Posts by Mage

Voyager 1 fires thrusters last used in 1980 – and they worked!

Re: how is assembler outdated and by what?

The PIC assembler is fairly ancient (over 40 years old?), esp for 16x84 family. The the 8-bit PIC was developed in 1975 by GI. The later 16C84 (1985?) used essentially same Assembler, A version of the 16F84 (software compatible) is still sold.

I did SC/MP and then Z80 in 1980 and Intel 8051 in 1983. Also the NEC7800 (really primitive), I wrote a Forth like environment using MacroAssembler for the NEC7800. It was a shock trying the 16F8x family in 2003. I soon changed to C and then JAL for my PIC projects.

Compiler tech has improved so much that you don't need assembler for microcontrollers now, except the odd inline instruction to do something to a register not efficient in the language.

" x86 today, and one day try to program a 6502" If you mean an x86 in actual 8086 mode, no. Even the 286 just adds instructions so you can have flat memory model. The 386 a few more for virtual memory etc, basically based on 8080, which is same era as 6502 and maybe not as nice. The Acorn ARM team designing the new RISC cpu started with the 6502 as a sort of template!

ARM is MUCH nicer than evil x86.

Re: Orbit

Maybe the local cluster or the Galaxy. Search "Escape velocity". You don't need continued thrust to escape a "gravity well" once you are going fast enough from the start. I think the gas giants were used to speed up Voyagers and Horizon by "sling shot" effect.

The recent interstellar rock that passed relatively close to the Sun has no fuel and isn't in a Solar orbit.

Expert gives Congress solution to vote machine cyber-security fears: Keep a paper backup

The paper trail will say what the machine SAYS

The only sensible paper trail is human marked paper ballots.

A printer only slightly improves an electronic terminal and only if terminal never connected to anything else.

Humans currently can't do 100% security or accuracy in programming.

infamous "hanging chad"

Stupid system. Inherently unreliable. Indelible Marks on solid paper are better and readable with 1930s technology!

Bleeding obvious

Also ditch the machines with knock out "chads". Electronics has been able to "count" paper with marks in boxes since 1930s! It was actual text (OCR) that was cracked in 1970s.

The USA is huge, so no wonder there are some world leading companies. I had four major business trips, one very extended. I visited R&D and factories and was amazed how much was like 1950s or older. There is a lot of stupidity as it's totally obvious that paper is hard to edit and electronic data is easy to change with no trace. Hence some companies use multipart DMP continuous fanfold. You can produce multipart on laser / inkjet, but it's trivial to edit transaction and print new copies. Continuous printout makes a much harder to abuse audit trail.

Total recog: British AI makes universal speech breakthrough

Re: Gulag Archipelago

It probably was translated to English from Russian.

I must get the newer version of First Circle. The difference between that establishment and certain US companies, is that you can leave. Though they might sue you afterwards. They will insist they own all your ideas. On the plus side they don't physically torture or shoot you for "wrong-think".

Noam Chomsky

Human Languages (spoken or signed) are at some deeper level more similar than different.

Non-humans often have vocabularies and can even learn phrases and signs from humans, but not one has shown ability to do Language in the proper sense.

Interesting research.

Foil snack food bags make a decent Faraday cage, judge finds

anti-static bag will do just as well

Some will block RF. Just as some energy saving coatings on windows do, or some flat screens have a transparent RF blocking layer, otherwise RF inference from them is dreadful.

Re: Phone in microwave oven

Did people REALLY drill holes in iPhones?

Re: Most microwaves are a solid metal case on three sides

Shielded on SIX sides. There is a RF porous window that blocks damp that has the Magnetron cavity behind it. The shielding isn't tuned, but will have an upper limit.

The holes at the lamp and the door screen will block 3GHz and lower frequencies at least, maybe as high as 5GHz.

I've not tried a phone or a wifi device. The shielding is not perfect (I've tested leakage out), so perhaps if there is a very strong mobile signal it will work.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the failest mobe of all?

Meh

This is a nearly meaningless comparison without having selected groups that use phones with the same apps or amount of apps and monitoring them. It's worse than anecdotal.

AI taught to beat Sudoku puzzles. Now how about a time machine to 2005?

without pre-programmed sudoku-solving algorithms

It's not. Any neural net does nothing till it's "trained" with curated data. It's just a different sort of pre-programming. No AI able to recognise hotdogs can solve sudoku without human "training".

It's ultimately a fraud. Ignore the humans behind the curtains that set it up.

Re: The trick is to solve in a way analogous to a human being

Except NO so called "computer AI" or so called "Neural net" is analogous to human reasoning.

