Posts by James 51

Apple forgoes cooling systems in M2 MacBook Air

Re: Sticky Stuff

Seven or eight would probably be a better score but we won't have long to wait I'm sure.

Re: Sticky Stuff

Apple has a long history of keeping users out of the products they've 'bought'. I assume they're saying Apple is making it unnecessarily difficult for users and 3rd party repair services to get into the product.

Taiwan prosecutors claim Chinese biz swiped IP and R&D team from Apple supplier

There's usually a clause in such contracts that the IP you develop belongs to the company so patent or not, you couldn't use the same processes or designs at your new employer. You might find that the second company is making the product at the same cost or even more expensive but they don't have R&D costs to mitigate so can charge less.

The App Gap and supply chains: Purism CEO on what's ahead for the Librem 5 USA

Anyone give them fairpone's number?

Combine the modular construction and sustainability of fairphone with the privacy protections of this phone and you'd have one hell (of an expensive) phone.

End-of-life smartphone? Penguins at postmarketOS aim to revive it

Re: Yay!

I would agree with everything you've said except it being unbreakable. It was very strudy but by reputation the usb port was prone to coming loose and the space bar key on mine broke in two. Still have it in a drawer though.

Palantir summons specter of nuclear conflict as share price collapses

I always misread Peter Thiel as Peter Thief. Given the active harm this company has done, it can't go bust soon enough. Just when you think they can't go any lower, they throw in we're actually all more likeily to be nuked that you know, now give us some money.

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

Re: For 1K in cash I want

A fairphone 3 has everything on that list execpt physical buttons. Fairphone 4 doesn't have the headphone jack but has better waterproofing. Less than half the cost too.

EU directs €11bn toward European Chips Act to build homegrown semiconductor industry

The EU is saying this is strategic, that is something vital that needs to be exempt from usual market forces because of the impact on wider society if supply is interrupted. That’s normally the reason given for propping up unprofitable steel industries, in a time of war they would be needed and supplies could be cut off. If the chip industry is that important (and it is), then it should be given similar levels of support and that applies to the whole chain, not one link within it.

Re: You don’t understand?

What triggers me isn't criticism of the EU (there’s a lot that needs critiquing), it's stupidity. It's not holy and it's not an empire. Unless you’re going to invoke Poe’s law but remember you’re suppose to give some sort of nod or a wink to indicate that’s the case.

I don't understand why there isn't a push to get 28nm or 40nm production in the EU or even bigger transistors if that's still too expensive. There's a need for electronics that aren't cutting edge and affordable. Industries like cars could adapt if they knew they had a secure supply.

UK's new Brexit Freedom Bill promises already-slated GDPR reform, easier gene editing rules

Re: OK.

My whole point is that the processes that the chicken are farmed in is not safe. It is a breeding ground for disease and promotes the spread of anti-biotic resistance strains of diseases. These same conditions also lead to a miserable existance for these animals and we shouldn't turn a blind eye to that either.

Re: OK.

You keep bringing up FUD about the wash. The first time I heard that it was a goverment minister that started the whole what's the problem with chlorine wash angle, pretending the wash was the sole problem and managed to construct the strawman you're so busy whacking. I always understood when chlorine wash chicken was used in the media that meant, chicken produced in inhumane conditions with processes that are currently illegal in our country but that just isn't as snappy.

You still haven't mentioned why we should lower our animal welfare standards to allow the sale of this chicken which if it was produced in the same way in the UK day, would be demeed unfit for human consumption.

Re: OK.

These chickens would probably end up in frozen dinners and and other places clear labeling won't be required so those who bleat about choice, we won't have the option to know.

Re: OK.

I did make that post and I mentioned animal welfare twice and didn't mention wash once:

You do realise that by ignoring my point on animal welfare, you're reinforcing it?

The whole point is that it isn't deemed acceptable by the EU, that's why lowering our animal welfare standards to allow it's sale in the UK wasn't an issue before.

Re: OK.

And once again you're pretending it's all about the wash. If a farmer in the UK treated their animals the was US farms can, they would probably go to prison. The use of the wash is a symptom of an entire sector that seeks to drive down standards including allowing the clear neglect of animals and subjecting them to inhumane practices to drive up profits. I have never moved the goal posts, you're carrying over discussions you've had with other people into this one. And for what is hopefully the final time, if the standards were acceptable in the EU then they would being produced and sold here already. They are not and I hope they never will be.

Re: OK.

The US has to chlorine wash chicked because of the conditions the chickens are kept in. It's not the wash itself, that just became the short hand for the entire food proudction process and you keep pretending it's just about the wash at the end. It's really about all the steps preceeding it that require the wash to be used and the EU authorities do not think this meat is good enough to eat or it would have been in our supermarkets before brexit.

icon cause we'll see if you can get it on the third go.

Re: OK.

You do realise that by ignoring my point on animal welfare, you're reinforcing it?

The whole point is that it isn't deemed acceptable by the EU, that's why lowering our animal welfare standards to allow it's sale in the UK wasn't an issue before.

Re: OK.

That's because that's not what it's really about, the chlorine wash is the whataboutery argument that gets deployed in the hopes of distracting people from the real issue of animal welfare standards or lack their of.

