon my lack of trust

I think DoH is a more reasonable concept and while Google might be supporting it to weaken competitors (notable, ISPs) it's less dependent upon their servers (i.e. doesn't necessarily redirect data their way) than the proposed proxy system.

Pardon my lack of trust

At best, it seems like Google wants a monopoly over generating profitable tracking data. I hesitate to speculate on what they want 'at worst' because the reality is likely even more horrifying.

NASA eyes 3D-printed rocket nozzles for deep space missions

Not NASA's first rodeo

Admittedly, it wasn't 3D printing but NASA did use additive manufacturing for some very complex components of the Space Shuttle engines. The desired hollow structure was built up in wax on a substrate and electroplating was used to build upon it in copper. The wax was then removed through heating to give the final design.

Re: The Seven Ages of Rocketry, or something

To be fair to the Yanks, the original word was 'aluminum' (as used by Sir Humphrey Davy) but it was later changed in British English for unknown reasons.

Making the problem go away is not the same thing as fixing it

The graphite tips were there because RBMKs are built to be as economical as possible and their absence would have led to insufficient fuel burn up in the top portion of the reactor. Simply moving the rods further away wouldn't have been sufficient because that would have left a void in the fixed moderating graphite. The swelling is a separate issue with graphite in low temperature reactors.

On the night of the disaster, the rods sticking was almost immaterial; the reactor was in such an unstable state from xenon poisoning that the lower portion of the core went prompt critical. What should have happened is that as soon as power was unable to be raised further, a full shutdown should have been initiated, rather than trying to coax a meagre power level through withdrawing almost all the rods.

Now we can blame spacecraft for polluting the atmosphere

Re: Random thought - tell me ime bonkers (and why)

Assuming that treaty were signed, it would probably increase the amount of space debris. The amount of fuel needed for station keeping, even on something that sails almost inside the atmosphere (like Starlink) is insignificant compared to what would be required for the manoeuvres to get satellites clustered together. This would lead to satellites with plenty of life left in them being replaced sooner. The safer bet seems, to me, to be passive return systems for the very low orbits (essentially, deploying a ribbon that increases drag, which automatically deploys even if all contact is lost).

Incidentally, actually getting a satellite into an escape orbit is a massive undertaking for something in LEO. Getting it to hit the Sun is at least another order of energy. On the other hand, lowering one part of the orbit to skim the atmosphere so that it harmlessly re-enters is quite trivial for the very low orbits that are becoming more common as access to space becomes cheaper and antennas become better able to track those fast moving (from the PoV on the ground) satellites.

edit: sorry, the above comment explains the solar re-entry issue better

You've just spent $400 on a baby monitor. Now you need a subscription

Re: "the sudden imposition of subscription fees"

Sure, there's layers of complexity to thermodynamics but all those factors make it even more economical, in general, to only heat when needed. Even if the cold room is causing other (occupied) rooms to lose heat, that only becomes an issue if the peak heating power is the limiting factor. Otherwise, you're over compartmentalising the problem because you still have to pay to heat the entire property.

Re: "the sudden imposition of subscription fees"

That's a bit of a myth that only might apply if you have a heating system with a much greater efficiency at a lower power level or if your energy is much cheaper at a particular time of day. Energy loss is proportional to the temperature differential.

Re: "the sudden imposition of subscription fees"

That depends on how pokey your home is. The other aspect to smart thermostats that's more universal is temperature target times. With a little learning, the system can work out how long to turn the heating on for in order to hit a particular target at a particular time, based on the current internal and external temperature. The alternative is needlessly running the heating earlier (when people are out or under a warm duvet) or having a temporarily cold home.

This need will become greater as we move to more efficient heating systems with longer lag times and lower peak powers and yesterday's minuscule gain becomes tomorrow's next significant possible saving.

Forcing Apple to allow third-party app stores isn't enough

Re: It's not whether the App Store is good or bad...

My mistake, I thought you meant that side loading was possible to an iPhone from a Mac OS device.

Re: It's not whether the App Store is good or bad...

