Posts by Mage

UK rail lines blocked by unexpected Windows dialog box

Re: trains run on railway tracks

Historically partly to give a monopoly. If people had built better roads for the steam engine pulling a "train of wagons", anyone could have used them.

"Trains" that don't use rails/tracks do exist.

Re: blaming the failure on humanity generally

Yes, people hold it wrong.

Samsung 'reveals' what looks like a tablet that folds into a phone, but otherwise we're quite literally left in the dark

sci-fi show where they had devices that rolled

Earth Final Conflict.

As an aside.

There was a Philips subsidiary that developed a "roll up" eInk based screen. Philips sold it and only does lamps + health now (like 1926). The TVs & audio are two companies renting badges,

Philips Semi -> NXP, sadly about to be devoured by Qualcom.

Unfortunately Amazon bought the Philips subsidiary or the eInk tech, though they don't use it. They buy the actual eink brand (Vizaplex, Pearl, Carta) etc for Kindle.

Sony also had a demo of roll up display, possibly eInk.

Really only OLED or eink with amorphous transistors on a plastic substrate with plastic layers will work. Lifetime may be low. Worrying that newer eReader eInk displays may already be plastic substrate. Yes, less likely to be cracked, but what is life?

These people need stopped: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Amazon

Windows 10 Pro goes Home as Microsoft fires up downgrade server

Registry fix?

Is there a registry fix, or is there any possibility MS will mess up in the other direction and make all copies of "Home" be "Pro"?

Really the Home versions of Windows are evil and the price difference etc Home / Pro is evil. Also most consumers don't get a choice.

Upset fat iOS gobbles up so much storage? Too bad, so sad, says judge: Apple lawsuit axed

Re: RAM manufacturers always used powers of two

Because each extra address line doubles the storage, thus inherently powers of 2. Tape, floppies and HDD have always used the approximate SI based amount based on powers of 10.

The chip makers incorrectly used K = 1024 and M = 1024 x 1024 out of convenience.

I've been buying computers & storage since RAM was 1024 bits per chip and my first floppy drive was approximately 100K bytes. It was maybe a decade or more later that public started getting confused. Really it's not a marketing plot how HDD storage is described. Now the actual random write transfer speed on a multiuser server is another story. Mostly INTERFACE speeds are quoted on the box!

iPhone XR, for when £1,000 is just too much for a smartmobe

Re: bloody bluetooth audio arguments

A €2 generic USB audio adaptor with 2 x 3.5mm sockets is better audio than Bluetooth. Also then no charging needed and use ANY wired earphones. No idea if it works on iOS, works on everything else?

Re: from crap picked up off the factory floor

Nonsense.

Otherwise, yes it's massively overpriced and has a stupid notch.

Lack of earphone socket (does adapter to USB host + €2 USB sound adaptor with 2 x 3.5mm jack sockets work on iOS? It does on Android and Kindle PW3 aka PW Gen 7).

Also Nokia don't make phones, it's a licenced badge.

Slabs, huh, what are they are good for? Er, not quite absolutely nothing

Re: Tablet mode?

"iOs and Android fail as general purpose OS in tablet mode."

Obviously I meant laptop mode!

Re: *HORRIBLY* misunderstood by WAY too many.

Gosh, I might even invite "bombastic bob" in for tea!

I bought a new laptop nearly two years ago, with win7. My main one before that was XP from ... 2002! (1.8GHz P4 1600 x1200 screen. WiFi, HDD, upgrades, RAM added). It had Win7, but since I've been using UNIX family since 1985 and Linux servers since 1999, I switched to Linux Mint + Mate desktop. I have a ghastly workstation and a convertible Laptop/Tablet both win 10. I rarely use them except to check Windows horror stories. I may change the Tablet/Laptop to Mint if I figure how to fix screen rotation not rotating touch (or something, I set up an old IBM X201 with Mint and told the owner to only use it landscape in Tablet mode, he only uses in laptop mode anyway. The Waycom pen is nice).

