Posts by mittfh

Venturing beyond the default OS on Raspberry Pi 5

Don't be alarm-ed...

... but there's also a port of one of the Internet's favourite minimalist distros, BTW...

City council megaproject mulls ditching Oracle after budget balloons to £131M

Re: So whose bright idea was it in the first place?

I believe the original spec was to do a fairly vanilla installation with minimal customisation, and all departments would adjust their business practices to suit the new software. They'd apparently been using a highly customised SAP product before, but I think there are rules whereby you have to review and compare to the rest of the market occasionally - and evidently Oracle wowed the decision makers.

Of course, with big projects like this, Oracle don't directly get their hands dirty, but rely on third party "Implementation partners" to do the installation and configuration. Chances are they're more used to businesses rather than councils, who have a myriad of different budgets, income sources and expenditures; while of course each department would likely have vigorously protested at having to change their business practices, demanding something that works exactly like SAP. ICT presumably didn't have the authority to resist...

Added onto which, they apparently changed implementation partners part way through the project, which is very telling on itself...

Don't say Pentium or Celeron anymore, it's just Processor now, says Intel

Re: trademarks

There were likely no other software products called "Windows" at the time, so they could trademark it in that context. Apple Computer and Apple Corps could coexist as one was computers and the other was music - although at the time of the resolution, Steve Jobs' company was to keep out of the music sphere.

MS have fallen foul of trademarks themselves - ever wondered why Win 8's Metro UI was renamed Modern UI? Sometimes, the little guy wins (especially when it's European courts, the small guy is a European company and the big guy is a US company already in hot water with European courts).

In China, the Smart TV watches you, shares IP address, Wi-Fi SSIDs, viewing habits, and more

I'm mildly surprised...

...the snooping allegedly wasn't at the request of the CCP...

OMG! New free speech social network won’t allow members to take the Lord’s name in vain

Good luck gaining support...

Haven't Trump acolytes already migrated to Gab and Qcumbers to The Great Awakening?

Whistleblowers: Inflexible prison software says inmates due for release should be kept locked up behind bars

They're having a laugh

If that report is anywhere near accurate, as well as the ridiculously high cost per hour of bug fixing, 2,000 hours to tweak a calculation?

They evidently view Arizona's State Government as a bottomless pit of money who'll willingly throw millions of dollars at them - possibly even billions if they're charging over a thousand dollars per hour and over a thousand hours of development time to fix each of tens of thousands of "unresolved issues" and "feature requests"...

After demonstrating a facial recognition system that works on cows, moo-chine learning pioneer seeks growth funding

Re: Must have been a slack day

"However with all these backups you can easily see how well it's working."

Maybe the unstated reasoning is for a larger scale trial to refine and improve the technology, in a more diverse range of environments than the (likely) single farm they developed their system on, while also providing a source of revenue for them?

Your mention of wild animals suggests one potential future development - Hook it up to cameras on a fleet of remotely operated vehicles to track individuals and herds on larger estates and farms where the livestock are free to roam hills, forests and moors rather than fields - and maybe even in future UAVs to track them from above (although obviously in that case you'd need a very high definition camera or fly very low).

Experian vows to drag UK's Information Commissioner's Office to court after being told off for data-slurping practices

Except you have - pretty much every financial service you have will include permission to share your information with CRAs, the government and various other bodies buried in their terms and conditions. You have to tick a box to confirm you have read those terms and conditions before you can use the service. Sneaky, but technically legal.

Re: Helping consumers?

Unfortunately, if you ever need a loan (including insurance premiums paid monthly rather than annually), credit card or mortgage, the lender will go to one of those three credit reference agencies to get an idea of your credit worthiness. Given the data they hoover up includes utility bill payments (energy, water, phone/broadband) and bank overdraft usage, it's possible even they ask the agencies for your credit score before allowing you to use their products.

And if you want to examine the data they hold on you, you either have to give them money or sign up to a service such as Clearscore, which instead tries to sell you financial services (poorly, given their emails just try to sell you an identity protection service [hahaha] and the app is nice enough to hide all the offers on a separate tab). Amusingly, my only "off-track insight" is that I don't have a credit card.

Researchers made an OpenAI GPT-3 medical chatbot as an experiment. It told a mock patient to kill themselves

Given its data source...