Sudoku?

It's not a game.

There is no strategy.

It's the typical sort of problem that computers are good at (should be perfect at) and that humans find difficult.

Since about 2004 the puzzles are computer generated.

It's probably a Western invention, the article may have errors.

I'm puzzled why it is "to a high degree of accuracy" not perfect. Maybe a more defined in advance algorithm than a trained "neural net" would be better. At least the training input doesn't need to be human curated, just use the Sudoku generation program! It's unlikely to be an example of AI reasoning.

How good is it up to 9 x 9 (easy by a conventional algorithm) and how does it manage 12 x 12?

Citrix cracks Windows Store's monopoly on Windows 10 S apps

Win 10s interesting?

I don't think so. Why would anyone want a crippled version of Win10?

What are these machines with enough CPU and screen but less RAM and storage than an $100 Android tablet?

Russia threatens to set up its 'own internet' with China, India and pals – let's take a closer look

Re: ITU

Really Icann and related stuff should not be under the USA, no matter about this Russian idea. They should be under the ITU, set up in the Victorian era to ensure smooth running of international telegraphs, then posts and phones. Later radio spectrum allocation was added. After WWII it was taken of by UN.

TLD and Internet management needs to be by International convention and consensus, no matter how corrupt and poor that can be. It can't remain under the duopoly of US politics and US corporations.

Want a new HDMI cable? No? Bad luck. You'll need one for HDMI 2.1

Re: DisplayPort

Hardly anything in movie/TV land is DisplayPort. Apple gear. Lenovo USED to have it, but do HDMI now instead.

The non-PC user is HDMI only, or in Europe ancient SCART, or USA Component. Analogue mini-DIN Y/C is rare, but I've never ever seen DisplayPort except on Apple monitors and laptops.

Even my phone and tablet has HDMI.

Re: only created because of limitations in HDMI bandwidth

Ironic that you need 2 x DVI to match what one VGA signal can do.

Also HD Ready TVs were sold with DVI only! They will work on HDMI with a cheap adaptor or an HDMI-DVI cable (both work FROM DVI to HDMI TV too), but NOT if there is HDCP!

Stupid!

Re: HDCP?

HDCP is an example of the evils of DRM.

I bet it makes NO difference to piracy.

Yet it causes problems and every consumer has to pay the royalty.

DRM and DMCA is MORE evil than copyright infringement / piracy!

Gold plated contacts are a requirement for low voltage signalling

VERY low voltage in a damp environment.

Like medical probes.

Some internal cards and connectors that are only ever disconnected during servicing. Never ever on regularly changed cards and connectors.

Gold on consumer gear, even analogue, is pure bling and inferior to nickel on brass.

1) Has to be ALWAYS gold to gold, because otherwise Electrochemical action, other metal attacked.

2) If a connector is rarely taken out, then tin to tin doesn't corrode. It makes a gas tight joint.

3) Silver and copper are better conductors. Silver oxide conducts so professional connections for RF often use silver over brass.

4) Gold is bad on PCBs for high RF, because it needs an underneath coating that has magnetic properties.

5) Gold near tin causes the destruction of the tin.

6) Even "thick" gold wears too fast. Pure gold is worst being soft.

7) For analogue normal use, nickel on brass is superior to gold and doesn't hurt tin plating.

8) Very high use connectors use brass to brass as it's self cleaning. No good for intermittent use due to corrosion, hence 7.

Re: re-tread on your eyes (Laser Treatment)

No, it only removes need for particular lenses and over 50 may be a really really bad idea!

With Presbytopia you need one pair of glasses for books and another for TV.

Eventually you need a third pair for laptop/PC as it is further off than normal book reading distance but MUCH closer than TV screen.

There are risks too with laser treatment. Only one eye at a time should be done. If your glasses prescriptions change every couple of years it will make vision worse.

Also it does nothing for the retina. Differences in resolving ability are not just lens/cornea but also retina.

Re: 8K movie releases will be few and far between

Even regular HD in 2.35:1 format at 2.5m viewing distance needs about 50" to 72" screen to get full advantage. So 4K only really makes sense if you are really close to screen or have bigger than 55" and good eyes.

Draw your own conclusions about 8K.

The 4K and often even HD delivered by Internet is often not as good as best quality DVDs upscaled! It's impossible at the bitrates that most people can get.

Where are the decent HD / UHD projectors with zoom lenses so you can have an appropriate size screen?

Why can't my 4K 46" HDTV show poor SD at a smaller than full screen? It would look far better.