Re: Samsung innovation

There is indeed no real tablet innovation.

Just improvements in price.

No-one has satisfactory solved dual use, a tablet used only for touch (Linux not good), or a tablet used for content creation for a long period with keyboard (optionally mouse). iOs and Android fail as general purpose OS in tablet mode.

Win10 is MUCH poorer than Win7 or XP or Vista in laptop mode. Mac OS and Linux also now superior to Win10. Yet in undocked Touch mode the desktop applications are near useless on Win8 or Win10, only the "toy" stuff for Metro/Windows phone being any use.

What's needed is applications to have dual GUIs. No, Mozilla, I DO NOT want desktop Firefox to behave like a phone app, it's grotesque!

Which scientist should be on the new £50 note? El Reg weighs in – and you should vote, too

Re: electronic equivalent works just fine with the amateurs

Actually that's derived from Fax, First experimental Fax on wire was in 1851. SSTV is to Fax, what RTTY is to Telex/Teleprinters (from 1928, but also Victorian experimenters). Radio Fax was also in 1930s, at same time as Baird, and transmitted in the USA after radio program close down. Add on printers for existing ordinary radios were sold in USA. The Mechanical TV was also done in USA too as a novelty after normal progam close down, but the radio fax was more practical.

SSTV doesn't do moving images, it's basically Fax.

Re: chlorine trifluoride

You USED to have a pocket. There is a hole in the concrete floor and the asbestos ceiling below is on fire.

Re: James. Clerk. Maxwell.

Einstein credited Maxwell. Maxwell was a hairsbreadth from relativity theory.

real father of Radio (though Hertz important). Marconi didn't claim to be a scientist, but an entrepreneur. His main jump was realising that radio range needed and aerial (wire) and an earth(ed connection) rather than a small loop. Later when VHF was possible, loops were used on transmitters. A multiturn loop does work for receive.

Also Maxwell realised how colour photography could be done (though a panchromatic film was some time in the future).

Many other things too.

John Logie Baird

"John Logie Baird

Why?

He basically invented television"

!

!

Not this old chestnut. He DID NOT invent Television. He was successful at raising the profile of it and promoting a dead-end mechanical concept. Electronic TV was outlined in 1905 or 1906. The only difficulty was the camera target. Various people even replaced the receiver disk and later mirror unit on the Baird system with a CRT. He used a near real time developed cine film and scanner eventually when the resolution reached 240 lines. That was later developed for spy satellites for HD and slow transmission.

By 1935 the RCA electronic system had beaten Farnsworth's (his was a dead-end camera target concept). EMI worked with RCA (historic links via Marconi, HMV and Victor Talking Machine Co,) and developed a decent camera for UK.

No country in the world continued with Baird way of doing it.

In memoriam: See you in Valhalla, Skype Classic. Version 8 can never replace you

Re: A new graveyard?

Danger / Kin?

Nokia phones (though cunningly Nokia kept the name and the IP).

They've not killed Visio yet, though certainly not helped it.

They didn't do too badly with Sybase SQL and some other softwares for years.

Re: Integrations

Most rendered useless ages ago. Ebay buying it wasn't great. MS was a disaster and it rapidly got worse.

MS Ego more important than functionality. They wrecked MS Office after 2003 and accelerated stupidity in Windows after XP & 2003 server, culminating in different stupidities of Win8 and Win10. Almost everyone I know changed to Viber ages ago.

Dawn of the dead: NASA space probe runs out of gas in asteroid belt after 6.4 billion-mile trip

How sad.

At least it did exceed operational design life.

Apple's launch confirms one thing: It's determined to kill off the laptop for iPads

Re: CAD ... is suited to being run in the cloud

NOTHING is "suited" to the cloud except websites. That sort of cloud computing is sheer insanity on some many levels.

I'll do MY computing on NON-rental SW, on a computer I own. I'll do backups not needing the cloud. I'll be able to work without internet and even for many hours with no power.

Real cost, privacy, security, availability.