The program's database was filled with text scraped from the Internet. It likely has no clue about the context of that text, while previous examples have used a provided seed text to write a mock journalistic article.

However, given it is capable of churning out vaguely comprehensible English and can string several sentences together in a way that seems logical indicates that, if instead given a more refined database limited to a particular context, could produce something vaguely useable in that context.

For an initial stab at medical diagnoses, you'd probably first want software to search through medical literature and sift out lists of symptoms, diagnoses, further investigations needed (e.g. blood tests l and treatments, with the ability to ask the patient to clarify certain symptoms or ask if they had any others if the resulting list of potential diagnoses was too long and couldn't be reduced via a single type of investigation.

What a Hancock-up: Excel spreadsheet blunder blamed after England under-reports 16,000 COVID-19 cases

Error code

Does this count as PICNIC, PEBKAC, ID-10-T or something else?

NHS tests COVID-19 contact-tracing app that may actually work properly – EU neighbors lent a helping hand

Re: How will they know it's a false alarm?

Even though they may not need hospital admission (so therefore are clinically classed as mild), evidence suggests a decent proportion will be "long haulers", who have symptoms for a month or more, alternatively they develop symptoms consistent with CFS.

There's also the possibility as asymptomatic transfer to more vulnerable people (particularly when socially focused businesses that appeal more to older demographics start reopening).

Re: " ..and can scan QR codes placed on buildings to automatically check-in at those locations, "

GPS signals are attenuated by trees and buildings, but not necessarily completely eliminated. Just ask any Geocacher - you might end up doing the Drunken Duck Dance trying to find the inevitable Ivy Covered Tree in the forest full of ICTs, but it'll get you within a few dozen metres.

As for buildings, Google has a habit of popping up Android notifications when you visit certain businesses, inviting you to submit a review...

US govt proposes elephant showers for every American after Prez Trump says trickles dampen his haircare routine

Re: Wrong lightbulbs...

The other thing to consider is that the cheapest LEDs may use a capacitive dropper with bugger all smoothing, so resulting in a 50Hz flicker. They may also drive the LEDs at maximum forward voltage, so possibly reducing lifespan as even a small mains voltage spike could blow one of the LEDs in a COB.

Facebook to surround all of Africa in optical fibre and tinfoil

Re: Nigerian Princes

They now seem to have diversified into the "spellcasting" business (Ooh ee ooh ah ah ting tang walla walla bang bang, anyone?), reachable via Gmail or WhatsApp (look out for the +234 international dialing code) and chiefly marketing themselves via "testimonials" in comments on random news articles on Facebook...

Huawei launches UK charm offensive: We've provided 2G, 3G and 4G for 20 years, and you're worried about 5G?

An interesting concern with Huawei (which they themselves admit to) is sloppy coding and an abysmal approach to security. I half wonder if at least part of the reason the UK initially liked them was that sloppy coding would make it very easy for GCHQ to snoop on communications passing over Huawei's kit, while the US would be disappointed they didn't have exclusive access to snoop...

Re: Enough of these rational arguments!

"Pro EFTA" - except we ruled out returning to the EFTA (which we were members of from 1960 to 1972) last year, so only have the options of a FTA (probably minimal, chances are decreasing) or WTO (chances are increasing).

Chinese carmaker behind Volvo and Lotus ships first two satellites for planned IoT ‘OmniCloud’

Only two?

A certain American businessman already has several dozen whizzing around the earth...

... but then I suppose the PRC must develop a rival so they can ensure devices distributed in their country can only connect to their satellites (which, of course, will have a free backdoor to the CCP, who'll no doubt relish the prospect of introducing even more Orwellian surveillance of their population)...

Iowa has already won the worst IT rollout award of 2020: Rap for crap caucus app chaps in vote zap flap

This reminds me...

... of Tom Scott's excellent Computerphile video "Why electronic voting is a bad idea."

Sure,a caucus isn't a traditional vote, and the app was designed to work very differently from conventional voting software (it sounds like a variation-on-a-theme of a database form), but the same basic issues (especially transparency) remain.

Of course, the US is the one country where almost all conventional voting is carried out using closed source electronic voting machines rather than the antiquated but far more secure pencil and paper with single sealed black box per polling station (pencil to mitigate against the possibility of pens being filled with disappearing ink)...

