Posts by Chris Miller

This one weird trick can make online publishing faster, safer, more attractive, and richer

I wish them well, but right now (0900UT on St Paddy's Day) the top item on Betelgeuse takes you to a 404 page.

C++ creator calls for help to defend programming language from 'serious attacks'

O/T but a brilliant quote:

I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.

Bjarne Stroustrup (1950- )

NASA solar mission data recovering after server room flood fiasco

Given NASA is one of SpaceX's biggest clients, I'd be quite surprised if Elon closed it down.

"If you think business continuity is expensive, try having an outage."

Early mornings, late evenings, weekends. Useless users always demand support

Re: Barclays

25 years ago, I attended an AIX (IBM Unix) conference for large UK users. There were about 30 organisations represented, and 10 of them were from different teams at Barclays, half of whom weren't aware of the other Barclays installations' existence.

Shove your office mandates, people still prefer working from home

Just a thought

If you can do your job effectively without going into the office … so can someone in Bangalore.

SpaceX hits 400 launches of Falcon 9 rocket

Re: Male bovine excrement.

You're right, of course, but if you expect to read anything wholly positive about Musk in ElReg, you'll be waiting until Hell opens a skating rink.

EU buyers still shunning pure electric vehicles, prefer hybrids

Most people who can realistically operate with an EV - own drive for charging, wealthy (to afford the purchase) and not a "road warrior" - have already got one, to cash in on the tax and other incentives offered by government subsidies (money transfers from the poor to the rich, whodathunkit!). To the amazement of nobody at all, the bottom then drops out of the new EV market.

Reaction Engines' hypersonic hopes stall as funding fizzles out

SRN-4 was indeed a fabulous machine - Thunderbirds come to life! - but best experienced in a dead flat calm, otherwise it rapidly became the vomit comet.

I made this network so resilient nothing could possibly go wro...

In my experience (strokes long grey beard) much the most common cause of failure in resilient systems is a single failure (which causes no operational problems) followed by an attempt to repair the working, not failed, device. It never happened to me (honest), but I've heard some tales ...

The amber glow of bork illuminates Brighton Station

Re: "A toasted bacon sandwich"

I'm old enough to remember griddle cars. 50 years ago, my brother and I (travelling round Scotland on a rail rover ticket) took breakfast on the Royal Highlander out of Inverness. Toasted bacon sandwiches and unlimited refills of toast and tea, while Aviemore and the Pass of Drumochter flowed past the windows - hard to beat. ISTR there were griddle cars on a few of the southern electrics from London, too,. BR dining cars weren't all curly sandwiches!

iGulu F1 could be the hoppy ending to your home-brew horror show

Since you're starting with 4.5 litres of water, I assume the 9 pints are tiddly US pints (16 fl oz) rather than proper Imperial pints (20 fl oz).

EV sales hit speed bump as drivers unplug from the electric dream

Re: Range is not the issue!

My weekly charge normally costs me in the region of £3 because I charge it when I'm sleeping.

But you're paying more for the rest of your electricity. Ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Trivially? If you're a member of the right 'club' (how many different EV charging brands are there?) and pay your dues. But if not, you can be on 70p a kWh (UK), which is broadly the same cost per mile as petrol. Unless you've got an 'off-peak' deal (and are therefore paying more for you 'peak' electricity), even home charging is unlikely to be ¼ the price of petrol.

The problem EV manufacturers face is that EV owners need to: be wealthy (they're still significantly more expensive than ICE equivalents); live in a house with a private drive (so they can charge at home); and not be a road-warrior (or you'll be spending a lot of time recharging remotely at a cost per mile hardly cheaper than petrol). And most people who satisfy these criteria already have an EV.

I live in a wealthy Home Counties village and there are more EVs than you can shake a stick at, with Teslas* on every other drive. But I don't know anyone who doesn't also have an ICE vehicle for when they need to do real driving.

* other EV manufacturers are available, allegedly

Hello? Emergency services? I'd like to report a wrong number

In the UK, at least, you needed an extra digit (usually '9') to obtain an outside line. So emergency calls would be 9999 not 999, and no internal extensions could begin with a 9.

San Francisco set to ban rent-hiking algorithms used by landlords

Re: I suppose...

'Rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city — except for bombing,' declared Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck in 1971. Lindbeck may have belonged to the political left but he understood basic economic principles.

Second NHS IT system confirmed to be affected by CrowdStrike issues

Re: systmonline seems fine

I can't renew my prescription using the NHS app. No biggie (for me) as I always keep a month's supply in hand, and can hand deliver a request to the pharmacy if the problem persists for weeks.