"models hold commercially sensitive information that's best not held on laptops floating about the place"

It's easier to control a laptop's privacy/access and location than a cloud service. I certainly don't trust MS, Amazon. Google etc.

more iPads in the last year than the entire notebook lineup

A false comparison.

One is a mainly consumer product mostly for content consumption. The other is product now for people creating content.

You might as well compare Toyota car sales and truck sales.

I have though said for years that the Mac has not much of a future. Laptops will not be replaced by iPads even though MS seems to be trying to kill windows,

Intel: You'll get 10nm next year – now witness the firepower of this fully armed cash machine

Re: Margins still not under pressure

It's not as simple as that.

Look at Apple's margins on some volume products. They do have functional competition.

Also the Communications Regulators (Ofcom, Comreg, FCC) don't understand competition. They think it will reduce prices and improve services. It doesn't due to monopolies of coax or local loop of previous incumbents. Mobile is degraded due to splitting the spectrum and not having a single wholesale operator.

Once a particular vendor has more than a certain share or reputation (Intel has both on desktop & server. Apple has "reputation", but not share), then competition doesn't help the consumer much. Prices are never based on cost but on either what the market will bear (Apple) or below cost if the aim is to create a monopoly (Sky in UK 20 years ago, Netflix now) or steal market share (Three mobile below cost for Data).

Yes, Americans, you can break anti-piracy DRM if you want to repair some of your kit – US govt

Good.

IMO the USA laws on Copyright are technically illegal in International agreements.

DRM and DMCA are an abuse of Corporate power. We all pay for the royalties of HDCP in things with HDMI. Also DRM doesn't stop commercial piracy, it takes away users rights.

It's a start. However DMCA needs to be killed and DRM made illegal worldwide.

The Corporate grab on extending copyright needs to be reversed too!

Amazon is at this point a money-printing cloud machine with a grocery store in the parking lot

Re: Netflix

Netflix has deals with ISPs for them to host Netflix servers. Particularly ISPs offering bundles. Netflix is more concerned about rapid subscriber growth than profit (they have none?).

Amazon is more cautious. They don't have the ISP deals either, hence things like exclusive live tennis coverage falling over.

NO streaming only service should have sport exclusives. Possibly Pay TV should not have exclusives on live sport.

Sorry friends, I'm afraid I just can't quite afford the Bitcoin to stop that vid from leaking everywhere

Re: Discworld never developed an equivalent of the internet?

The clacks in Going Postal.

Also see Moving Pictures.

Spam & Phishing

Almost all the evil emails I get are addressed to the address that ICANN insisted on exposing. Which isn't used for anything else.

If I was idle and rich I'd sue them for distress, bandwidth used, storage and time wasted since technically that's been illegal for 12 years.

We asked 100 people to name a backdoored router. You said 'EE's 4GEE HH70'. Our survey says... Top answer!

you need to have local access

I know a script on a web page can access the webpage of a router, which is why the default password should always be changed on ANYTHING on your LAN with a Web admin interface.

Can a malicious browser script use SSH? I think not. Though I suppose it could install a program on your phone/tablet/PC etc that can?

I use uMatrix and I also change all default passwords to "hard ones" (written in a securely kept address book, never removed from the premises) and have Java, PDFs and other things disabled in the Browser.

Hard coded passwords are mental. Some are only activated by a physical reset button with factory reset, that's I suppose reasonable if your router isn't on a café or library publicly accessible shelf.

It's big, it's blue, and it'll be raining down on you – it's 3200 Phaethon

Re: Interesting ... but

Orbit is 523.5 days. Once a year we cross where its orbit has crossed Earth's orbit and thus the pre-existing trail of debris. That's why the Geminids meteor shower was a mystery till the object was spotted, no known comet parent for them. Geminids were first documented in 1862 and 3200 Phaethon in 1983.

Motorola: Oops, phone busted? Grab a spudger and go get 'em, champ

Motorola?

