Posts by John Smith 19

Hotter than the Sun: JET – Earth’s biggest fusion reactor, in Culham

Did Footfall inspire Orion or vice versa?

Orion dates from the 1950's. Freeman Dyson's retrospective "Death of a Project" was written for Science around 1965

And Reaaction Engines is in the same science park

Although I'm not sure what there like about access to strangers.

Although if you are an accredited journo perhaps they might answer a few questions.

Firemen fund sues Uber for dousing shares with gas, tossing in a match

Is anyone thinking..... Firemans Fund

"Burn baby, burn."

Mine's the one with Tina Turners Greatest Hits in the pocket.

Valued at $70 Billion. Are you f**king kidding me? Fantasy numbers

So fantasy losses.

The pitch was more like

"It'll cost a bit but we'll be able but by the end we'll most of the taxi business in most of the world. We'll be the Amazon of the taxi business and then you'll really see some money being made."

Note that at no time did I mention the word "monopoly" in this because that would be, y'know, illegal.

TL;DR Vulture capitalist thinks they got high investment/low risk/high profit deal. They didn't.

Mozilla whips out Rusty new Firefox Quantum (and that's a good thing)

Will it slurp your data like Chrome?

If not, I'm in.

Boeing slams $2m on the desk, bellows: Now where's my jetpack?

There have also been a number of "strap on" helicopters from the Easter Block in the 70's

Engineering this is really quite tough. Most of the "jet packs" were in fact rockets (because jets actually have pretty poor T/W ratio unless they're attached to wings). The constantly falling mass meant take off was easy, but hovering and landing insanely tricky. Like the lunar landing simulator, but without the on board computer.

So how fast do you want to go? As you're carrying the fuel can it needs to be fuel efficient as well. My instinct is contra rotating rotor blades could be adequately quiet, relatively easy to steer and reasonably fast but sadly lacks the "coolness" factor of the turbojet whine of a supersonic airflow at your back.

Mobile stock trading apps riddled with security holes

"better to risk being hacked rather than take longer to get an app that..entire portfolio hacked ?"

That's like asking do you want a punch in the face or a knee to the groin, when you don't want either.

But note, it's not their money that's in danger.

It's yours.

And your personal details.

The app is merely a a tool for the trading company to get faster access to your money.

IOW from their PoV security not that necessary, and knowing more about their customers (as cheaply as possible) is always nice (for them).

UK Home Office re-bans cheap call gateways because 'terrorism'

HMG "hardly littered with shining examples of openness and responsiveness."

We have hears citizens express such sentiments

And with our newly legalized powers we know exactly who they are, and will be applying appropriate measures when the time is right.

<signed>

Big Brother.

Data fetishism is not actually a rational policy. It's a disease of the mind.

And one day its sufferers will be diagnosed and treated as such.

Docs ran a simulation of what would happen if really nasty malware hit a city's hospitals. RIP :(

"85 per cent of US hospitals don’t have any IT security staff,” he added."

Which I think is actually a bit worse than the NHS.

Which suggests the US Healthcare industry does not have better security.

It's just been luckier, as this exercise shows.

So far.

Why Uber isn't the poster child for capitalism you wanted

For those who think this s**t is new, or started by Microsoft......

You might like to read this

Over a 15 year period 158 companies were set up to compete with NCR.

153 of them were bankrupt by the end of that period and it was estimated NCR held 95% of all US cash register business.

If you're thinking "Well I guess they just made better products" you have a simple faith in capitalism. *

*In the special needs sense of the word.

The same game since NCR was National Cash Register & Tom Watson Snr did jail time

NCR did it all.

Predatory pricing (but only when necessary. The CEO hated to lose money).

Ignoring patents of small competitors to improve their product.

Tie bigger competitors up in court if they sued.

Release shoddy fake copies of competitors goods to destroy their reputation.

Tomas Watson never saw the inside of a jail cell as the head of IBM.

"a market place dominated by big money and thuggish middlemen."

That would be the "Labour arbitrage" the article talks about.

Welcome to the future.

Fresh chips from Intel (yay?) at 14nm (awww)

Any fool can tell you that's 44 too many.

As you just did.

So what's your plan to get there?

10nm is 45 atoms wide.

No wonder they are close to 3 years behind.

Then there is the the thickness of the oxide to worry about.

Want to keep in contact with friends and family without having to sell your personal data?

"Given the number of people selling boxes to house your Pi even the appearance "

Actually that's sort of the point.

It's the convenience of the bundle that you're buying.

What they get is a) Your money b) A lifetime supply of your data to chomp on for free.

Sounds good as a prototype, but not ready for sale yet?

But actually plonking down cold hard cash for what's actually available now with a promise of "It'll be fixed Real Soon Now."

I think not.