Netflix and Amazon have lots of 4K

a) That's subscription TV, which I will not ever return to.

b) It needs decent broadband with no cap. Esp in a household. No-one in this house allowed to watch YouTube as it would balloon out of control and other people would be unable to post comments here or download updates etc.

Re: Desire...

I found a 4K demo loop on satellite on 19.2E, works on the built in sat tuner on the Sony 4K TV. The one I never connect to Internet because it has stupid Android TV.

I've never even seen anything in retail that is a 4K content source. I heard that there are some sort of 4K BD, but never seen the disks. I do have a BD player (recently, the other HDTV uses component at up to 1440 x 576p or 1440 x 480 upsampled from DVD player) but so far few BD movies. They seem to have stopped making content I want to watch, though we might get Blue Planet II. I wonder has someone ordered it already and what format?

Re: @Dan 55

I've chopped a 1.5m €2 HDMI cable and extended it by 15m using two parallel lengths of Cat5e, nothing else. The original data twisted pairs in HDMI cable spec looks very like Cat5 spec. It is a similar digital signal. The other wires are less critical.

No idea what spec of HDMI, but it does transfer up to 1920 x 1080 @ 60p from ATI or Nvidia graphics cards on a PC in shed to 40" HDTV in living room. A separate USB repeater in middle extended a usb port to a hub at TV for a mouse and small keyboard. Stereo analogue sound card and satellite card "IR blaster" via 2 x 3.5mm jacks and one 2.5mm jack on a third Cat5e cable.

how many people buy the new cable before … bought the new TV

Good that it's compatible. Because you don't replace everything at once.

Hopefully the 2.1 sockets on the 72" 8K projector / TV / Monitor will work with original HDMI sources, playing 576i25 and 480i30 video.

In comparison USB has been a mess. Even apart from USB-C, a gazzilion incompatible cables.

Though HDMI ARC seems to be a failure. Erratic compatibility and not compatible at all with HDMI-in to 5.1 analogue out or HDMI to analogue stereo decoders. Two high end HDTVs and the only way to get audio into my HiFi is the earphone socket? Yet internal speakers on a par with a laptop.

Win 10 creators update offers new reality opportunity

Daft

MS obviously don't care about the users that really need Windows.

There is the Xbox if they want to experiment with AR, VR and stupid GUIs.

Just give us back the customisation of UI and logical access to stuff that there was 1996 to 2006 on Windows NT. Stop with Flat and faffing around with wizards and removing settings.

Dawn of The Planet of the Phablets in 2019 will see off smartphones

Re: Age

Except last time I looked Carphone and Tesco was selling GSM only Doro. The Operators in Ireland only have to give Regulator six months notice and need no permission to switch off GSM and use 3G.

Where is SOGA?

I heard a rumour Doro have 3G now. But I don't want one anyway. I'd like a slightly smaller & slimmer version of the N9200 concept, a phone when you want calls and like a Palm handheld when you want a portable PC. My N9200 was more use for actual doing stuff than my 7" Android tablet, because of the keyboard, though 14.4kbps or 28.8kbps per second billing for web browsing was painful.

Re: Pocketalypse

I'd hope there would be some choice.

I lament the demise of small top edge clamshell, slider and Communicator side edge clamshell. Some of these are still on dumb or feature phones, or non-Western markets.

Surely makers and retail chains are big enough to offer some niche choice, rather than alternate badges to ergonomically disastrous touch screen only phones?

Hey girl, what's that behind your Windows task bar? Looks like a hidden crypto-miner...

Re: Let me get this right.

Exiting browser can leave the browser running nowadays, sadly.

popups are actually gates,

"Some of these popups are actually gates, meaning blocking them means you can't proceed."

GOOD!

Idiots. I've not found a problem whitelisting SOME javascript domains on sites I visit regularly.

Re: Finally, a reason to move the task bar

Top of screen makes most sense. I have my programs menu and running applications panel there on autohide and autowidth. Less easily triggered visible as it's near title bars. I have autohide panels on the three other edges:

Left: Local look up stuff / management (Calibre, Control panel, Filemanager)

Right: Remote stuff (FTP/SFTP, Browsers, email, Shh, chat etc)

Botttom: Like applications, it has status (CPU, Keyboard state, Network state, USB manager, Bluetooth etc).

Easy to do on Mint + Mate and save for all users. Windows has become horrible with its pinning and unreadable flat icons and poor customisation, like back to Windows 1.0 and 2.0. The 3.11 was better, you could even make a desktop window like a pinned taskbar menu!

Re: Because you can't be arsed

… to run NoScript properly configured.

No platform is immune from evil on the Internet. Worst is 3rd party domain javascript, esp. in adverts. BBC and CNN have served malware.

