The Register Home Page

* Posts by Dan 55

17996 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jun 2009

There's no place like GNOME: Project hits 25, going on 43

Dan 55 Silver badge

This particular vulture very much hopes that by 2047, such primitive tools as Unix-like OSes and desktop user interfaces are fading memories, just as 1970s computing with punched cards and paper tape are today.

As Churchill might have said, "Unix-like OSes are the worst form of operating system, except for all the others".

Ransomware attack on UK water company clouded by confusion

Dan 55 Silver badge
Devil

Thames Water... had 'very bad holes in their systems'

They do, they leak about a quarter of all water they supply.

No problem at all, record pay, no investment, trebles all round, until you climate change rocks up and you're reduced to bleating about hosepipe bans.

Open source VideoLAN media player asks why it's blocked in India

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: "vulnerable to DLL Hijacking"

May I recommend HashCheck?

Dan 55 Silver badge
Meh

Re: Oooh! I know! I know!

First you have to show me an example of good user interface design on Android.

Apple says 2017 MacBooks don't have FlexGate defect. Aussie tribunal orders a fix anyway

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Why Do They Insist On Blatantly Denying Anything Is Wrong?

They fight over each individual model and have done for a long time, despite bringing the same design defects to all the same class of models in one year and over from one year to the next.

The 2012 non-retina MacBook Pro with discrete graphics suffered from the same overheating problems as the 2012 retina MacBook Pro models, but they never ran an extended guarantee for that model.

Our software is perfect. If something has gone wrong, it must be YOUR fault

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: A familiar experience

Got one of these? You could put LineageOS on it.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Devil

Re: UX Designer?

Don't forget 8-point grey text on a slightly lighter grey background.

Google fined $42.5m over misleading Android location settings in Australia

Dan 55 Silver badge
Devil

I noticed Google have made up a new location service

This new one is called earthquake alerts, and as you're opted in by default you might want to disable that one as well.

Google's ChromeOS Flex turned my old MacBook into new frustrations

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Making a bed to sleep in

You could install a later version of macOS onto a Mac forced into obsolescence by Apple by using a patcher from DosDude1, otherwise you could install Windows or one of the more polished Linux distros.

And all three would be better options than turning it into yet another Google data endpoint by installing ChromeOS.

Remember the humanoid Tesla robot? It's ready for September reveal, says Musk

Dan 55 Silver badge

I bet more British people would understand kilos than pounds (or at least pounds on their own without stones).

Dan 55 Silver badge
Holmes

The 125-pound 5'8" robot will allegedly be able to walk at 5 MPH, carry 45 pounds and deadlift 150 pounds

For that tiny minority of the planet not measuring things in barleycorns per imperial hogsheads that's 56.7kg, 172cm, 8km/h, 20.4kg, 68kg.

UK wants criminal migrants to scan their faces up to five times a day using a watch

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Officials called for "daily monitoring of individuals subject to immigration control"

Yes, but first we have to go through performative cruelty for specific groups, one by one. They want to see how far right we can push that Overton window, it's an election winner.

Enough with the notifications! Focus Assist will shut them u… 'But I'm too important!'

Dan 55 Silver badge

Ah, this must be the Tesla tax.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Devil

Another great victory for Tim Cook and Jonathan Ive

Remember Mac notifications? I don't either. The OS didn't even tell you the battery was about to run out, assuming that you'd notice the red battery icon in the corner or something, and if you really wanted third party software to bother you you had to install Growl.

Now Macs jump up and down almost as much as the Windows machine next to it, both vying for your attention shouting "Look at me! I did this! This thing happened!"

Truly another great leap forward in computing.

India scraps data protection law in favor of better law coming … sometime

Dan 55 Silver badge
Happy

Re: Well, 81 out of 99

In other news, a proper reform of the UK's House of Lords is due any day now.

Bad news, older tech workers: Job advert language works against you

Dan 55 Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Don't know about that

appallingly-written cruft. And

Homes in London under threat as datacenters pull in all the power

Dan 55 Silver badge
Alert

Re: Cloudy checkmate

And if the power goes off at home, the cloudy stuff will also go down as WFH sysadmin administrator terminals get disconnected one by one.

I paid for it, that makes it mine. Doesn’t it? No – and it never did

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Dubbed Content

It's for BMWs so they are being ripped off...

BMW is now charging $18 per month for heated seats in some countries

It seems there were problems selling subscriptions on with the car not too long ago:

Connected car data handover headache: There's no quick fix... and it's NOT just Land Rovers

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Dubbed Content

They're going to befoul themselves when they see what the car industry has in store.

Who wouldn't want to pay $18 a month to enable the "heated seats" button?

Apple-1 prototype hand-soldered by Woz up for auction, bids expected to reach $500k

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Open source?

