* Posts by hammarbtyp

1385 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Nov 2007

Astronomer slams sexists trying to tear down black hole researcher's rep

hammarbtyp

Re: Fellow?

Sorry Dilbert is no longer relevant ever since Scott Adams declared he was for the dark side

hammarbtyp

Re: Thank you!!!

In one aspect her gender is not relevant, and in a fair and equitable world, nor should it. Its just a pity that we don't live in this world and despite a general acknowledgement that this is the direction where we should be heading, there will always be conservative voices who decry their perceived loss of privilege who will try and drag us backwards.

In another aspect it does matter. As someone who has tried for many years to encourage women to go into software, I know that many women have a low opinion of the software industry and feel it is a misogynistic, male dominated world where women either need to conform to a male nerd stereotype or be belittled and marginalized. Dr Katie Bouman (I do wish people would use her entire title) is the kind of role model that helps address the balance. She is articulate, photogenic and has an infectious enthusiasm that makes her an effective communicator. While I would prefer that her work and the group she led would stand by itself, we live in a world where perceptions are important.

Of course the trolls who feel threatened by her existence or by her brilliance because they conflict with there world view that intelligence can only exist in those with the correct number of chromosomes. They will therefore try everything be belittle her contribution. This must be be defended against by anyone who believes that all science should be a meritocracy

London's Metropolitan Police arrest Julian Assange

hammarbtyp

Re: Not much sympathy

Clinton would have been like all those before her, secretive, attention diverting, money grabbing, plutocratic dealing figure head who is the servant of the real power. Which is the highest bidder.

and yet somehow you believe Trump is better...hope the weather is nice in your delusional fantasy world

MoD plonks down £2m on table in exchange for anti-drone tech ideas

hammarbtyp

The problem is not such how do you detect and bring down a drone, it is how do you detect and bring down a down a drone in a urban environment , in all weathers without damaging or injuring the local population. for example i'm sure a variation of Israel's Iron dome could bring down a drone, just as long as the denizens of Gatwick were happy with one or two houses being taken out with collateral damage.

Detection is the 1st issue. Optical or sound based detection is to short range and does not work well in poor weather. Radar is better, but you would need to ensure that it would not interfere with airport safety systems. Also you would get many false positives from birds etc

Once detected you have to bring it down. Shooting one down, even if you could afford to have marksmen on call at all times, is a no no, due to the danger of stray shots and to be honest hitting a erratically moving target at considerable distance is a challenge for even the best. Same issues with missile, because there is a reason that they are not called hitiles. Electronic jamming could work. Problem is it is either short range, or if powerful enough probably take out other electronic kit in a nearby vicinity. Anyway drones can easily be automated.

Probably the best idea is position a number of low power masts around you area of interest, to create a field which would detect things going through it. It would have to be tuned to respond better to metal than flesh. To bring it down the best way is probably to create hunter killer drones, that will track and disable other drones

hammarbtyp

Re: The Ultimate Solution

Good idea, but I would forgo the moats and just use unicorns, because a) they have a suitable mounting point and b) we will have a surplus of them soon

How do you sing 'We're jamming and we hope you like jamming, too' in Russian? Kremlin's sat-nav spoofing revealed

hammarbtyp

Re: Jam and spoof

Yeah but it's not all about deep ocean is it? You have to come into port and that is where depth and position is critical. I would posit there is a higher amount of traffic in coastal waters.

No doubt, but coastal waters make up a very small part of the worlds oceans and you don't have to be very far from land to not see it at all. Most of the world trade follows the shortest route across oceans, which generally involves being out of site of land for days. So apart from pleasure boats, most ships require to navigate without any land reference. GPS is not greatly used in port because there is a plethora of other navigation aids and the need to see and avoid other craft is a priority. Also most ships are piloted by a local expert when coming into port

Your lorry driver analogy is pretty derisory of professional navigators in terms of ability and capability. Day sailors and Gin Palace drivers maybe and if they wish to ignore depth data then more fool them.

Its not an insult, just a statement on human behavior that we are more likely to believe technology than our own sensors. I can point to airline pilots, who also are well trained, who have crashed because they refused to believe their own senses over what their instruments are showing them. There is a tendency to always doubt yourself over the supposedly inhuman precision of the electronic overseer. Most of the time that is a good thing, however the danger if someone deliberately jams or falsifies the data, then it becomes an issue.

hammarbtyp

Re: Jam and spoof

Really?? So they would ignore the data they couldn't verify by the mark one eyeball in favour of blindly following GPS data they potentially could roughly and quickly validate?

Done much marine navigation have you?