Did I miss something? Semiconductors spun off as two companies, much IP and phone brand sold to Google and then the label sold or licenced to Lenovo. Network Infrastructure installing part sold to Nokia (who never sold IP or brand to MS, but licence someone Asian to use the label).

So who is this Motorola?

The idea / product is great. I hope it catches on, as well as designs actually intended to be taken apart for repair.

Memo to Microsoft: Windows 10 is broken, and the fixes can't wait

re: Windows is on a vicious downward spiral

Well, yes they always had issues. But after XP & Server 2003, or in parallel, when Vista development started they totally lost it. Too many stupid changes, too much emphasis on cosmetics, FAR FAR too big a team. Auditorium just for the team leaders? When I read that (2004?) I thought, "No-one can manage that size programming effort, certainly not MS."

Win 10 issues

Common problem is the app style programs simply not starting. Including Anti-malware update, Windows update and PC Settings! Since the last time you shut down!

MS official Solutions:

1: Use Admin command line to add a new admin user (because they removed creating new local users from control panel). Try whatever didn't start as new user.

OR

2: Use Power shell to reinstall all apps

OR

3: Reinstall all your apps from the Store (won't fix other users).

OR

4: Recommended solution: Download the win10 ISO and do a complete restore. It should let you keep your data.

WUT!

Plan B

Persuade all the key Enterprise / Commercial / Business SW sellers to port to OS X *AND* Linux. Not just Red Hat either.

That's a better solution than funding React OS, because MS will need to listen to Business and essentially have Win98/Win2K/XP/Win7 GUI and concentrate on coherent control centre, admin tools, functionality, bug fixes etc instead of Fashion, Cloud, Tablets & Phones.

We don't need anything "new" in Windows, we just need it to work. Fix the things people have complained about for 15 years. Don't copy Android, ChromeOS, or even OSX.

Roughly 30 years after its birth at UK's Acorn Computers, RISC OS 5 is going open source

Re: ...and it did!

PIC 1976. Amazingly a code compatible Flash version of that is still sold. It was originally a Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC) for a more complex CPU. The Load/Store architecture is more accurate than RISC, as many are not really reduced instruction set compared with x86 or 6800. That dates from the 1960s, but RISC research in the current (or ARM) sense of the phrase is really since 1980. Not 1976! Micro-controllers such as in the late 1970s early 1980s and now with x20 clock speed, RAM and Flash added owe almost nothing to RISC research. Only microcontrollers / ASIC with ARM, MIPS and PowerPC cores.

Re: A bit too old now.

A kernel can be a small part of an OS. It's all the other stuff that's the huge effort. Minix and Linux kernels didn't take long to develop. A RiscOS style OS on top of a Liinux Kernel is pointless and a lot of work. You might as well just have a RiscOS desktop/Theme for Mint.

Re: Eproms?

You can even use pin compatible Flash Memory, you can make an adaptor for BIOS chip on a 486, boot floppy that updates BIOS, swap jumper so blank Flash memory connected (I've actually swapped out a BIOS chip while power on and put in a blank DIL IC) then use Bios update command with argument for your custom BIN file. You can make a simple adaptor and use 486 PC compatible reprogrammed BIOS IC as a cartridge on an original game boy. There used to be a scope adaptor. You can write the program for the "Gameboy original" using Modula-2, Pascal, C or Z80 Assembler on a CP/M emulator on DOS, or in DOSbox on MacOS, Windows, Linux or even RiscOS. https://www.riscos.info/index.php/DosBox.

I've not used actual EPROMS since pin compatible Flash Memory came out.

Re: it was a joy to work in and ahead of it's time for creating structured code

Only compared to other Basics or Fortran.

It was prehistoric and there were real languages available.

BBC Basic 1981 (I thought earlier?) according to Wikipedia.

UCSD Pascal was first released in 1978. I used it on an Apple II.

Modula-2 1978

C 1973

I'd argue that even Forth (since 1972, also built in on Jupiter Ace in 1982) is better than Basic for learning.