This source disagrees:

On the Apple IIgs, the 256K of built-in main memory is divided into two sections: The "fast" RAM, banks 00 and 01, and the "slow" RAM, banks E0 and E1. CPU access to slow RAM required the CPU to slow to the 1MHz speed of the earlier Apple II models. (Later models with 1MB on board are similar, just with more fast RAM).

It's possible to set a soft switch ($C035) to control write shadowing, in which writes to bank 00 and 01 are copied automagically into banks E0 and E1. This allows the CPU to run at full speed while accessing this memory. The primary purpose of this was to allow the CPU to write data into the video buffer, which was in slow RAM, without slowing down.

So it is only a section of memory that is slowed down to 1MHz (screen display and I/O so disk drives keep working), and there is a solution which allows the screen to be written to at near full speed.

I quoted the question for clarity but the answer agrees with the question and goes into more detail.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Open source?

If you had programmed any other 8-bit machine you'd know this is not the norm. Every other machine uses: (i) regularly-sized memory areas; (ii) with a single point of control.

Going to have to disagree with that one. Take a look at the Spectrum +2A/+3's memory map. You OUT to one port setting a bit which turns on the special +2A/+3 memory map mode and then set or unset two other bits which choose which of the four special maps you want to use. Or you don't set the special bit and use the previous 128K/+2 memory map with the slight difference that you set or unset a further bit which is the upper bit of which of the four ROM banks you want in the bottom 16K.

Then is another port which you OUT to which sets up the 128K/+2 memory mapping. You set or unset the bottom bit of which of the four ROM banks you want in the bottom 16K (however if you really are on a 128K/+2 then the upper bit in the port mentioned above doesn't exist and you're only switching between two ROM banks using this bit) and set or unset three bits which select which RAM bank is active in the top 16K. Also, just becuse, setting or clearing another bit will switch the screen which is displayed.

Or you can select Spectrum 48K mode with another bit and then there's no way back.

With a C64, near the top of the memory there are a bunch of banks. The first bank is RAM or overwritten with the low part of the cartridge ROM if you have the cartridge plugged in. Then above this bank you have a bank with the BASIC ROM, or RAM, or overwritten with the high part of the cartridge ROM if you have a cartridge plugged in. Next there is a bit of RAM, above that a smaller bank which can be I/O, RAM, or the character ROM. Finally there is the kernel ROM or the high part of the cartridge ROM if you have a cartridge plugged in - again.

If you're a fan of everything being possible in two or three ways, each method being a particular combination of two or three other discrete inputs then, yeah, there's a lot to like in the world of Woz.

If you set 80STORE you're saying you want to page in display memory and the PAGE2 and HIRES bits allow you to choose the amount of memory, depending on the current screen resolution. Or if you're just interested in RAM use RAMRD and you get all the alterate RAM paged in for reading including the display memory.

Given that if you use RAMRD you could page out the code you're currently executing, being able to page just the display memory is useful if you're only interested in accessing the display memory.

There is a conspiracy theory, which often nonsensically fingers Steve Jobs himself from then beyond the Apple grave, that the clock was limited, but basic facts seem to disagree.

Apple IIgs on old-computers.com:

Sales were strong initially and the IIGS even outsold the black and white Macintosh units that were its contemporary. Sadly, Apple wanted Macintosh to be its future. The total number of advertisements and commercials for the IIGS could probably be counted on one hand. If the computer had been introduced a year or two earlier, things might have been different. The Apple IIGS disappeared from the market in 1992.

In one final gasp, the Apple II supporters at Apple designed the Apple IIGS Plus, code named "Mark Twain". It had an 8Mhz 65C816, a built in SuperDrive, 2MB on the motherboard, and a hard drive. Prototypes leaked out and a user group that has one and wrote a series of articles about it. Apple management vetoed this unit.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Open source?

Writing odd values to odd addresses to page memory is par-for-the-course on 8-bit machines, the Commodore 64's memory map was probably just as crazy. The IIe had even more reason to do this than the C64 as it was maintaining backwards compatibility with computers and expansion cards over 6 years, the C64 didn't have that excuse.

The IIgs could throw everything out and start again as it was 16-bit, it would make no sense to use the same memory map as its predecessors unless it's emulating software for them.

The main thing that killed the IIgs was Apple deciding to artificially limit the speed of it to 2.8Mhz so it wouldn't compete with the Mac or any other 16-bit computer of the time.

Also, the main thing that killed the III was Jobs deciding he wanted the case just so as it looked good and the board components had to be crammed into such a small space and he didn't like fans because they made a noise so it overheated, the result was the computer was guaranteed to cook itself.

Woz I doubt was responsible for making the IIgs artificially slow and definitely wasn't responsible for silly case and ventilation decisions as he's on record as saying it was designed by marketing (aka Jobs).

