Posts by Charlie Clark

MI5: Gosh, awkward. We looked down the sofa and, yeah, we *do* have intel on privacy bods

Re: Yeesh

It is the nature of intelligence services will always expand unless they are expressly limited. The bigger they are, the more suspicious and inefficient they become.

Yeah, but won't somebody think of the children!

Who wants rights when imagined threat is scary enough?

Linux kernel's 'seat warmer' drops 4.19-rc5 with – wow – little drama

Re: Inclusiveness demands tolerance

China can and will dispose of its problems with supreme brutality.

It can't machine gun babies into existence!

By comparing the two (slacktivism and political-economic systems) you weaken the argument. Attack slacktivism and the codes of conduct for the value-signalling for the tokenism they are.

Re: Inclusiveness demands tolerance

These virtue signalling cock wombles and their whole victimhood mentality will eventually drag the politically correct west to its knees

Why does it always have to be so apocalyptic? I agree that slacktivist slogans generally achieve nothing and are a distraction, but I don't really think it's fair to think of them as the proof of decadance. The West is facing challenging, most notably demography, but China has its own problems in that area.

Hashtags don't put food on the table, a roof over your head and your kids in school.

Re: Who are these people

'You can and will be judged solely on your code quality'

This is still too subjective. There have been numerous disputes about what constitutes code quality: system d.

Sometimes you need an (designated) adult in the room who takes the decision as to whether some thing goes in or not and the litmus test is being able to accept the decision. In the world of open source, the fork is always an option.

I'm not a fan of him personally but I am prepared to listen to his arguments.

Open-source alt-droid wants to know if it's still leaking data to Google

Re: extensive hardware

If take up is sufficient to convince device makers to do some small-ish production runs then the hope might be that desire for a Google & Apple free

Difficult to see that appealing to manufacturers and we've already seen the Cyanogen model fail even with some companies happy to use it.

I can see the EU doing some kind of "provider selection" for phones, though it would be a mockery if this was only for Android.

Re: Why?

Read the conversation in comments here

Not that convincing and very close to chicken and egg: you won't get "mum and dad" users without extensive hardware support and you won't get that by having a hard fork.

Re: Lineagoes + FDroid?

suspect there won't be a version 15 for the G

Why do you think that? It's only a bit older than my S5s so the hardware shouldn't be a deal breaker. But getting Treble to run is quite a bit of work I believe.

Re: Open source contacts, phone, and SMS apps?

Signal handles SMS just fine but does rely on some play services stuff for some things.

Re: Lineagoes + FDroid?

The LOS installer uses the Google one to bootstrap and migrate accounts. But this can be avoided without a fork, as you're obviously doing. Running an AOSP fork is difficult as both CyanogenMod and Lineage have shown. Might make more sense to provide alternative build instructions for those that are interested so that whatever is different can actually run on a phone.

Big fan of LineageOS myself though I went back to 14.1 on one of my S5's last week due to problems with Bluetooth. At least the relevant bug has been assigned.

Apple's dark-horse macOS Mojave is out (and it's already pwned)

Re: My iMac is too old

Not sure what the bottleneck is that prevents Mojave working satisfactorily.

Usually Apple being arsed to recompile the (video) drivers. Mavericks contained the major API changes to make it easier to develop for both IOS and MacOS with the same base.

Re: A Mojave new feature

But my point was that you can't modify a file (*) without opening it

Of course, you're completely right and it's poorly worded. It should say something like change something in a DOCX file directly in Finder or an e-mail* without have to start Word.

* Not sure about the practicability of this, to be honest. Perhaps when you forward something and want to remove pages… Just being able to print files would be nice: I note that I can "share" my log files but have to choose an app to open them in order to be able to print them.

Re: A Mojave new feature

You can make some changes to it directly from your email program without saving the attachment

Taligent and the much underused "Services" menu rebadged as QuickLook. Apple have definitely put a lot of work into QuickLook over the last few years. Of course, if you can work with the builtin tools then there's even less reason for you to access the file system and, say, put files where you want them. This is still fine on MacOS, but a mate of mine with an I-Phone and an I-Pad is preparing to go Android.