When will Advertisers and Webmasters / owners learn? Anything other than the same URL for everyone image and a link is evil.

Nokia 'not currently' talking about nor arranging Juniper buy

Hmm

Not entirely a mad idea.

Wondering why your internal .dev web app has stopped working?

also ICANN

Stupid idea creating practically any new top level. It's a money making scam.

Corporates pass on costs to customers. We are all paying.

This is part of Google's larger and welcome push for HTTPS

No, typical Google arrogance

While HTTPS is a good idea, Google are NOT in charge.

As Apple fixes macOS root password hole, here's what went wrong

Re: Mistakes happen

Just as well you have a Joke Icon. Most people regular here know, but the general public doesn't know that Apple generally has a HUGE profit margin compared to others. At least on phones. But how important are Macs to Apple now? They dropped Computer from the name. The Mac doesn't generate the iTunes revenue that the 70% (??) profit margin iPhone makes.

Can't wait for 5G? Don't then, Gigabit LTE will be around for ages

Re: Gigabit LTE is meaningless

Yes, due to economics, ROI.

Why spend money having x9 as many cells (you need really small cells to do 1Gbps, or else have only a few people) and not getting more revenue?

There will be / are some deployments, but not many.

The phone box idea was tried for paid wifi in Ireland.

1) Not enough left, though someone bought all the Smart Telecom ones when they went bust.

2) Cost

3) poor backhaul

4) Vandals.

The End of Abandondroid? Treble might rescue Google from OTA Hell

Re: Great

"much like how Microsoft Windows can run on nearly any computer hardware"

Only really applied NT 3.1, NT3.5, NT3.51 and NT4.0, and only if HAL was implemented. But it was on Power PC, x86, MIPS, Alpha and 64 bit Alpha. Curiously XP had a version for Itanium as well as x86 and eventually x86-64. Win CE was a sort of cut down static version of NT and perhaps supported four CPU type at one stage (ARM, x86, ??, ??), but a later phone version was ARM only.

Never applied to Win Shell on DOS (last versions Win9x and WinME).

Vista / Win7 was very limited (NT6x actually) on HW & CPU.

Re: Google could help a lot

Yes.

Though this whole idea is ancient and I never understood why phone makers didn't start working this way in Windows CE and Symbian era.

Even Windows NT worked on loads of platforms and CPUs from NT3.1 (the start) till NT4.0 (when it started falling off the rails).

Though I think Google's flavour of "Java" is the based on the portable Desktop version rather than the crippled cut down official Mobile Java. Sun or Oracle wouldn't licence the Desktop portable Java for Mobile devices, only the Mobile version which had been on Symbian etc.

Watchkeeper drones cost taxpayers £1bn

Application

They will need them from March 2019.

Already been proposed by Government. They are looking for some airships too.

£160m ploughed into 5G is a fair sum. Shame the tech doesn't really exist

Oh dear

The "5G" isn't really about any new way for ordinary bases to talk to mobiles, like 2G, 3G and 4G were. It's about integration of services, back office processing and backhaul.

Also spectrum above 2.6GHz is really only "WiFi" or Line of Sight.

The way to avoid not spots is licence conditions requiring 100% geographic coverage. No new technology needed. Otherwise operator cherry pick where to put bases so as to make a profit on the capital investment and running costs. Rural has higher running costs due to engineering travel time and backhaul costs.

This is also why performance can be poor. Not technology. There is no incentive to have x3 or x9 density base stations needed to increase speed and availability unless data is charged per megabyte used. With capped or unlimited subscription or PAYG, the only way you get speed past a certain point is enforced licence conditions.

There needs to be more fibre / real broadband so that Mobile only has actually mobile users.

The six simple questions Facebook refused to answer about its creepy suicide-detection AI

inducing thoughts of suicide

Actually studies show that Facebook DOES depress people.

'Break up Google and Facebook if you ever want innovation again'

Microsoft Basic

Didn't Bill's programmer friend port it from Dartmouth Basic (for 6502 or 8080), which was a mainframe or minicomputer teaching language, a cut down ForTran.

I think it was their first successful product and was on both some 8080 S100 machines with CP/M as well as on the Apple II (6502)?

However it was long ago, if about 40 years counts as long ago. I do remember buying an edition of Byte with a picture of the Apple II and a review on a business trip to Galway, Ireland in late 1970s.

Re: Can Bill Gates Write Code?

Circa 1987

Mysteriously the DOS program written in MS C would crash with out of memory error.

