Posts by Neil Barnes

Add bacteria to the list of things that can run Doom

Re: Yes...

It's probably a walrus.

Yes...

But can it run Crysis?

The literal Rolls-Royce of EVs is recalled over fire risk

Re: Required edits:

Oh yes. BMWs are allowed to break down. Rolls Royces merely occasionally fail to proceed.

Apple sets new 16,000-foot iPhone drop test after 737 fuselage fail

Re: Sucked?

Definitely sucks, but there ain't no[0] such thing as 'suction'. Only pushing from a high pressure zone to a lower.

[0] Absent Maxwell's demon, of course.

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

Re: Barbarians …

Five words: lapsang souchong, black, no sugar.

Wait, security courses aren't a requirement to graduate with a computer science degree?

A dozen years ago I was made redundant and spent a year writing a Master's thesis for the Open University: the degree I received was titled "Computing for Commerce and Industry".

Although I wrote code - lots of it - to demonstrate and prove my thesis, not one line of that code appeared in the final document, and nor was any of it assessed.

Boeing goes boing: 757 loses a wheel while taxiing down the runway

Crew not included in passenger count, perhaps? Though twelve crew seems a touch high.

While I would not dare to speak for Americans as a class, I have noticed a number of times recently that there seems to be a usage of 'tyre' (or possibly 'tire') to refer to both the black rubber bit, and the complete assembly with the metal bit in the middle and the rubber bit around it.

Is it possible that this is simply a case of that usage?

'Birthplace of Amazon' on the market for $2.28M

giving a healthy return of 52 percent

Not until it sells and gets the price they're pushing, it hasn't...

The rise and fall of the standard user interface

Re: Mint, which methodically put that UI back

* too late to edit: I meant scroll bars.

Mint, which methodically put that UI back

Which is the major reason I use Mint.

It's not that it's intrinsically better or worse than other interfaces (for some value of better or worse) but that it's better for _me_.

(Though there are still some holes in the Mint world, particularly around the operation of menu bars).

Apple has botched 3D for decades. So good luck with the Vision Pro, Tim

But to be fair, without those head-worn devices, the 'falling over chairs or demolishing the TV while wearing one' section of Youtube would be a lot less busy.

Tesla Cybertruck gets cyberstuck during off-roading expedition

"Durable and rugged enough to go anywhere"

There isn't a supermarket car park anywhere it can't conquer.

Which is probably fair enough, given the usual use of 4x4 vehicles on this side of the pond.

OSIRIS-REx's stuck asteroid sample canister finally cracked open by NASA

Re: Finally

Because we've stopped using the 3/8th so much?

The one with the metric socket set in the pocket -->

UK water giant admits attackers broke into system as gang holds it to ransom

Wait a minute...

Why the hell do Southern Water (or indeed any utility company) need to collect any personally identification? You are buying services from them; the only thing they need to know is (a) an address and (b) that the money keeps coming in. Some sort of customer number to link payments to location might be handy, but that is all they *need* until such time as you wish to terminate their service. At that point, it's reasonable that they require some sort of evidence that *you* are a person who has a right to terminate it (wouldn't want any Tom, Dick, or Harry turning my water off!) but it's *not* reasonable that they keep any such identifiable documentation... yes, send us a scan of your rates bill with your name and address, and we will note on our database that this was the document used to identify you.

What possible reason can there be to gather this sort of identification other than for this final case?

AI PC hype seems to be making PCs better – in hardware terms, at least

to make it an enjoyable experience

Is it possible to have an enjoyable AI experience?

Sierra Space bursts full-scale inflatable space habitat module

Re: 5.171 bar

Don't they use hectopascals these days (aka millibar)?

Space habitat goes pop!

This strikes me as a sensible way of doing things...

HP's CEO spells it out: You're a 'bad investment' if you don't buy HP supplies

Re: "to make printing a subscription"

Fortunately, my ancient black and white Brother 2150N continues to print without caring what third party toner cartridge goes in, every five or six years. Now if only I could persuade the cartridge suppliers that actually, thank you, I *don't* need another cartridge every couple of weeks...

Re: malware to be introduced via print cartridges

I was wondering about how to execute code from such a chip: my thought was that the obvious way to do this would be to send some randomish number to the chip, which performs some transformation magic and sends it back; if the printer gets back the (transformed) code it's expecting, then it's happy. So in that scenario, perhaps the rogue chip returns a lot more data, crashes the stack, and executes something on the return?