Which is too bad as I like the way they think. Actual knobs, Choosing voice over video (seriously, once you've seen who it is and they are talking and not showing you stuff is it that helpful?)

The worry is this is down to underspec'd processing power. The SW can be fixed, but that's if the horsepower isn't there to begin with what are they going to do?

Brit chip design company Imagination Tech sold to China-linked private equity

"They allowed their company to become dependent upon one large customer. "

Not the first or last company to do that.

I think you'll find Apple (and M & S in UK retail) are quite keen to encourage such dependency.

You'll note no UK investor operation stepped up.

As usual.

But hang on..

If they own the MIPS IP did that mean they did the Intel Management Engine as well?

The one with the "faulty software" that allowed a no password entry and no lockout to the deepest level of control of any Intel processor based server since 2008?

Brit military wants a small-drone-killer system for £20m

" Catch the pigeon for the 21st century"

Like flying moles.

B*****rds.

Australia commits to establish space agency with no budget, plan, name, deadline …

IIRC this is being pushed by South Australia

But congratulations as it seems they are about at the point the British National Space Centre was at when it was established.

Basically a "buyers club" for UK ministerial departments buying payloads and satellite services with no independent budget (operating funds chipped in by the client departments).

They promptly established a them park for space (the British Space Centre) in Leicester.

It took decades to become the British Space Agency, and get an independent budget.

NBD: Adobe just dumped its private PGP key on the internet

"Maybe I am mistaken; I thought the related public key would do the decryption."

I see.

So your not just the regular apologist for bulk governmental surveillance.

You're actually quite ignorant of how this technology works as well.

A useful thing to know.

IoT botnet Linux.ProxyM turns its grubby claws to spam rather than DDoS

This is not the Linux you are looking for. This is the "code monkeys" distro.

5 minutes to assemble

10 minutest to build

0 mins to test.

It's all in the config, the defaults and the continued use of p**s poor design patterns, like hard coded default passwords copy and pasted to every device.

For Facebook, ignorance is the business model: Social net is shocked – SHOCKED – that people behave badly

"“It is difficult to get a man to understand something,..salary depends on..not understanding it.” "

Exactly.

UK Prime Minister calls on internet big beasts to 'auto-takedown' terror pages within 2 HOURS

"All this proves that NO politician,.., has any idea about anything technical."

Not strictly true. David Davis is quite knowledgeable on data bases and excessive state surveillance, and I suspect Tom Watson has had something of a crash course as well.

Sadly I doubt he will survive beyond the official leave date and the entry into the "transitional arrangement," WTF that is.

Then the real finger pointing and blame allocation will begin

"All this from the woman who introduced Sharia law into UK law "

I can never see such a phrase and not be mis-remembering that old Steve Wonder track. A case of

"My Sharia amour?"

"or many people in Northern Ireland pubs."

Another reason not to upset Arlene Foster?

It's a donkey jacket with a Kevlar lining, in case things get boisterous.

"we need to resort to polar coordinates,..angle, to explain any subjects divergence from reality. "

I like that idea. It answers (and measures) the question "How can someone who seems quite intelligent hold views that are so bats**t crazy." There not stupid, they're smart in a very different direction (which makes them much more dangerous than stupid people holding these views).

"Oh, and from personal experience, I've had more than a few breaks from reality here, so I understand it a bit more than some."

I think most of suspected as much. However it's interesting that prior to the release of the Edward Snowden documents most people as cautious as Snowden has shown you have to be to preserve online privacy and security would be thought paranoid. Turns out most people aren't paranoid enough. :-( .

I keep hearing a line from "Enemy of the State" where Will Smith says of Gene Hackman "Oh, you're one of those "conspiracy" nuts," and Hackman replies "No, one of the conspirators."

"Upvote for that link, but disappointed that it misses Ruth wossname,"

Your wrong.

"Some Tory you’ve never heard of, chosen by MPs as leader on the basis that the public does not hate them yet and they cannot be worse than Theresa May. Evens"

I think that covers her.

But you're right. Working class Scottish Tory lesbian. If only she was black and in a wheel chair you'd have electoral Platinum on your hands.

"Unquestioning belief in magic is fine for children who don't know any better, "

I quite like the term "automagic" thinking.

<tech> "So how do you suggest we remove everything you don't like from FB/Twitter/YouTube

<politician> "Automagically of course. No humans intervention at all."

<tech> <thinks> "F**kwit"

"I'm just surprised that she has not banned the sale of Lidl carrier bags while she's at it."

Patience citizen, the Prime Sinister has only so many hours in the day.

Rest assured it's on her list.

<signed>

Big Brother.

Re: Prime Sinister" He may be a clown but he's 20,000 times more capable than you are."

Funny, his Ministry reckon he's pretty lazy and not really too interested in his brief.