There were loads of good languages for learning that could have, and many did, run on BBC Micro, Apple II, IBM PC (it originally had a Basic in ROM and could use a cassette tape, I think?), Research Machine. Especially on CP/M, from about 1977, PC didn't reach UK & Ireland till 1981.

Re: Tesco

Also they promoted the PC jr, a massive fail of a cost reduced IBM PC.

It was more the grants that fuelled BBC Micro, Apple II and Research Machine 380z in schools. Mad selection.

arguably other languages better suited to the modern world

Better suited even in 1983, I know because I used them. VB6 (and maybe VB5?) with Option Explicit was the only really viable Basic. RAD / Demos. Even at a pinch sensible windows applications. I looked at BBC Basic, Basic on Apple II and on the Spectrum. Near useless for learning to program properly and pretty poor for applications. There were other languages, better for learning and deployment on CP/M, Apple II, BBC Micro and Archimedes.

I used an ACT Siruis 1 at work in 1983 and then an Apricot. I'd have liked an Archimedes at home, but it was too expensive and only just reviewd. Even an XT was beyond my budget so I bought a PCW8256 for home use and ran CP/M. Quickly added serial port, modem, 256K RAM and filed front + made adaptor cable to fit a 3.5" 720k Floppy instead of a second crazy 3" drive.

I still have the Acorn User magazine featuring launch Archimedes, August 1987.

http://www.acornuser.com/acornuser/year6/issue61.html

I think also in the attic (along with an IBM AT and the modified PCW8256) is the Unix news:

http://www.acornuser.com/acornuser/year8/issue79.html

'The inmates have taken over the asylum': DNS godfather blasts DNS over HTTPS adoption

Re: Cant trust my UK ISP

Your own ISP in the UK is more trustworthy than Google. Anyone concerned with privacy shouldn't use any Google managed DNS, no matter how secure the connection. Or Chrome. Android and Chrome OS are obviously problems. Win 10, iOS and MacOS even when calling the mothership are not in the same league of problem as Google, Facebook or nasty dictatorships. Fortunately I've only First World problems, though my wife worries about GCHQ and CIA tracking my searches and other Internet activities. I really needed to know how nuclear munitions are maintained (MADM etc) for "The Fay Child" and all that spy & pistol stuff for "The Solar Alliance." Money Laundering and forgery for "Conspiracies and Rooks".

Patch me, if you can: Grave TCP/IP flaws in FreeRTOS leave IoT gear open to mass hijacking

Update and IoT in same paragraph?

How many vendors will bother?

How much stuff can be updated even by the vendor?

If if can be updated remotely with no user intervention, that's a vulnerability. Yet many of these things have no sensible user interface.

Stealthy UK startup drops veil on next frontier of speech wizardry

Re: one-size-fits-all compression makes a mess of understanding.

Also lower bit rate DAB, MP3 etc is MUCH more distorted and harder to follow for people with impaired hearing. Deafness is a bit misleading, like Colour Blind people don't see B&W.

All audio compression is using an average psycho-acoustic model to throw away content. At higher rates (128K MP2, 64K on DAB+) there is too much loss of quality and intelligibility if your hearing is poor. 256K on MP3 is a reasonable minimum level of artefacts. Often speech codecs on phones are compressing too much. 3G has two qualities. One worse than GSM and one better. The 4G has no native speech, so called 4G voice calls either use 3G or VOIP on the data channel.

The Cloud?

They CLAIM all those TVs, phones, search on Desktop, home hubs/speakers need the Cloud for the AI / Machine learning (there is no AI, it's just a database), if that's true it's lazy, insecure, unpaid parasitical crowd sourcing like Google's pick the road sign "captcha". The reason for the Cloud is mostly to spy on you. The speech recognition doesn't seem much different to the built in XP speech to text (once trained), or some old Ford radios or Nokia phones. Google's Android TV and Phone speech recognition actually seems worse than stand-alone stuff 15 years ago. A lot of their Translation is garbage and search is turning into bookmarks and adverts.

Anyone else used speech and search before Google was famous? Like Dragon and Altavista?