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: I am the despair of the antique auction trade

Alternatively you may be interested in a novelty clock made out of a case and a motherboard from a working computer (which is now not working)?

Meta proposes doing away with leap seconds

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Expected more

That's some great kool-aid they're drinking down at Facebook.

- Is our software wrong?

- No, it's all the clocks and watches and devices which keep time on Earth that must be changed to smear seconds the way we want.

Browsers could face two regimes in Europe as UK law set to diverge from EU

Dan 55 Silver badge

NI is under UK GDPR.

Data protection and data transfers on the island of Ireland after the post-Brexit transition period

However EEA individuals which used a UK business up until the end of 2020 have and always will have their data stored under the GDPR as it was in the UK the end of 2020.

UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)

Personal data about individuals located within the EEA, which was gathered by UK businesses before 1 January 2021, will be subject to the EU GDPR as it stood on 31 December 2020. This is known as the 'frozen GDPR'.

As soon as the UK diverges, this will be a headache for UK businesses as they will have to deal with two sets of customers: 1) pre-Brexit EEA customers and 2) post-Brexit EEA customers + all UK customers + RoW customers. Additionally post-Brexit EEA customers in the second group depend on the UK getting a favourable adequacy decision with the EU, so perhaps you could say there are three groups.

My smartphone has wiped my microSD card again: Is it a conspiracy?

Dan 55 Silver badge

I guess no "sideloaded" (ugh) apk on the SD card is readable until Android finds it or Play Protect gets round to okaying it, and a side effect it's removed from the menu because it's not readable.

By the way, Symbian could do this properly about two decades ago (Nokia 6600), but that's progress for you.

60 million in the Matrix as users seek decentralized messaging

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Signal + google

No idea, it's just a zip file.

In the online help it's clear that WhatsApp (the organisation) supply no contact management tools and put the onus on the user to somehow limit the number of contacts that WhatsApp (the app) sees using unspecified methods.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Signal + google

While hashing phone numbers is good practice from a privacy point of view (and I'm not sure WhatsApp don't do it)

If you use the option in WhatsApp to download your GDPR data it includes the list of contact phone numbers.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Signal + google

WhatsApp has copies of your contact cards, Signal uses an md5sum (or similar) of phone numbers.

Microsoft's latest security patch troubles Windows 11 users

Dan 55 Silver badge

"This update is just awful."

I don't know about that, any update which takes away Windows 11's version of the Start Menu could be considered to be quite a good thing.

CP/M's open-source status clarified after 21 years

Dan 55 Silver badge
Windows

Hey, the kids' toys a decade later managed to get the kids to write professional business tools a decade or two after that so they shouldn't be knocked that much.

However the locked-down kids' toys of the 2000s got the kids to write Teams and other Electron-driven nonsense today so something's gone wrong somewhere.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Disk Operating Systemt

CP/M had device independent graphics in the form of GSX and later GEM though. MP/M is the multi-user version of CP/M.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: The title is no longer required.

Or Spectrum +3 or CPC 6128...

Being declared dead is automated, so why is resurrection such a nightmare?

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: transfer the phone into Mum's name

I'm not sure how much it helps in death (probably not a great deal), but if you want to protect against your partner becoming incapacitated then you need to take out a "lasting power of attorney" before it happens or you'll be frozen out of your partner's finances until you go to court... and UK courts have quite a backlog.

But then again, even applying for LPA is a problem.

To be honest French bureaucracy sounds easier.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Proving you've never been married

That, apparently, is the second-best proof that UK can do.

If you as a British citizen want to marry abroad and the other country requires real cast-iron solid proof that only UK officialdom can possibly guarantee that you are not married, you affirm it then the British consulate in that country displays it for 7 days*, if nobody sees it in that time and objects then the consulate issues a "certificate of no impediment".

So there you go, what is a routine letter or certificate in many countries becomes handwavey nonsense in the UK.

* in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: In the UK we have the DVLA

And "Tell Us Once" should be against the trade descriptions act, because you're probably going to have to sort out two or three things yourself afterwards.

Digital burglary at recruitment agency Morgan Hunt confirmed

Dan 55 Silver badge
Facepalm

"In the wrong hands" they say

It will get into the wrong hands and identity fraud will be committed, that's how getting pwned works.

And from the quoted text it seems they couldn't even cough up for a year's worth of Experian fraud monitoring.

Microsoft intros clothing line that is absolutely not leftover conference swag

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Don't they wear out pretty quickly?

Imagine walking down the street minding your own business and you suddenly stop in the middle of whatever it was you were doing because your clothes won't move for 10 minutes.

Behold: The first images snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope

Dan 55 Silver badge

Second picture from the bottom

You can hear the synth sounds already.

FYI: BMW puts heated seats, other features behind paywall

Dan 55 Silver badge

API change

In about three years time they'll stop working altogether even if you wanted to pay and you'll have to buy a new car if you want heated seats.