Trivial backdoor found in firmware for Chinese-built net-connected video recorders

Never mind China...

GCHQ once snooped on a Belgian telecoms company, and since they're often asking the government for permission to snoop on UK nationals, they'd no doubt welcome gaping security holes in 5G equipment (especially zero day holes)...

Artful prankster creates Google Maps traffic jams by walking a cartful of old phones around Berlin

Re: Works for Waze too

Guess who's owned Waze since mid 2013?

Vulture discovers talons are rubbish for building Lego's International Space Station

"Roller-coaster for getting back to earth quicker"

If only the ISS was in a geosynchronous orbit...

Although even then, assuming you could build several hundred miles of track and bolt them together, you've still got hundreds of other physics / engineering challenges to overcome (including protecting the track from space debris).

Cool idea for a Sci-fi flick though...

"Abandoned creativity"

A strategy which is rather ironic when you consider the message of a certain film endorsed by the brand...

Boris celebrates taking back control of Brexit Britain's immigration – with unlimited immigration program

Major Review

"promising to tackle “unnecessary paperwork, arduous funding applications and research selection processes” by consulting with “world-leading scientists, researchers, academics and industry figures on what more can be done.”

Given this is government we're speaking about, they'll then promptly ignore the results of the consultation and add even more paperwork...

In the red corner, Big Red, and in the blue corner... the rest of the tech industry

Re: Very different times...

So if Oracle win, will Amazon's lawyers be knocking on their door?

It's update time – yes, again – for Insiders as the Windows 10 Slow Ring meanders towards release

Re: Just playing around

Then adjusting the number of rows the mouse wheel scrolls by - that's been a standard feature of proprietary drivers for decades!

Of course, until they were persuaded to bump up the internal version number to match the public version number, early builds of Win 10 were 6.4 under the hood, so an evolution of Vista (6.0), Seven (6.1), Eight (6.3) and Eight Point One (6.3)...

Back in the days of NT4, it was often quipped that at least half the point of each Service Pack was fixing the bugs introduced by the previous Service Pack...

US hands UK 'dossier' on Huawei: Really! Still using their kit? That's just... one... step... beyond

Underlying processors

Probably not even those - ARM (now owned by Japan's Softbank) just design CPU cores, and license the designs to manufacturers who build them into their own chip designs.

Is it a make-up mirror? Is it a tiny frisbee? No, it's the bonkers Cyrcle Phone, with its TWO headphone jacks

No release date...

... so presumably it will arrive when they get a round tuit...

Bad news: KeyWe Smart Lock is easily bypassed and can't be fixed

Re: Lots of bog-standard locks are easy to bypass.

Not to mention safes with electronic locks, but also equipped with the cheapest manual cylinder lock bypass the manufacturers could get their hands on (so it takes longer to remove the keyway cover than it does to pick the lock!)

That's Microsoft price: Now you can enjoy a BSOD from the comfort of your driving seat

BIOS

I haven't seen many BSODs on my travels, but I have seen various boxes which fell over at the BIOS screen, failing to find either a disc or a network. Typically, the error will be displayed for several consecutive days running, which is probably indicative of the branch staff having to call out for an external engineer site visit.

UK ads watchdog slaps Amazon for UX dark arts after folk bought Prime subs they didn't want

Re: Paypal are the ones that p!ss me off at the moment

When I first signed up to PayPal, it was owned by eBay so accounts were one and the same. However, I've noticed recently on the payment page, they've started advertising PayPal Credit (effectively a virtual credit card) - so I wouldn't be in the last bit surprised if, over the coming years, that starts to become more prominent than the registered bank card and registered bank account options...

'YOUTUBE is EVIL': Somebody had a tape running, Google...

Re: The new man

Warner Music Group once blocked anything on YouTube containing its music (or music published by its publishing arm Warner/Chappell Music) in a dispute over copyright / royalty payments, and even threatened to not license its work to any free streaming site or to any video game as they were getting peanuts.

However, because no credible alternative streaming site exists (at least partially because in order to get up and running they'd need to implement something akin to Content ID to avoid annoying major record labels), they eventually brokered a deal with YouTube.

It wouldn't surprise me if this new Google Music thingy is designed to keep the major record labels sweet and negotiated on their terms and conditions, which favour them and disfavour independent / unsigned artists.