So you have to buy another Apple product to do something you can do for free, from your phone on Android?

Blockchain biz goes nuclear: Standard Power wants to use NuScale reactors for DCs

I don't doubt it but the SMRs don't seriously raise the levels of risk if you're worried about a dirty bomb (there's already much less protected material on hand across the world) or a nuke (as they'd still need to enrich).

Is this a hypothetical or do you really trust politicians to draft the legislation sensibly? Looking at the online safety bill, we'd be lucky if they didn't end up banning gaming or even personal computer ownership.

Re: Not for this!

I think you're massively overstating the risk. If rubes want to lose their money funding a reactor by-proxy then let them. The experience and economies of scale gained by more SMRs being operated brings the cost down for everyone.

This is helpful at all levels, from uranium extraction to component manufacture.

If someone were suicidal enough to want to crack open a reactor to spread radioactive material around then there's plenty of intensely radioactive sources with less security than the average bank. Worse, these materials might be able to be removed covertly, while a reactor that goes offline would be noticed in short order.

Remember that TMI released an absolutely miniscule amount of material and an SMR meltdown would probably look like SL1; that did actually result in more deaths (all 3 operators vs zero for TMI) but I would argue that an attack by suicidal terrorists would result in operator deaths too and, in an SMR, they wouldn't be walking around on top of the control face.

Elon Musk's ambitions for Starship soar high while reality waits on launchpad

The Soviets also laboured under the weight of ossified, territorial design bureaus who refused to offer up their engines for N-1 because they had their own pet rocket projects.

Lenovo PC boss: 4 in 5 of our devices will be repairable by 2025

To be fair, a TV used to be so expensive that renting one for special occasions was something that was reasonably prevelant.

I have "fond" memories of taking my X230 to bits in the middle of nowhere because the cooling fan packed in. The documentation was excellent and immediately obtainable (no mucking around with support, just put the model number in and get the service manual). It's still going to this day.

Cat accused of wiping US Veteran Affairs server info after jumping on keyboard

I have approached cats for comment on numerous occasions and the tricky blighters never give a coherent answer.

I have long suspected that most cats are secretly BOFHs

5G satellite briefly becomes brightest object in night sky

Re: Sic transit gloria astra...

All the ones within the FoV, yes. Satellites well below the horizon suffer similar visibility limitations to stars in the same region due to the effects of a long hypothesised, very close celestial body.

Re: Take out the brightest one

Why not put bright ones where the most interesting stars are? For anything off the geostationary plane, put a procession of them, with their orbits timed to reflect most at the required point.

Re: Astronomy tax

That sets one heck of a precedent. I want to see the Milky Way but there's a huge number of outdoor lights in the way and LEDs have only made the problem worse (a sodium filter used to be reasonably effective). Can I claim compensation for the fuel I need to travel to a dark area from them collectively or is it unreasonable that they should have to pay more for external lighting?

NASA's New Horizons probe scores extended vacation in Kuiper Belt

More bandwidth than money

I expect a likely impact for continued operations on other missions is more that the Deep Space Network has a limited capacity. Remember that, even from Pluto, it took New Horizons a full year to transmit all the data from that encounter. While DSN is occupied with that (it will have to spend even more time for the lower bitrates), performance for other probes will be degraded, though upgrades are ongoing:

https://www.nasa.gov/technology/nasas-deep-space-network-looks-to-the-future/

Nuclear-powered datacenters: What could go wrong?

Nuclear in the US has been handled by private corporations since its inception. You might be thinking of the Soviet Union (Ministry of Medium Machine Building), where the handling of safety oversight and construction by the same organisation led to an inherently unsafe design being chosen, certified and used (RBMK).

Re: One thing commonly overlooked

Fuel manufacture is probably the easiest part (involving radioactive materials) to do safely. It's more of a hassle with MOX or other reprocessed fuels but mined uranium, even after enrichment is not much worse to process than magnesium (flammability) and lead (heavy metal toxicity). In the good old days of Magnox, workers would machine the fuel with just a face mask.