No rush

As with most operating system updates it's never advisable to install them until at least the first set of fixes is available and MacOS is no exception. Invariably something is broken and "security" has changed.

Mojave looks singularly uninspiring, which is why the "dark theme" gets so much attention. Wonder if it's heralding some MacBooks with OLED screens? Not that the annual updates should be featured packed: slow and steady is fine with me.

Re: Dare I dream?

IIRC Bluetooth was broken in Lion and the fix was only available in Mountain Lion. That fixed the problems I had with Lion but I've never found Bluetooth on MacOS to be particularly reliable. For example, music playback will stop unexpectedly after a couple of hours. Basically, Apple expects you only to use it for its keyboard and mouse and to buy expensive "Air" branded accessories for anything else.

How do some of the best AI algorithms perform on real robots? Not well, it turns out

All the machine learning stuff is very domain-specific: subsystem is used for processing LIDAR data, another one is used for video, etc. AFAIK no one is using ML itself to orchestrate this, though no doubt certain combinations are probably running through ML controllers. But, of course, more data is always needed, which is why all the companies are keen to shift stuff as quickly as possible so that their customers (eternal beta-testers) can collect that data for them,

iFixit engineers have an L of a time pulling apart Apple's iPhone XS

Re: Slavish followers

Apple does research and develops products.

Apple has developed 4G standards, OLED and touch screens, Lithium batteries, Blueooth, wireless LAN, HDR imaging, near field communications, etc? Wow, that is impressive!

Nearly all Apple's plagiarism suits have been about design aspects: rounded corners and the positioning of buttons. It does employ a great deal of talented engineers and developers who've done a great job on chip and phone design and software development but all within a competitive environment. It buys components (memory, screens, etc) from its competitors and this is how it should be. Compared with other industries the mobile phone industry has developed incredibly over the last thirty years.

You've been notched!

For the price of the phone and the size of the screen I reckon the battery is under sized. Not that will worry purchasers. Nor the potentially swingeing price of a replacement. Got to hand it to Apple they really know how to notch their customers!

Tech to solve post-Brexit customs woes doesn't exist yet, peers say

Re: Yesterdays news

So not all of it needs to be legislated for at national level. In fact probably not that much of it.

That's naive. It's been clear from the start that unanimous agreement of the 27 is required and that any deal will require ratification. Otherwise there would be no push to try and get stuff done by November and then hopefully railroad it through parliaments before the end of March.

I'm beginning to feel that the Commission have not been negotiating in good faith.

The Commission has been consistent throughout the period, which is more than be said of the UK, which for about a year had no position on most aspects. Presumably, the idea was that everything could be done at the last minute at a summit as previous compromises with UK concessions have. But this is a very different kind of negotiation and something the UK simply wasn't prepared for.

Legally, and I suspect also politically, it would have been fine to take the necessary time to prepare for negotiations before asking to leave.

Re: Majority of trade already outside of EU

But someone trying to insult someone else in an online forum and failing is forever

I'll stick with my ad hominem and you can stick to your passive aggression, shithead.

Re: Yesterdays news

But the EU currently say they will not allow Northern Ireland to leave the customs union.

An open border betweern Northern Ireland and the Republic is a requirement of the Good Friday agreement. This has been stated repeatedly all through the process.

EU negotiations only ever get agreed at 4am the day after the final summit was due to finish

Matters less this time: the real problem will be getting the member states to ratify any agreement on time. Personally, I think that trying to do this after October won't be possible before the end of March 2019 and that we're essentially seeing the motions that befor an acceptance of the transitional plan becomes inevitable. But no need for a conspiracy theory where incompetence and arrogance are to be found in such abundance.

Re: Majority of trade already outside of EU

I was pointing out how sensitive the EU is to disruption to their exports.

Which country apart from the US isn't? But having a trade deficit doesn't necessarily give you the better hand when it comes to negotiations not least because the deficit has to be financed some way.

Like I said, better get back to your fox-hunting. You don't understand international trade and, worse, you don't seem to care about those whose livelihoods depend upon it.

The time for posturing passed when May sent the application to Brussels to leave the EU. Anything that doesn't preseve as much of the existing arrangements as possible is going to very disruptive for all concerned.