Need a modest Arm Cortex-A CPU in your custom chip? Just apply online. Plus $125,000

Intel?

And how much is an Atom core (why would you want one anyway if not running Windows + GUI?)?

Compared to overall cost of staff, premises, gear and fabrication, this is very little for a CPU core in a true custom chip, an ASIC. It's expensive for an FPGA, but then there have been FPGAs with ARM cores for some time even before recent announcement of Free.

The x86 and x86-64 is increasingly only relevant in desktop (inc ultrabooks) and servers. Even the Atoms use too much power and too much chip/transistors for sensible use as a core in an ASIC. Intel maybe a bit hasty selling off most of StrongARM to Marvell. Pity about DEC.

London flatmate (Julian Assange) sues landlord (government of Ecuador) in human rights spat

Re: contract it out to the Russians

They don't seem very competent these days, The GU anyway (often misnamed GRU). The SVR are a lot smaller (GU boasts it has x6 as many field agents). Maybe they are more efficient, though I think they mostly do industrial* espionage rather than assassinations or abductions.

[* Actually these days most State run espionage is for commercial rather than the Deighton / Le Carré style spy story. Ian Fleming's Bond was maybe Wish Fulfilment, hence the locations, drink and woman for desk jockey. His brother, Peter, might have been a real spy]

Extradition

1) The Swedish are LESS likely to send someone to USA than UK are.

2) The UK could have refused bail. They put him on bail / house arrest.

3) The USA had ample time to extradite him or rendition before he went to embassy.

4) No doubt the USA has questions it would like to ask him, however his actions more suggest an unwillingness to face due process in Sweden than fear of USA, or else why was he not in hiding BEFORE the Swedish allegations?

Silent running: Computer sounds are so '90s

Re: file extensions

No, we did that and and a lot more. There was a checklist. Two sigs.

Those were the things the team leader liked to shout out on big rollouts.

Wonderful Nostalgia

I used to make my own ringtones and then lost interest.

In the decade when I was having to install windows, we did four things on NT4.0 Workstation (and later) and Win9x, above all else:

Double checked Regional Settings / Keyboard.

Disabled AutoRun in Registry.

Set Desktop to "No Sounds".

Disabled File & Printer sharing.

~

We made sure new accounts had these settings and only the designated Admin had an Admin account on NT.

Haunted disk-drive? This story will give you the chills...

Re: Put a heater in the safe then ?

We had a similar problem with 8" drives. We decided it was the drive, not disks. The horrid Apple II 5.25" floppies and drives not affected (early 1980s). We put an electric convection heater turned low in the room.

Similarly forty PCs built (mid 1990s) in a cold warehouse didn't work on site till HDD reformatted and OS reinstalled. Solution was to keep HDD stock in the office and do final fitting and install there. Which suited me better. Could take off coat!

FYI: Drone maker DJI's 'Get it on Google Play' website button definitely does not get the app from Google Play...

Dishonesty

The dishonesty of the website link is the only serious issue.

Re: That's actually a good feature

Because iPhone is overpriced and x4 what I can afford. There may be other niche alternatives not on offer in Tesco,

Walled Garden

Relying on iTunes, MS, Amazon or Playstore to curate security in exchange for their control of what you install is a poor deal.

There is nothing inherently less secure about a recognised vendor supplying direct and cutting out the privacy busting, parasitical, gadget controlling middle men.

I also remember the Archos 4.3" PMP player crippled and then orphaned because only the apps that Archos decided to supply could be bought.

I've been using desktop computers for nearly 40 years and never got a trojan or virus (Windows 1992 to 2017). User Education and better browser design (built in script control & secure sandbox) is more use than relying on a walled garden app store.

From dank memes to Krispy Kremes: British uni eggheads claim viral lol pics make kids fat

French Kids

They don't have the obesity epidemic of UK, USA and maybe Ireland.

No vending machines in schools.

You need a doctor's cert for a packed lunch.

Are the memes relevant at all? What is the confident level on the research? Control groups?