No but I do work for a company that makes marine navigation systems. Does that count?

a) There are no markers in the deep ocean

b) Human nature being what it is, they will take the word of a computer rather than common sense. This is why you hear of lorry drivers getting stuck under bridges when following there sat nav

hammarbtyp

Re: Jam and spoof

When it comes to water navigation GPS is only one tool in constant use. GPS has to match readings from Depth Sounders and other instruments.

That seems unlikely since there is very few detailed maps of ocean floors, sea floor depth changes all the time due to tide and shifting sea floor ,depth sounders are inherently inaccurate and it is hard to correlate a depth point onto a accurate position

Even if that was the case, if there was a choice between GPS inaccuracy and depth data, most navigators would believe their GPS over other data

Of course there used to be the LORAN chain for navigation close to coasts, but that was dismantled many moons ago.

Deep ocean navigation has always been an issue. For example for dynamic positioning system where

a ship is expected to hold station at a fixed point, you could hope to close to say an oil rig and use a laser to measure the range, drop a long wire to the sea bed and measure the deflection angle, or position sounders around the boat at set intervals. However none of these work in really deep ocean meaning GPS is basically your only method of accurate position measurement

For navigation in deep ocean you have two choices GPS or the old sextent and sun method, however talking to a friend who is a tanker captain he says that most new cadets are so used to GPS, that most of them can hardly hold a sextent.

Two Arkansas dipsticks nicked after allegedly taking turns to shoot each other while wearing bulletproof vests

hammarbtyp

The saddest thing is, that after all this, they are probably still legally allowed to own as many firearms as their little arms can carry.

This is where the stupidity of US gun laws is writ large.

Astroboffins may have cracked the mystery of where the photons from weird gamma ray bursts come from

hammarbtyp

The mechanism in how the radiation shoots out at speeds close to the speed of light, however, is still unknown

I sort of understand what is meant, but this is poorly explained.

The radiation being gamma rays, is of course travelling at the speed of light, being light. The ionised gas that is responsible for the generation of the GRB, is what is travelling close to the speed of light (and is not radiation in the traditional sense)

Just the small matter of the bill for scrapping Blighty's old nuclear submarines: It's £7.5bn

hammarbtyp

Re: sink containers in deep sediment with location devices

Wow, the [insert rogue nation state here] Governments would just love this idea. Just take a large vessel. find the location device signal and recover all that lovely radioactive material. I'm sure some of those states are cavalier enough to do that!

If you have the capability to access a submarine 10km under the ocean, then you are probably already capable of processing your own radioactive material

Only one Huawei? We pitted the P30 Pro against Samsung and Apple's best – and this is what we found

hammarbtyp

Not wrong, but maybe concentrating on the wrong thing.

The quality of your photo is not a direct relation to how much money you spent on your camear, the size of your lense or the number of megapixels, otherwise we should just put the camera price tag on each photo and base our judgement on that.

No, its about utilising the most appropriate equipment for the situation and making the best use of what is available. DSLR's, phones, polaroids, pinhole cameras they all have their place, advantages and disadvantages, but there is no right camera.

There is just too much concentration on camera wars.

hammarbtyp

Re: Rayleigh

That's the traditional view, which has meant that smartphone manufacturers have had to be innovate such as multiple exposures, multiple lenses and computational photography

While it has not removed the need for large sensors, the gap is a lot smaller than anyone would of thought 5 years ago

hammarbtyp

Re: It doesn't really matter anyway

Is one of your problems

"how do I have camera on me that is always available for in use, in any situation, without making me standing out and allows me to process and upload my photos on the move?"

If so, how does that setup solve it?

hammarbtyp

Wildlife photography is an area where a good camera and an excellent lens is always going to be paramount and a mobile phone is never going to cut it. Sport photography is another area, although I have known of some sport photographers using phones in certain situations, partly because of their superior upload capabilities.

However these are relatively niche and edge uses, and not really applicable to most peoples general experience of photography.

One professional area where phones are more likely to be used is in street photography, because people are less disturbed by them and you stand out less.

hammarbtyp

@iron

So you are saying that a camera can connect to the internet.

As long as you have a phone.

That's like saying that man can fly unaided. As long as he is flapping on an aircraft.

On my phone I can most major processing from simple changes to cloning and selective adjustments with a combination of LR and snapseed. I have never seen a DSLR where you can do anything more than a tiny bit of post processing largely because most cameras the touch screens (if they have one) just are not optimised for that sort of operation

Of course you could upload the photo to a phone and do it there......

So what were your advantages of a smartphone camera again?