Re: Yesterdays news

The current approach to leaving the EU along with the government's history of managing projects reminds me of this Smith and Jones sketch. Gets closer to the truth every day.

Re: Majority of trade already outside of EU

Majority of trade already outside of EU

Falls at the first hurdle. Better stick to fox-hunting.

Never mind Brexit. UK must fling more £billions at nuke subs, say MPs

Re: Simplistic solution to two problems

Tidal, wind and solar power were shit in the past, are currently shit, and will always be shit.

Nonsense. In the right places they have great yields and are relatively inexpensive to maintain. The problem is, as you point out, baseload but this is as much a problem with the network as anything else. The larger the network, the greater the likelihood that conditions in one place will to some extent balance out those elsewhere. The move is from baseload to transitory backup, which can come from storage or gas.

Clean nuclear has been just around the corner for years. And still hasn't arrived. Meanwhile we have to deal with the legacy of decades of nuclear power and the, mericfully few but still very real, catastrophic accidents there have been.

Re: Simplistic solution to two problems

if it's cost effective, make nuclear reactors. if it's not, don't.

Depends a lot on how you define cost effective. Historically costs have excluded decommissioning and processing waste because if they did private industry wouldn't touch it.

A spot of Python in your Azure automation? Step right this way, sir

Re: Python 2 support

True! So I'm still using Python 2 ...

Time to start planning your migration. I will be dropping support for 2.7 in future versions of my libraries and I suspect others will, too.

Re: Python 2 support

MS is nice to support Python, but doing 2-only is an odd choice

You'd think so but I think Python 2 is still standard for lots of the infrastructure stuff (openstack, et al.) Probbably won't make a lot of difference when Python 2 is no longer officially supported for this kind of stuff.

It's only about 250 lines of code and I've tried hard to wring any performance I could out of it. 3.6 surprised me by cutting Python2.7's time pretty much in half.

That does surprise me because 3.6 isn't noticeably faster as far as I can tell, unless you can take advantage of asyncio. 3.7 has faster dictionaries.

Re: Python 2 support

It's taken a long time for Python 3 to provide reasons to switch but 3.7 finally includes speed improvements on top of things like asyncio.

But, yeah, I want my print statement back, too.

Now here's an idea: Break up Amazon to get more shareholder cash

Re: Stuff market analysts - Bezos can do what he wants

It IS his company

Which sort of highlights some of the problems with Silicon Valley companies going public: the boards are supposed to run the company.

Of course, everyone's happy as long as the share price keeps going up but that is no excuse for poor governance.

Re: Controversial?

@Roland6

Right, but Amazon is not really a conglomerate in the classical sense, or even the way Berkshire Hathaway is. The retail side relies heavily on tax rules and arbitrage to remain competitive and the whole construct is based on Bezos saying "trust me…" a lot. The share structure doesn't provide enough oversight in my view.

Re: Predicted

Bezos clearly doesn't want to do this and the share structure gives him a controlling interest.

Controversial?

Controversially, May is reported as saying that Amazon ought to break itself in half, separating AWS from the online shopping business.

People, me among them, have been suggesting the split for years. There may be some financial advantages in keeping the warehousing and distribution parts with the digital side but it's difficult to see business advantages.

No, the current structure encourages a higher share price at the cost of dividends. A normal business would never be allowed to operate at such a high price to earnings ratio but people keep betting that Amazon will just keep getting bigger.

Put your tin-foil hats on! Wi-Fi can be used to guesstimate number of people hidden in a room

Re: CCTV

CCTV isn't used for footfall, you can just use motion detectors for that and you can passively detect mobile phones fairly easily.

However, there are apparently tests using cameras to read behaviour and interests…

more useless as a radar.

Except for rain. I thought there was research being done using base stations to get very granular data on humidity?

It’ll be a while before something like this is practical, but there are obvious areas where it would be useful.

I can't think of any areas where this would be more useful than other existing approaches. In particular, the example of bodies in a building shows a lack of understanding of how the technique works: you can't just point a wifi beam at something, you need a baseline.

Watt the heck is this? A 32-core 3.3GHz Arm server CPU shipping? Yes, says Ampere

Re: Drivers ?