SCRAP the TELLY TAX? Ancient BBC Time Lords mull Beeb's future

An alternative approach...

Turn the BBC into a non-profit. It would therefore be freed of the requirement to bow to the Establishment (i.e. whichever party is in power at the time) for fear of being dealt a rough hand in the next Charter Renewal (so for example on the news front could move towards more balance with an aim of impartiality); while it would also be freed from the commercial pressure to produce "safe" programming that would attract oodles of people to watch adverts. By being non-profit, it would be responsible only to its viewers, and if the revenue department was a completely separate division from the programming department with minimal links between the two, it could produce programming for everyone, rather than the top donors. Alongside the change, severely cut back on management roles and replace the crust with fresh meat.

I think part of the problem with the current output of the BBC is that it tries to be everything to everyone, so understandably fails because different demographics have different preferences. Having said that, perhaps they could donate the formats for many BBC3 shows to Channel 4 and Channel 5, and have quality programming aimed at teenagers / young adults instead.

Heck, quality programming and high viewings aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, and needn't be lavish dramas that soak up bucketloads of cash. Even with game and quiz shows, there must be a middle ground between the mindless tat seen across many channels (including the BBC) and those perceived as 'highbrow' e.g. University Challenge, Mastermind. Perhaps take a leaf out of the concepts of Countdown and Millionaire - a challenge that sounds simple, but is deceptively complex. The more highbrow shows also don't need large pots of prize money to motivate the contestants - the experience alone, with possibly something relatively low value such as a mug, dictionary or small trophy as the ultimate prize.

GIMP flees SourceForge over dodgy ads and installer

Perhaps...

...one day, someone could design a browser with a more sneaky form of ad blocking. Since most people are on fairly high bandwidth connections nowadays, how about a browser that doesn't display the ads, but invisibly loads the scripts in a sandbox, follows the link to the target site, then closes that connection: the result being for a small performance hit and a bit of extra bandwidth, you don't see the ads, but the ad provider still thinks you've seen and clicked on them so the host site still gets paid...

Of course, that doesn't solve the problem of bundled software (I wonder what proportion of Windows machines running Java also have the Ask toolbar installed?) and it does nothing to persuade ad networks to vet the ad images used. Ideally, the download sites would be aware of the fake download buttons and users' annoyance with them, so would be more careful about the positioning of ads (i.e. making sure they're nowhere near genuine download buttons).

BOFH: Don't be afraid - we won't hurt your delicate, flimsy inkjet printer

The joys of inkjets

I used to be a school IT technician. The main experiences I remember are:

a) a South-facing IT room, where the venetian blinds were (predictably) broken. Come in after a hot weekend to find the cartridges had spilled their contents all over the base of the printer and the table they were sitting on.

b) A3 business inkjets (used for D&T projects). Supposedly capable of 2ppm A3, in reality they were closer to 0.75ppm, so inevitably students sent multiple copies of their work to the printer. Eventually I persuaded the HoD to buy some printer management software, so [i] the printers could be fed off a single queue, and [ii] I could delete duplicates.

c) A3 business injects again. As the cartridges were quite expensive, the department decided to buy in clone cartridges. Half of which couldn't be used because the cartridges were chipped, so if the printer thought it hadn't got HP originals, it would refuse to use them. Admittedly we could return them for replacement, but it was a pain! The queue manager came in useful again here, so I could tell it to only point at a single printer if the other one had run out of ink (and there were no usable replacements in stock).

Oh, and mum had an inkjet she rarely used - almost inevitably when she did she'd have to buy a new cartridge as the old one had dried out, and no amount of priming could unblock the nozzles.

Re: Dot Matrix Printers

I think one of the best uses for dot matrix printers (apart from a really bulky paperweight or a "Let's see how much carnage is created if I drop this from the top of a high rise" test) is to feed them a specially prepared file which takes advantage of their stepper motors and pin pushers to create something resembling music (of course, you can dispense with the ink - they usually don't care if there's any ink in the ribbon or not). Unlike scanners or floppy drives, it may be possible to get them to be relatively tuneful via software alone, rather than a MIDI interface...

SimCity to teach SimMaths and SimScience at school

Re: The important question is...