I discovered that RAM was becoming fragmented, by a process of logical analysis. Eventually there would not be a big enough free block for Malloc (I think it was Malloc) as there was no garbage collection to re-combine adjacent free blocks.

Problem solved by writing my own memory management and allocating 100K at the start via MS C library.

MS copied a lot of code from CP/M and Unix but was poor on logic and QA. Actually MSDOS originally was a bought in reverse engineered CP/M86 which originally was almost automatically cross-assembled from 8080 CP/M. Easy as the 8088/8086 was really an extended 8085 with addressing beyond 64K by segment register. Terrible but cheap choice for IBM PC.

woefully misinformed

No, sorry some software development based on mostly prior art is NOT innovation. That's mostly what Facebook and Google contribute. Most of Google & Facebook contributions to opensource are simply development.

Hardly any software ever is innovative. It's just tedious hard work!

CAR Hoare's Quick Sort was innovative software.

Xerox Windows GUI with bitmapped graphics, menus and mouse was innovative.

The first graphical web browser was innovative.

Nor did I say that Google bought in or copied everything. However what PRODUCT or SERVICE of significance is a Google innovation?

PageRank concept isn't a Google idea!

Big corporations and the specific pressure of High Tech companies to outsource to their cloud is toxic to civilisation.

They are sucking up and suppressing talent. They suppress staff that think outside their box. They are uninterested in innovation, only interested in domination.

They suck money out of the world economy.

Re: Can you think of ONE bit of positive reporting on Google?

In fairness, what is there positive to report?

That they quietly dropped "Do no evil"?

That Eric Schmidt says governments should give teens a new ID when they come of age?

That Google promises they won't read email sent to gmail addresses or cloud stuff of educational users?

If anything Andrew is quite soft on them. There are of course UK libel laws.

Re: Google's MO is to enter a known field and solve the problems

Google Maps? no

Google Earth? no (bought in)

YouTube (bought in)

Android (bought in, Davik/apps is basically desktop JVM/Java because they could only get cut down Mobile Java licence)

Chrome Browser? no

Chrome OS, Google Docs: me too Cloud products with hidden costs.

Hangouts, GMail, Google Groups, Talk, Video: Me Too stuff offered for free.

Google's "AI" is just 1980s Expert Systems with so called "Neural Networks" to make adding human curated data easy. More hype than solution. Still no decent grammar & spelling checker any better than mid 1980s. OK Google is simply 1990s voice recognition moved to cloud and added to text search engine + updated Eliza.

Search used to be really good, but they weren't first and the ones killed off were more honest than Google's current "bookmark" plus client advert polluted results.

Streetview WiFi slurp was no accident. Not needed now due to Chrome Browser, Android and ChromeOS.

So which field have Google entered and solved the problems?

I've been using "personal" computers since before IBM PC and Computers as a user & programmer earlier. Professional programming & IT services since 1980.

Self Driving cars are still an experiment. Their AI medical system might be a ploy to steal data, the UK data was illegally obtained. Is it really AI at all? See IBM and Medical AI.

Re: They just store what you give them

Facebook's icon they offer to website builders has javascript that tracks everyone. Not just Facebook users.

NoScript is your friend.

Amazon … one-click patent, or Apple "look and feel"

Two other separate issues.

I've quite separate criticism of Apple and Amazon, who are completely different. Amazon is the dangerous one, not Apple.

Amazon is like the Borg, hoovering up competition. See what they have bought. Goodreads, Abe Books, Book Depository, the two companies they merged to make CreateSpace and IMDB are tip of the iceberg. Their "prime" is predatory to consumers and cheats authors.

Apple has bought in most of their "innovation". Nearly went bust and was rescued by MS money. iTunes and Operator packages made iPod and iPhone a success. Don't confuse "Design Patents" (UK Registered Design) and actual Patents. US Patent system broken since Victorian era. Edison over exploited it so eventually his bogus Cinema patents (the reason for Hollywood) struck out. Apple less than 2% on R&D and like a dragon on their cash hoard. At the end of the day no-one is forced to buy any Apple stuff and they don't have any kind of monopoly. They are not a Borg like Amazon. They have bought only a few companies very strategic to their few products, Fingerworks for iOS touch and an ARM design house so they could switch from Samsung CPUs (first iPhone was SC6400 Samsung family ARM). Though the last really innovative Apple product was the Newton, killed by Jobs on his return. If the iTunes (not Job's idea) hadn't saved Apple via iPod, some Chinese company might own the Mac brand today. (c.f. Thinkpad). The exclusive operator and all you can eat data when other smart phones could only be afforded by Corporate users cemented Apple as a consumer success.