ISA = Industry Standard Architecture as in the IBM PC. This is what enabled the clones and hence entrenched the x86 eco-system. SoCs, which make up the majority of ARM chips, don't come with an ISA which is one of the reasons why it's so hard to get drivers for them.

Re: Drivers ?

Why should we assume that? The lack of an ISA for ARM has been the biggest hindrance to wider adoption, of which I'm a great fan.

If you're used to cross-compiling code, playing with exotic architectures, and are patient, then you've probably had a smooth journey.

The problem isn't really cross-compiling. The toolchains for this across x86, x86_64 and ARM v7 and v8 are pretty well-established. And if the target market is large scale then compile-time tweaks are less of an issue than ease of deployment and power consumption. The bigger problem that has held ARM back in data centre is about drivers, which can't just be cross-compiled.

Microsoft pulls plug on IPv6-only Wi-Fi network over borked VPN fears

Re: "IPv4-only hosts are unreachable without either a dual stack or an address translator"

The packets hit an IPv6 router and my address becomes 10.10.10.10.214.31.49.16 - yep, that's rather long to type.

You're basically pushing NAT. If you want to know the problems with that then you might want to talk to some engineers in east Asia who hit the real problems with IPv4 years ago. Europe, and particularly the US, have yet to experience the fun of multiple layers of NAT.

What?

But it does explain how come Microsoft's main webite – Microsoft.com – is not IPv6 only.

It has nothing to do with that. And websites don't need to and shouldn't be IPv6 only. IPv6 should be, as indeed IPv4 is, invisible to the vast majority of users.

I read the article as indicating that several vendors still have work to do and now have an added incentive to get IPv6 support working. Wouldn't surprise me if the switch to IPv6 only at Microsoft happens within the next year.

PS. Chrome UX Report provides more representative global data, Alexa has a heavy US bias.

Check out this link! It's not like it'll crash your iPhone or anything (Hint: Of course it will)

Re: Probably snobbish, but...

Actually, I think that CSS may actually be Turing complete. But, yeah, writing HTML & CSS isn't programming.

UK.gov isn't ready for no-deal Brexit – and 'secrecy' means businesses won't be either

Re: Y2K all over again

Disaster probably not. That should be reserved for, well, real disasters. But there consequences could vary from inconvenient to downright severe. I'm sure the transitional arrangement with the backstop will kick in come what may but supply chains, customs, flights, banking, etc. are all likely to be disrupted to an unknown degree.

UK.gov finally adds Galileo and Copernicus to the Brexit divorce bill

Not as part of an arrangement to stay. I'm sure it will be part of the terms to rejoin.

Probably on the same terms of the never never than Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden have (and that Britain itself signed up to): "when the time is right". The Eurogroup has to do some reforming which, due to consensus being required, will be easier to do with a smaller group.

Re: To anyone pro-Brexit

Don't even bother posting on The Reg.

Yeah, why bother when you've got the BBC's HYS and The Mail to vent your brainfarts.

Re: But Nigel was in favour of a second referendum!

It was always a case of do what I say not what I do. The whole idea of leaving was mainly a way of putting pressure on the Tory party to adopt particular policies and losing the referendum closely would have given them the opportunity to claim that it was the wrong question or that the government fiddled the process.

If it's possible to cancel Article 50, then that's viable and can be sold to the public. But joining the Euro is economically insane

I don't think that joining the Euro would be forced on the UK should some arrangement to stay in the EU be drafted. Apart from the politics of selling the deal to the Brits (everybody would scream right up until they found the coins still had a picture of the queen on them), there are politics of the Eurozone and the future direction of the currency to deal with. But I also don't think it would be economically insane either. UK fiscal policy is closer to that of Germany than that of Italy and it hasn't favoured devaluation for years because it has a labour market that is flexible enough to deal with competitive pressures directly.

But let's not put the cart before the horse.

NHS smacks down hundreds of staffers for dodgy use of social media, messaging apps

… FFS

More than a thousand NHS staffers

The NHS has employees not staffers. The linguistic overspill from US election coverage is really annoying! (Electoral campaigns staffed by staffers. The term is used because they are often unpaid volunteers without employment contracts.

I'm really going to annoy myself by, like, imagining the article being read, like, by someone frying their vowels, like, a lot.