  • Lighter and smaller
  • larger view screen
  • Always on
  • always with you
  • better touch interface
  • Better processing capabilities
  • Can add additional functionality via apps such as GPS (which many cameras now don't have)
  • automatic cloud storage and social networking interactivity
  • Good enough for general photography

hammarbtyp

Re: manual mode...

I agree, the tests are hardly a scientific comparison and are highly subjective. It a real comparison was to be made we need a common test subject in multiple light levels

hammarbtyp

Yes an average DSLR or bridge can often take better images, but with caveats.

Firstly in good light and as long as the subject is not to far away, you will struggle to see much difference. However in lower light the differences become more pronounced, however 80% of the time the differences will only be important to photographic enthusiasts and not to the majority of users.

Add to that the smartphone advantage. Its light portable, and almost always with you.Its always on, while most dedicated cameras have slow startup times. It is always connected to the net, so you can upload easily to social media and the cloud. Also you can do post processing on the device itself.

Its easy to become snobbish about phone cameras, but the truth is outside the canon <sic> of camera nerds the camera advantages are far less that the academic. paper exercises will have you beleive

Searching for Skylab: Even the most casual astro-nerd will revel in this respectful elegy to unsung space history

hammarbtyp

Skylab Medical Experiment Gadget

VP Mike Pence: I want Americans back on the Moon by 2024 (or before the Chinese get there)

hammarbtyp

If I was NASA, I would be formulating a response which is basically "Show me the money!!!!!!"

hammarbtyp

Re: The far side....

well yes, but why does it need to be manned to do that?

There does not seem to be many good technological reasons to send people to the moon, apart from inspiration. Most jobs would and can be done by robots, cheaper and at less risk

That is not to say i am against the idea. The original Apollo program inspired me and many in my generation, and i would love to recapture that spirit, however we have to be honest for the purpose and not invent spurious reasons that don't stand up to scrutony

UK.gov flushed away £15k defending pupil nationality data slurp – then canned scheme

hammarbtyp

Re: Government at it's finest

To be honest, at the moment this might even be a high point for this government

US prosecutors whack another three charges on list against ex-Autonomy boss Mike Lynch over $11bn HP biz gobble

hammarbtyp

Double Standards

A once heard of a property tycoon who continually inflated his self worth so that he could get business loans to prop his business empire.

But of course being a American, rather than being prosecuted he was lauded as a great business man and got promoted to president.

Oracle spaffed $30bn on buybacks over the past 9 months, but analysts warn it can't last forever

hammarbtyp

Re: Those tax cuts in action

Its that old dilemma, Are they mad or just republican

hammarbtyp

Re: Those tax cuts in action

...and not on workers wages. What a shock

Brit prisoners to be kept on the straight and narrow with JavaScript and CSS

hammarbtyp

Re: What could go wrong?

Python 2 or Python 3 - splitter!!!

That's Numberwang! Google Cloud staffer breaks record for most accurate Pi calculation

hammarbtyp

As a weird coincidence, the number of digits equals exactly Google's turnover for last year.

Who knew that the when the company derived its name from the number Googolplex, it was not only a name but a financial aspiration

hammarbtyp
Joke

31.4 trillion? Rubbish

Trivial. I've calculated to 50 trillion digits, but got bored.

Spoiler alert - the 50 trillionth digit is an 8

Science says death metal fans delightful and intelligent people, great at dinner parties

hammarbtyp

Its all an act

I live close to a site of major heavy rock festival. During the 4 days we often have festival goers pop into town for breakfast, beer (and quite often unfortunately wellies and new rain coats).

Generally they are really nice bunch of people, who cause far less trouble than the usual Friday night lot and are a pleasure to be around. However this is because the average heavy metal fan nowadays seems to be roughly 40-50, and are often here to take time off from their family responsibilities, relive their youth and let their hair down (those who have any left).

While initially intimidating, once you dig past the thin veneer of leather, chains, dog collars and offensive t-shirts, you find IT technicians, middle ranking managers, shoe salesmen etc. They are as likely to cause issues as you average COS play super villain is to blow up the universe.

(Disclaimer - I have no direct evidence on the behavior of Pharrell Williams fans, its just that generally most of the people who are happy all the time seem only one step away from either joining a cult or serious mental breakdown)

How to make people sit up and use 2-factor auth: Show 'em a vid reusing a toothbrush to scrub a toilet – then compare it to password reuse

hammarbtyp

Re: VIDEO Link

RSA WiFi is not poor, its just over secure :)

Here's the RSA one

https://youtu.be/UH9yWvvp4k8

Not sure about the toothbrush bit though

So Windrush happened, and yet UK Home Office immigration data still has 'appalling defects'

hammarbtyp
Joke

I'll get my coat

Jamaica?