HP to discontinue online-only e-series LaserJet amid user gripes

Whoever thought that (certainly in a corporate environment with security to consider), requiring printers to connect to an outside site on the Internet in order to print would be a winning strategy?

Outback shocker left Aussie techie with a secret not worth sharing

Is 50V correct or a typo? Seems suspiciously low, though my understanding of 80s Aussie telephony is not the best!

ITER delays first plasma for world's biggest fusion power rig by a decade

Re: Optional

If you live in Europe, this is literally true.

US Army: We want to absorb private-sector AI 'as fast as y'all are building them'

"Young Bang – principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology"

Best example of nominative determinism I've seen this year.

Millions forced to use brain as OpenAI's ChatGPT takes morning off

Oh noes! Did someone ask it to calculate the value of π to the last decimal digit?

Dublin debauchery derails Portal to NYC in six days flat

An obvious part of the problem is that closing time in Dublin is leaving work time in NYC, and 'closing time' (OK we know they never sleep, there) in NYC is 4-5am in Dublin, when I imagine few people are watching.

Ransomware negotiator weighs in on the extortion payment debate with El Reg

Re: It is better to avoid a problem than have to fix it.

There may well be some businesses and organisations that could or should operate in the way you suggest, but for most ordinary folks and non-safety-critical organisations, following all of your suggestions would mean going out of business (I'd except "don't hold personal data you don't need to hold" - but that's a standard part of most data protection legislation in any case).

China 'the most competitive market in the world' for the iPhone says Tim Cook

Re: How Competitive?

The problem with Chinese smart phones in the West is (apart from concerns about quality and support) a worry that the CCP may be listening in. Not an issue in China, where you can be absolutely certain they'll be listening in!

San Francisco's light rail to upgrade from floppy disks

Re: "best in the US"

Once safe, cheap commercial air travel was developed, rail became hopeless for journeys much longer than 500 miles. I've taken 1,500 mile rail journeys in the US (because I'm a rail nerd) - it takes 2 or 3 days and the only passengers are tourists and those who refuse to travel by air (mainly Amish and similar). Even taking European high-speed trains, I've done London-Lyon-Barcelona in a day, but it was a very long day (over 11 hours for an average speed of ~90 mph) - I could have flown to LA in the same time (and probably cheaper, too).

Big US cities (NY, Boston, Chicago, even LA to an extent) have extensive, cheap, well-used commuter rail systems, but inter-city distances are just too great, except for the Bos-Wash corridor.

Note to editors: BART isn't a "light rail" system by most definitions, it's too fast and too heavy. It's a pretty standard commuter rail network with a weird track gauge (for odd reasons known only to the locals).

Engine cover flies from Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 during takeoff

Re: Is it Just Me??

Causing any damage? Of course, land as soon as practicable is absolutely the correct course of action, but the press vibes are that the aircraft was about to fall from the sky, which is nonsense. To purse my analogy, your wing mirror cover coming off **might** land under your tyre, and then cause a blowout and a crash, but that doesn't of itself mean it's a major incident.

Re: Is it Just Me??

Indeed, and a relatively minor one at that, roughly equivalent to getting the back knocked off your car's wing mirror.

Nvidia: Why write code when you can string together a couple chat bots?

Re: "It is very likely that you assemble a team of AI"

Obligatory

Genius! I literally can't think of a single thing that might go wrong with this cunning plan.

Billions lost to fraud and error during UK's pandemic spending spree

Re: Oops, we stole it

And what would have been your reaction (and that of the media) at the time, if the government had said: "Faced with a pandemic, we're procuring lots of PPE and other medical equipment, but we must go through all the necessary steps to prevent fraud, rigorous testing to ensure quality standards are met, getting three competitive tenders on each bid, validating DEI and anti-slavery policies of suppliers, etc, which will delay things by a few months."? Note that Starmer's Labour were supportive of all these purchases, except for demands for "harder and faster".

Work to resolve binary babble from Voyager 1 is ongoing

"Lunchtime, doubly so."

Japanese government finally bids sayonara to the 3.5" floppy disk

Obligatory!

We put salt in our tea so you don't have to

Exactly. The best way to improve a cuppa made with teabags is to pour it down the sink.

AIUI the original US thought was that, if you've 'stewed' your tea by leaving it too long (unlikely in the US, where I've never experienced water hotter than lukewarm), you can rescue it by adding a little salt to counteract the bitterness. But if I stew the tea, I just throw it away and make fresh, it's not as though a couple of teaspoons of tea will break the bank.