Sometime this year. But frankly, if you're a fan of SimCity 4, don't bother. No terrain editing (other than automatic levelling when plopping a building). No local saving (everything's saved in the cloud). No offline mode (many of the economic aspects are calculated in the cloud). Although not allowing mods on release is fairly standard, the fact that so much is done in the cloud probably means no mods will be allowed full stop (unless they're purely eye candy, replacing an existing structure).

SimCity 4 Deluxe is, however, very much alive, courtesy of the user communities, with plenty of additional content, mods and even unofficial expansion packs available (and being continuously developed). There's even a total conversion project under way: SimMars.

Re: Wonder if...

Easy: Just use SimCity 4 Deluxe. Despite being nearly a decade old, the user communities are still very much active and user generated content is still being created. There are at least two unofficial expansion packs (NAM - Network Add-on Mod - is the most popular, while if you design big cities, you may like CAM - Colossus Add-on Mod - which adds a whole bunch more growth stages). It's not unheard of to have multi gigabyte plugin folders, so if you chuck enough UGC at it, it will crawl even on modern PCs (oh, and don't forget to save regularly - the more UGC you have, the more likely it is you'll encounter a CTD - crash to desktop - typically after spending three or four hours developing a city while forgetting to save en-route...)

Apple's poisonous Touch silently kills the GNOMEs of Linux Forest

As for me...

I jumped to Xfce when rumours of Mandriva migrating to GNOME 3 came out and stuck with it when migrating to Mageia. However, while I really love the Xfce panel (particularly the Deskbar mode - a practical use for the extra horizontal pixels offered by the wide screens of today) I found Thunar and Xfdesktop a pain in the butt - give me Nautilus any day!

I've now migrated to Arch (Mageia 2 had too many issues / niggles for my liking), currently with MATE but I'll probably install Xfce as well, and try to get some form of hybrid working.

N00bs vs Windows 8: We lock six people in a room with new OS

I imagine...

Win 8 will quickly gain traction in the casual user market, particularly among those using a touch screen device. It sounds as though your sample quickly got used to its quirks on a mouse-driven computer, but I'd imagine that over time they'd notice more hangups (especially as someone earlier in this thread noted, if they'd been using a 'real' installation and told to shut down the computer - hiding the relevant option is likely to lead to people using the hardware shutdown - i.e. pressing the physical power button...)

Given the 'traditional' desktop is relegated to an application rather than the default shell (which is apparently now called either "Windows 8 UI" or "Modern UI"), it seems as though Microsoft want to wean people off using it over time and increase the prominence of the new UI (which of course can only run applications pre-selected by Microsoft). The new UI version of IE is presumably intended to try and recoup some market share, even though they haven't improved it in line with rival browsers and it apparently won't support plug-ins or extensions (I wonder how well it will cope with HTML 5?).

So while they may gain some traction against iOS and Android, they seem to have ignored that both those OS' have different "big brothers" with different UIs for running on desktop machines: OS X in the case of the fruity company, Linux (in one of several dozen different flavours) in the case of more open environments.

I can't imagine many companies rushing out to buy Win 8 for their desktop machines - besides which, any company worth its salt would be waiting for SP1 anyway. So it's unlikely to be as big a disaster as ME, but may possibly be another Vista.

Oh, and incidentally, apparently the internal version number is Windows 6.2, indicating that there's still a lot of Vista (6.0) and Win 7 (6.1) code left....

'Leaked' doc shock: BT denies inflating prices for rural broadband rollout

Ho hum...

So a private sector company in receipt of public funds regards the Treasury as a blank cheque book and will do whatever it thinks it can get away with to scam the Treasury into giving them as much money as possible.

Isn't that business as usual for almost any private sector contractor? Just look at the fees charged by the late Building Schools for the Future scheme and numerous Public Private Partnerships / Private Finance Initiative schemes...

iPhone 5 sleuth work points to $199 component costs

UK costs

It's worth bearing in mind that the costs in the US are subsidised by the carriers (mobile phone networks) - the price for an unlocked phone is apparently $649 (£400). However, the mobile phone networks soon recoup the costs - for the locked phone there's a choice of three carriers for a two year fixed contract - one's minimum price is $59 pcm (~£36.38), the other two offer a minimum price of $89 pcm (£54.72). Ouch.

Who's afraid of Windows 8? Trio leads Microsoft migration pack

Re: It's the same for every Windows version.

