Posts by James Hughes 1

Raspberry Pi 4 bugs throw wrench in the works for Fedora 41

A huge number of pages are register descriptions, not something you need to read unless it's of specific interest.

But they need to be there, people complain if not....

Re: RP2350

No need, for the vast majority of use cases it'll work fine.

Writers sue Anthropic for feeding 'stolen' copyrighted work into Claude

We had the same problem with some Google AI bots. Forums were taking ages to ban people (spammers). We disabled access to the Google bots, and something that was taking 45 seconds now takes 4s, and the forum is much more responsive.

I didn't have a problem with a Google Bot accessing the data every hour or so, but this was multiple bots, multiple times per second, which is basically pointless as the actual data wasn't changing that fast. All it did was get the bots access revoked so now they have nothing at all.

UK tech pioneer Mike Lynch dead at 59

It absolutely did have a lifting keel, and the theory that it was lifted when hit by the bad weather, causing a capsize, is perfectly valid, likely in fact. Look up "vanishing stability".

Brit tech mogul Mike Lynch missing after yacht sinks off Sicily amid storms

Re: "often dubbed the UK's answer to Bill Gates"

Clearly never heard of Mike Lynch then. Lots of Autonomy staff ended up at Darktrace, perhaps you have heard of them?

Re: Biggest Helicopter [was: Coincidence or what !!!]

This.

DEF CON badge disagreement gets physical as firmware dev removed from event stage

Re: Bad choices all around

I suspect DefCon will find it difficult to find suppliers in the future given how this has panned out. The timeline for this device was ridiculously short for the work involved. I doubt that will change for next year.

Raspberry Pi Pico 2 lands with (drum roll) RISC-V cores

Re: Old habits die hard

There's quite a few RP2350 based designs available off the shelf right now, so it's not quite right to say not available. It's certainly ready to be launched as shown by the DefCon badge, and all those products already on sale.

EVs continue to grow but private buyers are steering clear, say motor trade figures

Horses for courses

Buy an EV for commuting, but a 7 or track car for fun. Simple. My EV is mentally quick, but a bit heavy, but really is good for commuting, just the fairly rigid sports suspension makes it a bit hard on the shitty roads in the Fens.

Re: HEVs are an abomination

I don't live in a flat in Edinburg, and have offstreet parking. Works fine for me.

Which has just as much relevance as your post.

It's pretty simple, if an EV/HEV doesn't suit you, don't buy it. But don't tar everyone with the same brush. Not everyone can afford a flat in Edinburgh;-)

EU gave CrowdStrike the keys to the Windows kernel, claims Microsoft

If (checksum == 0)

error = CheckIfFileIsAllZero();

Tesla sales, market share dip in EU while other EV makers grow

Re: A combination?

And the components?

So many passive components are made in China. Even if final assembly is elsewhere.

(Although the 90's is quite a way back).

How low can you go: Tesla's US market share dips below 50% for the first time

But provided no numbers to back that up, just percentage share, which given the increase in total sales means little. Actual numbers would have been nice. (Unless I missed the numbers in the article which is possible)

Elon Musk to destroy the International Space Station – with NASA's approval, for a fee

Re: Can't help wondering

Boosters with over a 1000 tons of fuel....

Dropping things in the sun requires, approximately, negating the velocity of the earth around the sun, which is 107,000 km/h. That needs lot of fuel for something weighing 400 tons.

Re: Wonder who the sole downote was from (ahem!)

Is it impossible for you to accept you are wrong? Which in the field of orbital mechanics, you are, as can very clearly be demonstrated.

Or do you just start insulting people who know more about this subject than you do because that's the best you have?

Infosys CEO to pay a whole $30K in penance for non-disclosure that enabled insider trading

Re: "an approach that spares him an embarassing inquisition"

Absolutely not true. If you get caught insider trading you are in deep doodoo.

Raspberry Pi unveils Hailo-powered AI Kit to make the model 5 smarter

Re: Losing the plot

You may say why does this always have to happen, but I'd say, why do people never read the article and understand it before commenting.

As above, the Pi 0,1,2,3 and 4 are still available at mostly original prices. All still useful, all still simple and all very under-complicated.

Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ here at last with a $12 price tag

Re: So if the RPi5 has PCIe

Yes, you'll need to find the appropriate chips to do the conversion, but perfectly possible. Note the PCIE on the Pi5 single lane, Gen2 (You can try Gen3 - works depending on the use case), so there is a speed limit.