It would still need to get something into the printer's system that could be executed... but of course, since everything is unnecessarily connected to the intarwebs these days...

malware to be introduced via print cartridges

Surely it's already been introduced by HP? And the way to stop anyone else introducing it is very simple: don't include parts in the cartridge that the printer needs to talk to.

Google to bring India’s Unified Payments Interface to the world

“reducing dependence on conventional money transfer channels.”

And yet I somehow feel that exchange rates will _still_ remain at 2.75% below the published exchange rates...

Alphabet CEO tells Googlers: More job cuts on the way

Re: Hmm

You misspelled 'unemployment'.

Companies, even giant-sized American ones, have a responsibility to the people they employ and the societies in which they exist, not just to shareholders in the next quarter.

Fujitsu gets $1B market cap haircut after TV disaster drama airs

Re: Fushitesu

Only if they float!

The 'nothing-happened' Y2K bug – how the IT industry worked overtime to save world's computers

6 * 10 ^ lots

I had the enviable task of identifying every piece of equipment in the BBC World Service, discovering whether it had a computer/controller in it, and if so, confirming either that it had no date handling or that it could cope with Y2k. Most of it wasn't an issue. But I also had to sort out a couple of HP Unix boxes and it was quickly ascertained that the current OS couldn't handle it, and that the hardware couldn't handle the next OS which could. There were two suitable computers in the country, which we bought; I had to manage getting them to the site (not on the same truck!) and the new OS installed and tested.

That done, I went and spent Y2k new year on Copacabana beach with six million partying Brazilians.

Wing, Alphabet's drone delivery unit, designs bigger bird to deliver pasta, faster

ingredients for dinner - pasta, marinara sauce, parmesan cheese, canned olives and garlic.

I despair.

What an unmitigatedly pointless system. Delivery by air for those poor unfortunates who can't plan both a dinner party *and* the food required ahead of time? Or for those imbeciles who can't cope with a couple of days wait between ordering something and having it delivered? Even ignoring the risk to other air users (and as indicated, ground users too) this is nothing more than a self-aggrandizing waste of resources.

Study: Thousands of businesses just love handing over your info to Facebook

adverts specific to your needs

I'm not sure there are any adverts specific to my - or any other person's - needs.

I feel no need to be advertised at. There are still usable search engines if I need a specific product, or class thereof.

Working from home never looked better: Leopard stalks around Infosys and TCS campuses

any fashion house

But darling, isn't simply everyone wearing chain mail this season?

---> the leopard proof one, obvs.

Boss fight between Donkey Kong champ and leaderboard org ends with settlement

thereby increase the value of the company

What sort of an insane world do I live in, where a list of high scores has 'value'?

How Sinclair's QL computer outshined Apple's Macintosh against all odds

Re: outSHONE

'gifted' as a verb. It's perfectly correct, if until recently archaic, but it makes me cringe every time I hear/see it. They gave it, damnit!

Re: outSHONE

I conjugate

You conjugate

He is American...

But still, it's better to conjugate than never!

Reports that China's military uses Baidu's AI lead to stock plunge

Re: South China Morning Post

It should... and thinking about it, 'South China/Morning Post' has a certain ring to it :)

South China Morning Post

I'm old. When I see SCMP, I think INS8060 and the Sinclair MK14.

Microsoft prices new Copilots for individuals and small biz vastly higher than M365 alone

It's a fair bet that this doesn't work with Linux.

Oh dear.

What a pity.

Never mind.

FTC secures first databroker settlement banning sale of sensitive location data

requires the company to honor opt-out requests

I think they may have misspelled "requires the company to make all data collection opt-in, with opt-out at any time on demand".

But then, what would their raison d'etre be if they did the decent thing?

Infosys co-founder doubles down on call for 70-hour work weeks

Remember, for every self-made billionaire, there are a billion people down a buck...

Cloudflare defends firing of staffer for reasons HR could not explain

Human Resources

You are a plug in replaceable part. As such, the company expects you to give it your full loyalty and commitment, but offers nothing similar in return. Also, do you have any children? We have some chimneys that need sweeping.

Silicon Valley weirdo's quest to dodge death – yours for $333 a month

That's rather my point. As I approached retirement age I discussed this with my doctor, as to whether I would be likely to need my pension pot for years or if I should just pull it out and blow it on fast cars and fast women. He suggested that with three grandparents who reached a hundred (and one who died of silicosis in his eighties) and two parents going strong at the time in their eighties, I probably had a healthy set of genes irrespective of other issues.

