Posts by Piro

Here's why prolonged Russia-Ukraine war would be really bad for us, say chip designers

Unless you sell them to..

.. Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and so on.

PayPal, Visa, Mastercard suspend Russian services

Re: Who is the target?

Yeah, I believe that to be the case too. After all, the truly wealthy have had methods of laundering money and moving it about avoiding taxes and checks since time immemorial. The average man-on-the-street? Not so much.

IT advice fuelled by beer is the best IT advice of all, right?

So the sipping sage was right

I don't see the problem here, liquid inspiration led to the correct answer in a flash!

This data center will be Europe’s first with hydrogen backup power

Re: Green washing

Most hydrogen is produced as a byproduct of gas production, as a byproduct of oil extraction.

Also, how much more volatile is hydrogen than diesel to store, long term? Much more irritating to handle, I'd wager.

Diesel is fine as a fuel for a backup generator, it's not regularly used anyway. If it is commonly used, then there's a general issue in that country.

Apple tweaks AirTags to be less useful for stalkers, thieves

Yes, that's how AirTags work.

Critical 'remote escalation' flaw in Android 12 fixed in Feb security patch batch

Re: Extended support?

155mm tall is out of smartphone and in to phablet territory, and therefore fecking ginormous.

That said, most devices seem to be huge these days, I guess people have bigger hands and pockets than they used to.

Toshiba reveals 30TB disk drive to arrive by 2024

Re: far too big

Most people were coming from hard drives of around 500GB at that time down to the 120GB SSD for the system, so in my humble and mostly useless opinion, a 120GB SSD was not adequate, but rather popular because larger SSDs were price-prohibitive.

Samsung reveals new smartphones, tablets... and yes. The S22 Ultra is undeniably good

Re: For 1K in cash I want

https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2020&chk35mm=selected&sOSes=2&idCardslot=1&idBatRemovable=1

Galaxy XCover series, maybe

Nothing reasonable here buddy

"going down to a more reasonable £769"

Ridiculous money for a phone.

Nothing to scoff at: Crisps and nuts biz KP Snacks smacked in ransomware hack attack

Kenyon Produce?

I didn't know that, thanks for the trivia.

Happy birthday, Windows Vista: Troubled teen hits 15

Re: Vista was actually pretty good

It used a ton of RAM to render those windows though, a copy in VRAM and system RAM, the system RAM copy was removed in Windows 7, and so became lighter.

Also, it removed all GDI hardware acceleration, which meant that almost every application's drawing became markedly slower. Some things returned in 7, but it's never been the same. XP/2003 are much, much more responsive than every version after even on far superior hardware, when it comes to drawing basic controls.

It's so tragic that every time I hit an old server and log on, I'm blown away by basic things like resizing windows or opening folders.

Vista was definitely the time Windows got bloated, and it never truly recovered. They did some work to that end in 7, but every subsequent release has just poured molasses in to the code to a comical degree.

Re: Windows stopped being good....

Nah, try to live with NT 4.0. It isn't much fun.

God of War: How do you improve on perfection? You port it to PC, obviously

IBM PC compatible. Is it really?

PC doesn't mean personal computer in the general sense.

Silk could tie up all-but-unbreakable encryption, say South Korean boffins

Exactly. If it's used for one-time seeding of a key, creation of a key, fair enough, but it can't be used as a method of authentication, as it changes all the time, independently of other factors controllable in the real world (e.g. temperature, humidity) and in an unpredictable manner.

The beam of light alone reading the silk "card" would cause a different pattern each time, unless it was extremely precise, and there was a good deal of "fudge factor" built-in to the reading process - and in that fudge lies insecurity.

Do you know what TikTok is? Then you might make a good magistrate, says Ministry of Justice

It's something I've never installed the app for..

.. and have blocked entirely at a DNS level on my home network.

Throw away your Ethernet cables* because MediaTek says Wi-Fi 7 will replace them

Re: 40Gbps sounds amazing, but...

2.5 & 5 Gbps PoE needs to become popular and cheap, quickly. It's such a shame that there's an unmet need right in the middle of the market. The standards work, and they allow you to re-use a lot of existing cabling, whilst providing worthwhile performance increases.

Where's all the gear?

IBM confirms new mainframe to arrive 'late in first half of 2022'

Re: odd wording

It's a marketing press release. Of course it contains no useful information.

But to be less cynical (as hard as that is), I assume what they're getting at is that they've sold more Z15 computing power than other individual models previously, which is both a testament to the power of their newer Z-series CPU, but also of the fact they've managed to keep sales up.

First they came for Notepad. Now they're coming for Task Manager

Mhm.. mystery meat

What a s***e looking interface.

COVID-19 was a generational opportunity for change at work – and corporate blew it

Yeah, they didn't learn anything. Intentionally.

It's a crying shame.

Tesla Full Self-Driving videos prompt California's DMV to rethink policy on accidents

Re: As ever, fully autonomous cars

I highly doubt it will ever be "better than humans", it's just too big of an ask.

I'd put more effort in to fixing dangerous junctions, and taking nutcases off the road.

Re: Two Teslas

That's weird, my Opel has sign detection. Hell, some of them even allow you to set cruise control based on the signs. As far as I can tell, it was first developed by GM and landed in the Opel/Vauxhall Insignia before others, so it would be bizarre if Ford had a patent on it.

Software engineer jailed for 2 years after using RATs and crypters to steal underage victims' intimate pics

Re: Not again..

It's the Kevin Spacey defence™.

"You engaged in highly inappropriate sexual conduct with minors".