That's how the business model works isn't it?

Hive to pull the plug on smart home gadgets by 2025

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Net Zero

Correct, that's why they've decided to generate a tonne of landfill as they can't possibly run two sets of APIs. It makes sense during a climate crisis to make yet more incompatible tat and transport it from China to the UK. Anyone who doesn't throw out this version and by the next must hate the planet or something.

Not supporting their products ought to be illegal but that PR nonsense quoted near the start of the article should mean they're fined double.

Meta asks line managers to identify poorly performing staff for firing

Dan 55 Silver badge
Devil

"Look what you made us do, you made us fire you."

How about stopping your business being so reliant on the casino economics of the stock market instead?

NYC issues super upbeat PSA for surviving the nuclear apocalypse

Dan 55 Silver badge

See also

The Day Today - It's Alright

Video useful for nuclear attack and Tory leadership contests.

Choosing a non-Windows OS on Lenovo Secured-core PCs is trickier than it should be

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Little Column A, Little Column B

This is all agreed beforehand in the contract between the OEM and MS. They can then point their fingers at each other afterwards but there are no hard feelings, it's all part of the game.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Coming soon in Windows 12

Special BIOS key management software to enable boot for non-MS OSes, requiring you to complete Windows set up and download the app from the MS Store first. For security, like.

UK's Ministry of Defence awards Boxxe multimillion Microsoft license deal

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Failure

The plan is for the UK to update our nutter feature set in line with the US so this is not a problem. The US suffered a regression in Q4 2020 but the current release plan has a fix scheduled for Q4 2024.

UK Info Commissioner slams use of WhatsApp by health officials during pandemic

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: we all know one big reason

It's very probably IT ineptitude down at the hospital, it's certainly not in any government department.

UK response to China's tech ambitions labelled 'incoherent and muted'

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Two possibilities

About the conclusion near the end of the article:

"The Government now needs to extend the UK's influence within the global technology landscape, to ensure that future technologies are developed and used in ways that align with our values and, crucially, uphold the rights and freedoms of people in the UK and across the world," the report concludes.

That is extremely difficult or even impossible to do after Brexit. The EU's values were the UK's values before it voted in the referendum, this is not true any more after Brexit. In any area were the UK wants to influence foreign countries, it is now weaker.

The data is 7 years old, and that's all that's necessary to see that tale of victimhood about the UK being ignored by other EU countries sold to us at the time of the referendum by Vote Leave et all was wrong. Any data about our position in the EU after 2016 is irrelevant anyway, we'd burnt our bridges by that point.

There are three ways out of this hole, either be happy with our post-Brexit lot and not even try to influence other countries, spend a lot of time and money trying to influence similar-sized and smaller countries on the other side of the world and have committees write reports such as this saying we're not getting far, or try and work out a way back from Brexit. Everything leads back to Brexit, whether we like to admit it or not.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Say 'Thank you' to the moronic Brexiteers

Would you be trying to get your tuppence ha'penny in first here in spite of that argument being comprehensively dismantled further down?

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Two possibilities

Data says something different.

To the question "Is the UK marginalised in the EU?":

Overall, using the best available data on EU decision-making, there is strong evidence that on average the UK has not been marginalised in the making of EU laws. The UK government has been closer to final policy outcomes than most other governments. This is also true for policy issues the UK government has been particularly concerned about, although there is some evidence that on certain policy issues, including internal market and trade, the UK has been less content with final EU decisions.

But there are some important caveats to these findings.

This dataset only covers policies that are subject to the main EU decision-making procedures, so not the EU budget or international treaties. The data only goes up to 2008, and obviously a lot has happened since then.

To the question "Is the UK a winner or loser in the EU Council?":

The council overwhelmingly decides by consensus, which means the UK is on the winning majority side almost 87% of the time.

The UK government might be more willing than other governments to publicly register its opposition to EU decisions.

The data does not tell us what went on behind the scenes on each of these issues, and hence how much the UK disagreed with the majority position when it recorded its opposition – perhaps the UK was on the winning side on all the key issues it really cared about in this period.

To the question "Do UK MEPs get key positions of power in Europe?":

In short, UK MEPs have captured many powerful agenda-setting positions. They have been vice-presidents, political group leaders, and chairs of important committees. UK MEPs have also won rapporteurships on key legislation, which has enabled them to shape EU law.

Moreover, UK MEPs have not been “underrepresented” relative to the MEPs from the other big member states. And all this has been despite the growing number of Ukip MEPs, who have not competed for many key offices or rapporteurships.

So, the UK was not at all marginalised, unlike what a certain leave-pushing character would have you believe, and it only started to marginalise itself from 2010 onwards.

And finally: "Britons among least knowledgeable about European Union".

So, there we go.