Re: X (née Twitter) ?

We... are the knights who say 'X' ?

The best way to a healthy old age is to have healthy old parents and grandparents.

Pots of money doesn't hurt, either, but it's not the be all and end all (expect for expensive medical care).

Not even poor Notepad is safe from Microsoft's AI obsession

I rarely resort to profanity

But any alleged AI getting between me and my deathless prose can fuck right off.

Data wrangler Zuckerberg becomes world's least likely cattle rancher

5,000 square feet?

That's not going to be space for many cows...particularly if he wants to keep anything else underground.

Cutting-edge microscopy reveals bottled water has 'up to 100 times' more bits of plastic than previously feared

Re: Mount Inaccessible

Also, do I prefer my water delivered through plastic pipes (or plastic bottles) containing microplastics, or through lead[0] pipes as in days of yore? (I don't buy bottled water and I don't filter what comes out of the tap. My landlord thinks I'm crazy but last time I checked I wasn't dead yet.)

[0] Other metals are available, e.g. copper or iron, but I think lead is the least friendly.

OpenAI: 'Impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials'

Users may not know <... > whether they are infringing."

Given the recent publicity, it would be hard to argue that a user was unaware of the possibility of infringement.

But then, who expects statistics to produce art?

Avoiding AI-capable PCs will be impossible by 2027

Re: 2028: Year of the Linux desktop

Hmm. Which would I rather buy? A shiny new windows laptop with AS installed? Or last year's top end model, recycled by some exec who simply has to have the latest and greatest?

Hint: option two, followed by the immediate installation of penguins, is my normal way of buying computers...

Road to Removal: A blueprint for yanking billions of tons of CO2 out of our atmosphere

Print more money. Lots more money. But... don't let anyone spend it. Hide it away in a nice dry vault to keep its carefully hoarded carbon load safe!

(You could just print more reports on global warming to achieve the same effect)

The one with the nice big pockets --->

After injecting cancer hospital with ransomware, crims threaten to swat patients

Re: Brutality

The snag with this kind of approach is the same as that with massive prison sentences. It's often satisfying when some miscreant is sentenced to one but its hard to say how well such sentences - even capital punishment - works as a deterrent. Clearly it's not 100% or you wouldn't have huge prisons full of sentenced prisoners. Obviously the prisoners (assuming guilt) either didn't know about the scale of sentence they could expect (unlikely), they felt the reward was worth the risk, or they (most likely, I think) thought they would never be caught.

I agree entirely that these cyber attackers should disappear, but I'm not convinced that this approach is going to work for many of them. It's certainly not going to work for state actors; it's hard to see, for example, retribution actually happening in say North Korea or Russia.

Speaking from a position of complete ignorance, I might suggest better compartmentalisation of access to the data, and most likely a damn sight less data being collected and retained in the first place? I know that's not going to work when the target is something like a hospital, but it might be a start...

Neil

It's been two decades since Spirit landed on the red sands of Mars

Did I do a good job?

Guys?

AMD talks up car chips it hopes will join you for a ride some time soon

Re: Some people do like this up to a point

plus automatic lights and wipers are great.

For some, I suppose; personally I find them both disturbing to use, and quite often wrong. I see many modern cars - presumably with auto lights since the light switch doesn't appear to have an 'off' position any more - driving in poor visibility but bright conditions and no headlights. I can only assume that the automatics have decided it's bright enough not to need lights...

And - this is purely a personal thing, I suspect - I find the can't-make-it's-mind-up aspect of intermittent auto wipers extremely distracting. I much prefer a constant beat, or a constant delay between sweeps, to the automatics idea of nah, not raining enough yet, oooh, let's go double speed, sweep, pause, sweep, pause, sweep, pause-and-a-half, sweep. It does my head in.

For lights, though, I don't know why they bother fitting a switch at all; there is never an occasion while the car is moving when if sidelights are required, dipped beams are also required. And few good reasons not to have the lights on in the daytime; just leave the damn things on all the time. (Fiat have arranged for years that when the ignition is off, the lights are off, so they can be left switched on all the time; my current Renault does the same and a recent rental Citroen (horrible in almost every respect until the automatics were turned off) did the same.)