"I have news everybody, I'm gay".

Logitech Signature M650: A mouse that will barely emit a squeak or a clickety-click

That crap is the worst. I'm determined to avoid products with soft-touch plastic.

I have a corkscrew that is covered in soft-touch plastic. Despite it being left in the box and rarely ever used, it's sticky beyond belief, the colour comes off on one's hands, the thing is a disgusting disaster.

Also happens to mice, wacom styluses, whatever the hell else you can find with that crap on.

Less than PEACH-y: UK's plant export IT system only works with Internet Explorer

Re: I'll see your IE11

It probably was ie6 - reading more closely reveals ie11 needs to open the page in compatibility mode

It takes more clicks to reject their cookies than accept them, so France fines Facebook and Google over €200m

Re: Reject all

Yup, it's horrendous.

Ceefax replica goes TITSUP* as folk pine for simpler times

Correct! Very nostalgic

Google Chrome 97 relaxes privacy protection just a little to help out Microsoft

Not minimal

I use a custom keyboard layout. I highly doubt anyone else in the world has the same keyboard layout installed.

That is very uniquely identifying. I have nothing but choice, post-watershed words for Google.

France loves open source so much, even its cinema borks have Linux behind the scenes

Re: surprised ?

Same everywhere else too. I live in a different EU country, and the absolute universal preference is to install servers in English, with the slim exception of some terminal servers.

God help you if you need to find resources based on a non-English error message. It would actually be really helpful if non-English error dialogues had a button to show the English version, purely for troubleshooting purposes.

Can you get excited about the iPhone 13? We've tried

No, it's still USB 2 as far as I can find out. Lightning is dead weight.

USB-C can carry USB 2.

Online retailers delaying sales of Raspberry Pi 4 model until 2023, thanks to a few good chips getting scarce

AC because you don't want anyone finding out where you live, to steal that valuable piece of kit?

But seriously, nice. It's always enjoyable to see classic kit will preserved.

Re: all eggs, one basket

Not surprised in the slightest. I was warning about this well over a decade ago. Nobody gives a crap when things are cheap and going well.

Developer creates ‘Quite OK Image Format’ – but it performs better than just OK

Re: Colour me impressed...

Correction: Bluray is definitely not lossless. To my knowledge, there is no lossless distribution format.

Blurays typically use AVC, H.264 video compression. Some old ones used MPEG2.

Even digital cinema files use lossy compression in the form of JPEG2000 frames.

Re: Colour me impressed...

I remember that period, and yes, the analogue signal did genuinely look better than the artefact heavy digital signal.

Re: Incredible

Wait, there's another valid line limit other than 80 columns?

No, it could be useful for the web

PNG is widely used, and mobile devices with battery life concerns are an extremely common way to get online these days. Something that lightens the burden when processing images is welcome.

Very nice work, I've been having a gander at the benchmarks.

Re: Pronouncing...

koi would be fine. Maybe it can get a metadata extension called carp

Re: Pronouncing...

Qoi Qarp :)

Will I inhale coronavirus at this restaurant? There’s an app for that

Laudable

I monitor CO2 and PM 2.5 with two separate devices in my home, the data provides some interesting insight in to how stale (or not) the air is, and the dramatic effect of closing doors and having several people gather in one place. I know it's obvious, but having the actual data to compare against starts to give you a feel for how stuffy things are without even having to check, a bit like you get an idea for temperature or speed.

What a pain in the aaS: HPE signs up just 1.125% of its channel to sell hardware delivered as a service

Greenlake

Is essentially a finance model, with constant push to expand. You can't downsize, there's nothing resembling "cloud-like flexibility".

Flash? Nu-uh. Windows 11 users complain of slow NVMe SSD performance

Still get security patches for another year and a bit, with the ESU programme (or some workaround I would surely have no knowledge of).

Let's be honest here

The only people that installed Windows 11 were those who it was forced on, were testing it for some actual reason, or the last, large group: people who don't value their time.

98 SE

Wait, what was wrong with 98 SE? The way I remember it, the issues were with base Windows 98, and SE was a more polished release.

Aircraft can't land safely due to interference with upcoming 5G C-band broadband service

Frequency Unbearably Crowded, Knowingly Extremely Disabling

Fail: Exam paper marked by Elon Musk up for auction

Re: I'm increasingly disliking the man

I have the exact opposite opinion. He's a master troll, which I'm finding rather endearing.

Also, he's rich. Very rich. It insulates you from a lot of the everyday worries, such as caring about what people think on the internet.

Server errors plague app used by Tesla drivers to unlock their MuskMobiles

Re: For the record...

I hope you're not serious, a key in the keyhole and turning it is a fine solution. Who wants a pocket full of phones or fobs when driving?

Might as well put it somewhere... a special hole for the starting device would be convenient.

No, stupid user.

Re: Internet dependency

Yes, astoundingly stupid. I get that maybe some do it for some sense of "convenience", but for crying out loud, make sure you take the actual keyfob/card with you anyway.

Windows 10 2004 is nearing the end of the road. Time for a Windows 11 upgrade?

"Time for a Windows 11 upgrade?"

I refer you to Betteridge's law of headlines.

Rolls-Royce set for funding fillip to build nuclear power stations based on small modular reactor technology

Re: One million homes - I don't think so

That's a feeble kettle for the UK, sounds like a Euro-spec kettle without the almighty power of the 32 Amp ring main.

Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere

Re: My smart TV seems fine

I do that. Originally I left my telly totally offline, but I found the screen mirroring functionality from a phone useful enough, so on the network it went, with all internet traffic dropped