Windows 4.0 (aka Win 95) - OKish, but had some serious limitations, partially addressed by service packs.

Windows 4.1 (aka Win 98) - much better.

Windows 4.9 (aka Win ME) - the less said about that, the better.

Windows NT 5.0 (aka 2000) - installed in several businesses, not really targeted at users.

Windows NT 5.1 (aka XP) - almost universally liked (although the "Fischer Price" Luna UI had criticism).

Windows NT 6.0 (aka Vista) - had some serious limitations, partially addressed by service packs.

Windows NT 6.1 (aka 7) - much better.

Anyone spot a pattern there? The first release of a new UI (usually denoted by a X.0 version number) is widely panned (it wouldn't surprise me if insufficient user testing and marketing department deadlines are at least partially to blame).

So what of 8? Internally, that's Windows NT 6.2. So what happened the last time three releases shared the same major version number? Those were 4.0 (95), 4.1 (98) and 4.9 (ME) - the latter of the trio widely panned.

So, what of the future? Will Windows NT 7.0 (Win 9) escape the curse, or will it do a 2000 and have modest success? Lay your bets now...

I expect...

...that many companies will do the usual and wait until SP1 before thinking of migrating. Especially in the case of Win 8, it will allow them to analyse the impact on the conventional desktop environment and whether users are put off by things such as the start button being converted into a start corner, and the ever-expanding Start Menu now occupying the entire screen in whatever Metro mode's now called.

But in-house applications dependent on old IE code are likely to be a huge stumbling block - not just internal applications but external ones as well. My workplace runs a (third party) case management system designed for IE 7, that will run on 8 and 9 in "Compatibility mode" - needless to say, it won't run in FF or Chrome. The developers probably don't have the resources to completely re-write the entire system to make it compatible with newer versions / cross-browser, especially as a large part of their time is spent working on implementing features to support new government requirements and getting around limitations of the database back-end.

Everything Everywhere swept away by its own 4G hype tsunami

"ee by gum"?

How about just calling it "eek!" ? :)

4G?

IIRC, what's being rolled out is LTE, which could be considered first release 4G, or even 3.9G, since while the LTE spec allows peak download rates up to 299.6 Mbit/s and upload rates up to 75.4 Mbit/s depending on the user equipment category, the full 4G spec actually requires 100 Mb/s from high mobility communication (e.g. trains and cars) and 1 Gb/s from low mobility communications (e.g. pedestrians and stationary).

However, before going overboard with 4G, let's not forget that many areas of the UK struggle to get any 3G reception, EDGE (2.75G) is still patchy, and some areas struggle to get basic GPRS (2.5G).

For those that do get the super-duper connection speeds, will the operators increase the usage cap or will they keep it restricted to current rates? Even if they increase the usage cap, will they allow full speed access or will they implement a whole range of bandwidth throttling and prioritisation so they can get away with a reduced bandwidth backbone between cells.?

'Nutjob' serves half-baked Raspberry PI scam

Re: He's taking his time...

Simple - it's The Daily Steve, with a circulation of precisely one.

Copyright bot boots NASA rover vid off YouTube

Another thing that doesn't help...

Short of DMCA takedowns, when their content ID identifies content that the bots claim is owned by an anonymous collecting house, without giving any idea whatsoever of what that particular content may happen to be.

Ideally, the database would have a description field next to each content ID field, so that when something you upload is flagged, it tells you the details of the track it's found (perhaps your playing of a public domain song is too close to a copyrighted arrangement, or perhaps a copyrighted song borrows heavily from the melody of a public domain song, or perhaps it's the keyboard's auto-accompaniment...)

The silly lifetime of copyright doesn't help - nor does having companies putting their full legal weight behind songs that should in reality be in the public domain - although the melody was first published in 1893 and the birthday lyrics in 1924, the song was copyrighted by a publisher in 1935. In Europe, the copyright expires in 2016 (as Patty Hill died in 1946 - so life + 70 years), however in the US the copyright expires in 2030 (erm, copyright date + 95 years?)

Re: #include <stdio.h>

In that case, I'll impose a patent claim on the consonants...

...I'll be generous though and allow someone else to claim for digits and special characters...

We can then all have lots of fun paying each other millions of [insert currency unit here] for allowing us to use stuff covered by each others' patents.