IOW he likes the idea of being in charge as long as he doesn't have to do too much actual work, y'know, reading up on stuff and working out an opinion.

But maybe that's just sour grapes from senior civil servants.

Although he didn't see Gove had the knife out for him.

"Prime Sinister"* "First rule of Politician Club: It's never your fault."+

* Nice. Especially as even she (somewhere inside that brain of hers) realizes she will never be able to appoint herself "Lord High Chancellor" as hoped. When she said she expected to carry on till the next election I LOL'd.

You know the back benchers are already drawing the charges against her and Davis for their Crimes against Brexit. Jacob Rees Mogg is probably working on the first draft (along with his acceptance speech of new Tory leader).

+ Excellent point. A good rule that has served many of the spinally challenged members of the political classes.

Shock: Brit capital strips Uber of its taxi licence

"Business abhors a vacuum, something else will appear to fill the void soon "

I believe something already has.

IDK, you wait for one virtual taxi cab company app to come a long to your phone and suddenly there's 2 of them.

The award for worst ISP goes to... it starts with Talk and ends with Talk

The companies at the bottom of these lists just don't give a toss.

Correct.

They, like banks and utility companies rely on customer inertia.

Because they know it works.

This will continue while they can retain customers by just bribing them for the (small) group who decide to change.

British readers. You get get the service you push for. While very few of you will push that will not change.

UK.gov lays down rules for cross-Whitehall data slurps

Can you bet Google will have a project that absolutely demands all the UK data?

I think so.

Blame Canada? $5.7m IBM IT deal balloons to $185m thanks to 'an open bag of money'

So it started small, had lots of issues, then the PTB decide to roll out across the rest of govt

Is anyone else having trouble wondering why you'd do this?

Of course this is the best kind of IBM contract.

The one with a blank check attached.

I've Been Milked

That's nearer the mark.

NASA, wait, wait lemme put my drink down... NASA, you need to be searching for vanadium

Note it's the idea of Vanadium and Carbon together that's

Otherwise it's a Vanadium deposit.

Crap cracked fat-attack Pact app chaps slapped in pact backtrack infract

"I know it isn't the right term for this, but can I call this a pyramid scheme?"

No, but it's got a lot in common with a 419 scheme out of Nigeria.

"I need to verify your identity. Give me all you bank details now."

It's not a coat, it is the chieftains robes of my forefathers.

Quebec takes mature approach to 'grilled cheese' ban

Quoi?

I shrug, gailically and walk out.

BoJo, don't misuse stats then blurt disclaimers when you get rumbled

"We don't have control over the rebated money as we're told how to use it. "

So the words are correct but the sentence is a lie?

Yes, that sound like Bozzer at work all right.

Congress battles Silicon Valley over upcoming US sex trafficking law

But all pimps, data and RL, understand the basics of pimpology

1) A certain proportion of their customers will damage (or possibly destroy) their "stock."

2)They will have to devote a certain amount of time and effort to restoring it, or replacing it, if they want to keep their revue stream flowing at the level they expect ('cause living like a pimp is expensive).

3)Fortunately there is an inexhaustible supply of fresh meat offering itself up (as pimps see it) to be turned out.

That's as true for Google/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/Facebook (or GAMAF for short) as it is for Joseph Hazley (Robinson's alleged pimp).

Remember "You can't have a conscience in the pimp game" is as true for corporate data pimps as the "independent operator" and the corporations understand that well.

Now I've got to go as I'm late for a fitting of my new Eel skin boots.

*cough*Rotherham*cough*

And I'd ask the same question.

What the f**k were the cops doing?

I may be a little behind the times but the last time I checked a middle aged man f**king a 13YO girl is still illegal in the UK.

Or did they repeal the consent law back to that in the 1870's?

UK PC prices have risen 30% in a year since the EU referendum

"we are dependent on retaining the ability to provide those services."

Like for example financial services.

And that's where a single market really pays dividends to the UK. Both Frankfurt and Paris would like a bigger piece of that action and will have if the UK is has even minimal barriers put in to slow down its trade.

The question is what the UK will have to trade (because this is a negotiation after all) to keep the pounds/yen/dollars/euros flowing without any additional "friction" in and out of Blighty.

The losers, whatever happens, will be us. Every. Single. Time.

Possibly the truest words posted so far.

"A sheet of MDF used to cost about £16, now it's nearer £20."

AFAIK that's either made in the UK or in Europe.

Why would it happen, unless some people think Brexit --> good excuse for a price hike

But no, I cannot believe UK retailers would be so venal. Surely not.

Manchester plod still running 1,500 Windows XP machines

GMP. Is anyone wondering?

How you can get an "i" in between the G and M?

The whole point of multi-tier systems..each layer to do what it does most efficiently

Doesn't that imply the system is actually designed?

I'm not really sure how many systems (even big complex ones) are actually designed these days.