Yes, we burnt all the evidence and shipped her off on the next boat

UK.gov's Verify has 'significantly' missed every target, groans spending watchdog

hammarbtyp

Re: Estonia

Unfortunately the UK is rapidly morphing into Elbonia

Insane homeowners association tries to fine resident for dick-shaped outline car left in snow

hammarbtyp

I think it was Frank Zappa who said "There are no dirt lyrics, only dirt minds that hear them"

US Supremes urged by pretty much everyone in software dev to probe Oracle's 'disastrous' Java API copyright win

hammarbtyp

Re: Before people get in to a panic...

Ok you make some fair points, but the ruling itself shows a lack of understanding of the basis of software API's.

The biggest one is the 11.500 lines of code allegedly copied by Google. That sounds to a layman like a slam dunk case. However when you analyse it as a software developer it is less so.

What are the 11500 lines of code

The Java library code consists of 2.86 million lines of code, therefore Oracles case rests on 0.4% of the code base being copied. Basically those 11500 lines are the Java 2 API headings, virtually everything else is Google's own work . Google's purpose was to to create a language that was familiar to Java developers but fitted in with Android. To most software developers, there is nothing wrong with that. If i want to use C ion a new hardware, I would recreate the C standard library and write the back-end. Or say I wanted to write my own version of SQL, like a small company like Oracle did way back.

I cannot see where the court gets 170 lines from. How would you write a compatible JAVA library using 170 lines?

Its a bit like Collins claiming copyright over oxford dictionaries, because they used the same word headings even though the definitions were totally original.

The rulling is a total mis-representation of software API's and opens the door to any other corporate vulture claiming ownership over software re-use

hammarbtyp

Re: Hasn't this been decided in the other direction already?

Or in fact Oracle writing their own version of IBM's SQL

Nokia 9: HMD Global hauls PureView™ out of brand limbo

hammarbtyp

Surely you want one that goes up to 11

It all hinges on this: Huawei goes after Samsung with its own foldable hybrid Mate X

hammarbtyp

Sheesh...

Some good and some pointless questions

- Do you get a free toaster with the loan you have to get to finance it?

Sounds a lot, but this is not meant for joe consumer. It is for the those with money to burn who must have the latest and greatest. It certainly stands out compared to the latest iphone. Remember to some this is the same cost as a bottle of dinner wine

- What is the software update plan, delay, and how long before they stop issuing updates after sales fail?

Same as any other android phone i'm guessing

- Looks fragile.

Probably no more than your average iphone. However there is probably no way to add screen protectors, which could be an issue

- The screen warp at the seam (watch some of the launch demo videos)

I'm sure that will get better as technology improves

- Too big to put in a pocket.

Depends how big your pockets are, and a damn sight more convenient than carrying a tablet around as well. As someone who used to carry a Psion 5 knows , its small enough

- How does it hold up to scratches?

Again lack of screen protector is an issue. Presumably it has to be flexible material, so there will be some damage

- Is it IP67/68?

Don't see why not

- Can't put a case on it and still use it.

Probably not

- How much does it cost to replace a cracked screen?

Probably a lot. However if you can spend 2 grand on a phone, that is not going to be a major concern.

- Contains two batteries that could become an IED.

Now we are just getting silly. It is still far smaller than a tablet or a laptop

- Contains 5G, which means you have potentially cellular level alternating, millimeter wave antenna. (https://www.saferemr.com/2017/08/5g-wireless-technology-millimeter-wave.html)

Now we are just getting into paranoia. This phone is no different to any other 5g device that will be coming out in the next few year, and almost certainly will have to operate as a 4G device until the infrastructure is out there. While i know there are some concerns on 5g wavelengths there has been no peer reviewed evidence on any issues, just speculation and alarmist headlines.

I don't see the use case given all the drawbacks. Just because you can, does not mean you should.

On that basis we should still be hiding in caves, scavenging fruit and any meat we can scavenge. Progress means pushing in all directions. If we knew where to go we would already be there. Although I doubt I will ever have one I salute the technology pioneers who wish to go first

How do you solve a problem like Galileo? With a strap-on L-band payload, of course!

hammarbtyp

when has spending money on a Nigerian scheme ever gone wrong

Dear Mr Grayling

I have been requested by the Nigerian Space Agency to contact you for assistance in resolving the matter of access to GPS. The Nigerian Space has recently acquired a satellite onto which a GPS alternative could be placed. Unfortunately due to international restrictions, we cannot help you until funding has been made available. Please to facilitate this wire £100 million to the attached agency back account, and we will launch your new GPS system for you

Yours Faithfully

Prince Boateng III (Acting head of NSA)

P.S My brother also owns are large number of RORO ferries. I would be please to make these available for another £100 million

White House and FCC announce big, broken solutions to America's pitiful broadband

hammarbtyp

Need a new new deal (Don't hold your breath)

Unfortunately this again proves that there is no one fits solution to big problems.