Musk, Yaccarino contradict each other on status of X's election integrity team

Personally, I'd rather those things were handled by individual decisions on the part of the website owners and by individuals being free to speak out against them than by a nationally (or internationally) set policy. My concern is that it places too much power in the hands of the government.

Imagine Nixon being able to quash Watergate. Remember that, for months on end, this was an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory and it was only subsequent investigations in response to published allegations that led to hard evidence.

I have great difficulty imagining that a reasonable test could be devised, based upon open discussion, which could reliably predict when a group or individual is going to abandon discussion in favour of violence. Certainly, even if such a test were devised and implemented, it would be impossible to audit because it would be policing pre-crime (through the creation of thought crime). In other words, it's not a goal I disagree with, I just again disagree that it's reachable in an agreeable fashion (i.e. a monkey paw). That said, I would be interested to read any ideas you or others might have about how that determination could be made.

For professional moderators, I would have concerns that this would preserve the societal status quo. Remember that, well within living memory, ideas that the majority today find offensive were not just widely accepted but enshrined in law (e.g. homosexuality being morally wrong).

I don't disagree with your aspirations but, rather, I disagree with the practicalities necessary to achieve them. Similarly, I would hope for a world where every criminal is prosecuted but, as we are all fallible, I prefer a legal system that has a high bar (beyond all reasonable doubt) to clear for criminal sanctions to be handed down.

Truth is tricky and, putting aside the misuse of the same systems to opaquely deceive, demanding objective truth as a standard for communication either silences the overwhelming majority of speech that currently takes place or results in a Star Chamber with no more adherence to truth than what came before.

As for prejudice, Popper was quite clear that his proposed measures are for when the intolerant proscribe discussion. If they're shouting their nonsense and you're able to shout back then they clearly haven't proscribed it.

I'm always amazed by the number of people who find less than 200 words difficult to read but think they're qualified to demand oppressive action (with a double helping of irony for the 'hard of thinking' remark). If you wish to advocate for white glove totalitarianism, be my guest (though I will likely disagree with you) but please don't falsely invoke Popper because you're too cowardly to stand up independently for your intolerance.

Like a warped Dunning–Kruger, Popper would more likely regard them as the intolerants he was referring to than the tolerants reserving the right to intolerance.

Search for phone signal caused oil spill, say Japanese investigators

Re: A-bloody-mazing!

A fog horn is a form of SONAR. The problem is that the iceberg heard it and failed to signal back because it wasn't a fogberg. Sadly, the roll out of RADAR killed the marketing opportunities for an ice horn.

You shouldn't be able to buy devices that tamper with diesel truck emissions on eBay, says DoJ

Re: Bypass devices should not be illegal

There's even worse examples, like denatured alcohol (methylated spirits). The powers that be would rather people are blinded and killed than get drunk without paying tax. I could even understand adding something that induces vomiting but deliberately introducing an unnecessary fatal poison seems pointlessly cruel.

Re: "government's actions are entirely unprecedented"

While the methods you mention (though I would say you're somewhat overstating their effectiveness in protecting the individual) do play an important role, they're more vertical than the protective circle formed by Checks and Balances.

Re: "government's actions are entirely unprecedented"

I'm reminded both of the anti consumer rights advocates telling us that right to repair would have individuals making their engines damage the planet and of e scooter sellers in the UK.

If this case, it sounds very much like the agencies trying to create virtual legislation without oversight.

Re: This from a country

Thanks for the breakdown. I suppose it makes sense, given their oil glut but I'm surprised by how low Russia's per capita numbers are.

"I know it when I see it" can be prickly when it comes to legal rights. It's reasonable to use it as the impetus for drafting new laws but broadening the scope of existing laws based on changing general expectations risks creating effectively ex post facto laws without legislative assent and could violate some forms of nulla poena sine lege (apologies for the lack of italics).

Re: This from a country

~20%, so two thirds of Germany's ~30%. In terms of raw tons, Europe as a whole burns more coal annually than the United States.

Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed

I'd add that I've even enjoyed success with an 8GB Pi4 in playing a UHD BD remux at 4k with HDR.