For the benefit of overseas readers - how to make a cuppa (it's not rocket science) - you will need:

A kettle; a teapot; some loose leaf tea (M&S Extra Strong for me); milk; cups or mugs for drinking from; sugar (no thanks, but optional).

1. Empty kettle and refill with sufficient fresh water to fill the teapot.

2. Bring to boil.

3. Fill the (empty) teapot.

4. Pour back into kettle and reboil.

5. Add a couple of teaspoons of tea to the teapot (mine's a 1l pot, if you're using a larger one scale up accordingly).

6. Pour on the **boiling** water, stir vigorously and leave for 6 minutes (timing can be adjusted for strength).

7. Add milk to the cups/mugs and pour through a strainer. Some will insist that milk must be added after the tea; I won't argue, but they're simply wrong :)

8. Enjoy!

The Post Office systems scandal demands a critical response

Re: We need more articles like this one

Anyone involved in bidding for government work will know the answer - it involves long, complex RFIs demanding lots of meaningless tick-box qualifications, statements about DEI practices, etc. so that only large players can afford to bid, and smaller (often cheaper and more competent) organisations are effectively blocked. In the end, it's too often a choice between Fujitsu or Capita. And this applies far more widely than just IT projects.

US cities are going to struggle to green up their act by 2050

Re: An "easy" fix

In southern US (and southern Europe), PV can be useful, because there are more sunny days and peak output coincides with peak demand (for aircon). At temperate latitudes (northern US and northern Europe), PV panels will struggle over their useful life to repay the energy consumed during their manufacture - which, given they're mostly made in China, using energy derived from burning coal, means they do very little to reduce global CO2 emissions; though they're great for subsidy harvesting, and transferring money from the relatively poor to the relatively wealthy.

HP customers claim firmware update rendered third-party ink verboten

users can sometimes find themselves in the situation where supplies cost more than a replacement printer

True, and not unique to HP. But the cartridges in new printers are generally only half-full.

World's largest nuclear fusion reactor comes online in Japan

Re: Hope this goes well

Just another 20 years to wait (the same timescale as in 1970).

HP printer software turns up uninvited on Windows systems

I've been a fanboi of HP LaserJets for over 30 years, but Win11 tries to persuade you to install HP "Smart" (a PoS PitA) in order to get current drivers. Grrrrr

Greenpeace calls out tech giants for carbon footprint fumble

Re: WTF????

How very dare people post opinions I disagree with. I demand my subscription back! Oh, ....

FTX crypto-villain Sam Bankman-Fried convicted on all charges

One can feel some sympathy for individual investors taken in by this scammer. But large corporate investors? Was the "too good to be true", offshore-located multi-billion dollar scheme, run apparently on a spreadsheet not showing any red flags?

"Due diligence - we've heard of it!"

Mind you, I know of the CEO of a British insurer who bought a Spanish company from a guy he met in a bar there. Spoiler alert: it didn't end well.

Word turns 40: From 'new kid on the block' to 'I can't believe it's not bloatware'

Re: first time I saw MS Windows

Word's competition was mainly word processing systems running on dedicated hardware. Wang was big (no sniggering at the back).

IBM flags up NorthPole chip to scale AI – though it's still far from shipping

Transputer anyone? Anyone over 50, at least :)

Cisco warns of critical flaw in Emergency Responder code

"released January, 2019"

Good grief! This would have been considered a fundamental flaw in 1989, but in 2019??

Doom developer John Carmack thinks artificial general intelligence is doable by 2030

Those that look at LLMs like ChatGPT and decide AGI is 'only a few years away' are like a child that has seen a conjuror produce a coin from behind their ear and thinks they have found the solution to the national debt.

Local governments aren't businesses – so why are they force-fed business software?

I'm no fan of Oracle, but I don't see why a council's needs for an ERP system differ hugely from those of a commercial enterprise. Brum's needs don't differ from those of a chain store more than those of a chain store differ from a construction contractor. Because accountancy rules are the same for all (debits still go in the column nearest the window).

Large commercial organisations are equally capable of screwing things up, but the difference is that when they do, heads (OK deputy heads) will roll. This never happens in government.

New Zealand supermarket's recipe-generating AI takes toxic output to a new level

Re: Users huh!

As the old saying goes: a skilful developer can build a system that's fool-proof; a highly skilled one can build a system that's idiot-proof; but nobody ever built a system that's cretin-proof.

Larry Ellison a major contributor to Blair Institute vaccine database plan

Re: the B.Liar effect...

It's astonishing that two egos that size can exist on the same planet, let alone in the same room.

This AI is better than you at figuring out where a street pic was taken just by looking at it

Re: Once again, powerful pattern matching being dressed up as "AI"

Google Lens does this pretty well.