In a realistic world, federal dollars would be used to pay for a public optical high speed backbone that anyone can use to create local services.

But this is America, and that sort of thing smacks of Communism, so they will leave it to the market, who will then cherry pick the best areas, ensure that any competition is squashed and you will end up with a expensive hodge podge which suits no one apart from the monopolies controlling it. Best of all for them everyone in the US will pay for it. But hey it's the American way dammit.

If the interstate network was being built today, and not in Rossevelt's socialist new deal era. Most major highways would stop about 50 miles outside major cities with rural and the poor being forced to use the dirt track back roads

What did turbonerds do before the internet? 41 years ago, a load of BBS

hammarbtyp

Gmail in heaven

Hotmail in hell

Airbus will shutter its A380 production line from 2021

hammarbtyp

Re: Just to big to win

A lot of cargo aircraft are old passenger aircraft. I live near a cargo hub, and you see aircraft, that were retired from passenger use years ago, such as MD-11, old Ilyushins.

Modern passenger aircraft are pretty tough. However the economic costs of their use for passenger use becomes harder to justify as they get older. I don't see Emirates using them for their full life span

hammarbtyp

Just to big to win

One thing not mentioned about the A380 freight version was that it was actually just too big. Basically by the time you hit the weight limit it was only 60% full, meaning it was not as efficient as the 747 freighter. However we might see a version for carrying very large objects when they start coming out of service.

Also RR will take a hit, since the Trent 900 was the primary engine used on the type

One click and you're out: UK makes it an offence to view terrorist propaganda even once

hammarbtyp
Black Helicopters

Tomato,Tomato

I never look at terrorist propaganda, however sometime I do read freedom fighters literature.....

Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019

hammarbtyp

You think that's a problem? I'll show you a problem

Hey, can't wait till 2038 when the majority of embedded systems start falling over due to the 32bit implementation of time rolling over

hammarbtyp

"arnt they geostationary?"

No

hammarbtyp

Re: Yay landfill!

Still use an old Garmin for geo-caching since I find it more accurate than the phone, and i don't need the map.

Probably going to be dead in April, since I doubt the firmware is updateable

Only plebs use Office 2019 over Office 365, says Microsoft's weird new ad campaign

hammarbtyp

The standard office licence covers you for up to 3 computers.

Since i got mine for £10 through a work offer, then that's £10 in total.

Even the student edition is only £120. To be honest I haven't met anyone who has ever paid the full wack

UK-EU infosec data sharing may not be KO'd by Brexit, reckons ENISA bod

hammarbtyp

Who's in charge?

The main issue would be, as far as I see it, remediation, If the UK is allowed to maintain the same data relationship with the EU, what happens if that relationship is taken advantage of by the UK, against EU rules. Since the governmment is adamant that they will nor be beholden to any EU judicial body or any sort of joint oversight, it is hard to see how a data sharing framework could be managed and policed

Arm wants to wrestle industry into a seat on the UK.gov's £70m hardware security train

hammarbtyp

Chicken feed

The EU Cybersecurity strategy earmarked 600million Euros of research and innovation. It is more likely also to have global significance due to the technology and population size of the EU

But hey, at we are taking back control....

Holy crappuccino. There's a latte trouble brewing... Bio-boffins reckon 60%+ of coffee species may be doomed

hammarbtyp

Re: Umm... nope.

@10forcash

Well my wife's a geologist and she great respect for climate science.

Climate scientist do work with geosciences. For example they rely on ice cores to measure temperature variation over near history. This is why they can show that the present rate of warming is unprecedented and is correlated with the rise in CO2 levels.

However normal geology is not going to tell you a lot, because the normal rate of rock deposition means that they tend to work in periods of 100 of thousands of years which is to long to measure any climate data, especially if we are talking about the last 100 years. However they can show times of volcanic activity and other extreme events that can be tied back to the climate records.

(of course you could argue that most geologists work for the petro-chemical industries or mining and therefore it is in their best interests to dismiss climate change, but generally I have better respect for science professionals and the scientific method than someone who terms "consensus2 as "cabaal")