Raspberry Pi OS 5.2 is here, with pleasant tweaks to Wayland-based desktop

This is so annoying. It's been Raspberry Pi Ltd for some years, and yet people STILL use Foundation. The Foundation is the educational charity, Ltd is the company that does all the technical stuff.

Musk 'texts' Nadella about Windows 11's demands for a Microsoft account

Re: "This is messed up"

Nothing? Really?

Re: Great last line

So, perhaps some sort of citation/reference so people know what you are talking about?

Guess the company: Takes your DNA, blames you when criminals steal it, can’t spot a cyberattack for 5 months

Re: I got a good idea!

Some sort of single-celled organism?

Boffins demo self-eating rocket engine in Scotland

Quite a few already up there....

HP customers claim firmware update rendered third-party ink verboten

S

I have a Lexmark colour laser with copier and scanner thing, gets a fair bit of use. The cartridge costs Are MENTAL. Printer cost £100, supplied ink lasted a couple of years, but replacement set of cartridges is £200+. So, never buying another Lexmark, and sounds like I shouldn't buy an HP. I do use after-market cartridges, but even they are very expensive, and half the time don't work.

I should probably get a B&W laser that is cheap to run for the majority of printing, but do need colour less frequently. Keep the Lexmark for the colour stuff.

So, any recomendations?

England's village green hydrogen dream in tatters

Re: Which Led Zep Album?

I wonder if "tip pc" is still feeling that burn. Nice work!

Shame people like tip pc still have this attitude really. Not sure where they got it from. Perhaps they work for gas boiler manufacturers?

Wayland takes the wheel as Red Hat bids farewell to X.org

Re: But can you tunnel wayland over ssh

Yes. Waypipe.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is now available ... if you pre-ordered

Re: To learn from me...

Nah, don't think I'll bother.

Re: This may disgust many of you....

Not true. The Pi 5 will run fine from a Pi 4 5v3A supply. It will limit downstream USB current to 600mA, but you can override that if you want, there is headroom there. The 5V5A supply would be needed if you were pulling a lot of current from the USB ports AND running all the Arms at full tilt.

Putting the extra components on the board to handle higher voltages was considered, but the problems of the heat dissipation and board real estate meant 5v in was a better option.

Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed

Re: HW Video Decoding

Not many, perhaps some. The software encoder is higher quality and can handle higher resolutions, the HW decoder was also limited to 1080p, the software one not so.

Re: HW Video Decoding

? It has supported HW decoding of H264 and H265 for quite some time.

Note, the Pi5 has done away with the H264 decoder - it's now all done in SW on the ARMs

Largest local government body in Europe goes under amid Oracle disaster

Correct.

First of Tesla's 'bulletproof' Cybertrucks clunks off production line

Going against the grain here, clearly a lot of Anti-Musks in the comments, but I'd have a Cybertruck!

I suspect it will sell relatively well, it will be cheap to run, be fairly indestructible and it won't rust away (it's stamped/bent stainless, hence the straight lines). Looks weird, but so did the Ford Sierra when it first came out, and that sold well. Problems are its size and no RHD variant. I reckon it will work well as a pickup for the majority of tasks pickup owners use them for.

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

Re: Repair shop?

So, you've been suckered into the replace often to keep our profits up cycle. Well done.

Debian 12 'Bookworm' is the excitement-free Linux you've been waiting for

WHY do they keep using names with the same first letter, that's now three in a row, Bullseye, Bookworm and Buster. Or is it Buster, Bookworm now Bullsyeye?

It is just confusing.

SpaceX's second attempt at orbital Starship launch ends in fireball

Re: Starship hasn't had the most successful history?

Actually the engines are ridiculously cheap, as are the hulls. I think less than $0.5M each, and the aim is for $250k each. The hulls are just a bunch of stainless steel, so again, pretty cheap.

SpaceX tries to de-orbit Amazon's request for a satellite broadband shortcut

Re: Good, very good!

Hmm, satellite constellation have the chance of improving the lives (via broadband) of a huge number of people all around the world. Is that a worthwhile tradeoff for the occasional light trail affecting a tiny number of people? I think it is.

Re: Me frist!

The Vegas Loop was built/bored by the Boring company, so your statement of "fuck all" is incorrect.

Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Office installs

Re: "Malicious software removal tool"

"To be honest, I can't understand why anyone would have hours of unsaved work on a computer, especially one running Windows. It's only a matter of time before it crashes / reboots / does something else annoying. Always best to assume the worst will happen with Windows, then when it does (when, not if!) you won't get caught out."

I run Linux in a VM, where I do most of my work TBH. I often leave stuff open in code editors etc, but occasionally Windows reboots itself for updates, doesn't check there is a VM running, so that get splatted without saving first. It's a PIT fecking A with no obvious way to turn it off

Windows itself, not had a crash in that for years. However, when I no longer need Windows (that day must be quite soon), I'll go bare metal Linux. Maybe run Windows in a VM...hmmm...

Don’t expect a Raspberry Pi 5 in 2023, says Raspboss Eben Upton

Re: I wish the Pi universe was a bit more cooperative and played well with others.

1. We've been putting a lot of effort (and money) in to upstreaming as much as we can. Hence we now have open source graphics (DRM, Mesa etc), a standard camera interface, libcamera, and now use V4L2 rather than openMax to get access to the codecs etc. There is some stuff that would never be accepted upstream though.

2. HAT's are a Raspberry Pi design/invention, I guess if other people want to use them, then they simply have to adhere to the spec?

3. What wrong with Raspberry Pi OS?

I agree with the comments about SBCs from China and Armbian. They are certainly not a panacea.

Re: Priorities

You cannot run a company like RPI just by "hoping for the best" They seem to be pretty confident that by h2 next years things will have dramatically improved, which lines up with predictions from other companies and analysts.

Re: Profits

There already is an installed base of many many millions to sell those bits and bobs to.

Re: Priorities

How do you propose increasing production when you cannot get the parts? This is not a production capacity problem. Its a supply chain problem.

This supply situation has affected EVERYONE who sell in quantity. Yes, it affects Pi customers, which is a horrible situation to be in, and if anyone has an actual workable suggestion to fix the worldwide silicon supply chain problem I am sure there are many many companies out there, not just Pi, who would love to hear it.

Re: Bye bye Pi

The makers of those SoC's (which do indeed have decent performance) have zero interest in the hobby market, and their software support sucks big time. Very few contributions to upstream, which means support and new features are generally done by third parties, who have to guess half the time on how the HW works. If you want Android, probably OK, but as SBC's running Linux you will always be struggling to get all the chip features properly integrated.

Also worth noting that one of the reason these boards are available now is their sales are so much lower than the Pi's. If they got to similar volumes, they are likely also to have supply problems. Low sales volumes mean less money to spend on software support. It's a spiral that Pi broke out of very early on.

There is no "instead". Pi4 were sold to students and hobbyist throughout, just in lower percentages. But why do you think Pi are supposed to only serve them? Industry has been buying Pi since the first model, and those sales have bootstrapped the company, enabled to build better products, and keep the prices low for everyone else.

Re: Bye bye Pi

Not concentrating on CMs at all, all models are still in production, we just need to spread the available chips over all that production so it tends to be batchy. Lots of Pi3 and similar hitting shelves right now for example. Making lots of Pi4 as well.

Raspberry Pi supply chain loosens just in time for the holiday season

Re: A drop in the ocean

How so? Raspberry Pi charge the same for devices whether individual or industrial. The reasons for prioritising industrial are not money related, as has been stated elsewhere.

Re: Whales

Most industrial customers are actually pretty small businesses (a few hundred a year). We actively try and ensure they do get product to survive, email [e-mail] with your use case.

Re: And the 8 GB model I've been waiting for?

Big customers rarely use the 8GB model. Having that much memory is a waste for most industrial/commercial applications. Outside of industrial, most people find the 4GB model perfectly suitable for the vast majority of tasks.

Tesla reports two more fatal Autopilot accidents to the NHTSA

Re: Wrong question

"If I get myself in a situation where an AI with faster than human recognition of the problem and ability to change lanes, correct a skid, slam on brakes, etc. could save me from something that would have otherwise killed me due to my puny human reflexes, but the price is that it might do something stupid I would never do myself like just drive straight into a stopped vehicle without even slowing down then I will take the first option every time."

Last big accident I witnessed a bloke drove straight in to the back of a stationary car without slowing down.

Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home

Re: This won't backfire at all

Given all the big places that pay well are all shedding employees, where will all those talented employees go?