Planning for power cuts? That's strictly for the birds

Not quite the same thing but once worked for a company and the air con in one of the server rooms failed at some point over the weekend and wasn't detected till everyone was in the office on Monday (we had several server rooms and we weren't allowed to know which server room held which servers so might have been developer or tester only stuff and thus not important enough to have real time monitoring). Do know everything in the room was fried and had to be replaced. Expensive lesson in cost saving/disaster planning.

Canon: Chip supplies are so bad that our ink cartridges will look as though they're fakes

Good ad for the likes of the eco-tank printers.

Autonomy founder Mike Lynch files judicial review that pauses extradition clock

If he's found guilty they'll probably go after the cash as proceeds of crime and take it all.

Is it decadent that I use four different computers each day, at different times?

Re: eInk screens ARE too small

The elipsa is 10" and kobo have a four month payment plan to make it less painful to buy.

Re: A Sage solution

Maybe they just wanted a quick look, gives them a righteous excuse to look through other people's things.

Fairphone makes wireless earbuds less foul, by charging batteries carefully

Re: Regulated

Yes, we have. Fairphone are trying to change that though. Why the astroturf complaints?

It's not just like any other phone. There is no other phone I have ever had that you could take apart and put back together like this one. It is by a vast margin the easiest and cheapest phone to repair on the market in this segment. To pretend that because you can't but individual chips that it is no different from any other phone such as the Samsung S range or an iphone is disingenuous and I suspect at this point you're just farming down votes.

Re: Regulated

That's were the factories are. They are at least making sure the workers are getting a living wage.

But you can go to fairphone and buy them at a resonable price and they aren't chipping their phones so they won't work with third party components if someone does bring them to market.

Re: Which is greener?

Journey of a thousand miles and all that. If we don't start we'll never get there.

At least with fairphone the usb port is replaceable. I agree losing the 3.5mm jack is disappointing but since I got my Roccat Khan I've been using an adapter to listen to podcasts and music at my desk. Sadly it's the way the industry is heading. At least they've stuck with the easily replaceable battery.

Re: Which is greener?

If people are going to have this tech, at least this option is less bad than others. Fairphone is about 100 people, they're having an outsized impact on the industry for their size.

Re: But will it last?

Fairphone have a good track record on supporting their phones. If my fairphone 3 wasn't a year old this would be the phone I'd be getting. Now if only it had Jolla with Android app support it would be prefect :)

LA cops told to harvest social media handles from people they stop, suspect or not

Wouldn't surprise me if someone was arrested for obstruction or public nuisance or such for refusing to answer. Of course depending on your apperance refusing to answer might be a lot more dangerous than a trip down town to not answer questions there.

Lenovo expands Indian factory to meet booming local demand for PCs and smartmobes

Did they also say where they are going to source all the parts they'll need? If all the parts come from other countries and are just assembled in India, seems like trying to dodge imports on assembled goods or take advantage of 'made in India' and tax breaks.

Cops responding to ShotSpotter's AI alerts rarely find evidence of gun crime, says Chicago watchdog

Feels like a hammer meet screw sort of situation.

Would be interesting to know if that 97% accuracy includes staff (and not the software) 'screening' recordings after talking with the police and overriding or reclassifying the results.

Scientists reckon eliminating COVID-19 will be easier than polio, harder than smallpox – just buckle in for a wait

Re: What do you mean no Apocalypse?

Do you think the flu kills 600,000 people in the US every year?

At the beginning of the pandemic the death rate was at 5%, not 0.5% so you'd need to add a zero on to the end of that number.

Troll jailed for 5 years after swatting of Twitter handle owner ends in death

Re: Sentence should have been far longer

I agree five years isn't long enough for what he has done but we need to move past joking/not joking about rape as a form of punishment.

Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class

Re: When did you write this article?

I've tried the mail beta. It does work well though it's not suitable for landscape views. It's almost unuseable on my Gemini which forces landscape viewing but is fine on my S9.

ASUS baffles customer by telling them thermal pad thickness is proprietary

Re: eh

The anger seems to be mostly from people who thought they could force a hard border between Northern Ireland and RoI and it back fired quite badly for them.

Unihertz Titan Pocket: Like asking Mum for a BlackBerry and she tells you 'but we've got a BlackBerry at home'

An edge case to be sure but when I have having chemotherapy all touch screen devices stopped registering my touch. Something in my skin had been changed, different texture and everything and it took several months to go back to normal. Thankfully I had a Q10 so keyboard shortcuts could do everything I needed.

Re: Cheap, but I won't be getting it

The first priv got a shorter than expected support period because one of the chipset manufacturers pulled their support and Blackbettery/TCL couldn't get them to change their mind. The Key 2 is still getting updates now.

Re: physical keyboard

I had the Blackberry Q10 and have the Gemini. The Gemini is a mini work horse. Clearly first gen but impressibe all the same. You need somewhere to set it down to use it though. Think of it effectively as a mini Android laptop with a 4G modem. It's not suitable to be used as your primary phone (particularly as on the software side it has been largely abandoned and a replacement battery is £100 from planet computers), you can't use it on the go the way you could with a Blackberry. The Q10 was one of the best phones I've had and I am comparing it to my S9 and fairphone 3. It was robust and had a replaceable battery. I got about four or five years out of it and would never have gotten my S9 if my son hadn't used it for a teething ring and it was impossible to get a resonably priced replacement. If Blackberry announced a new version of the Q10 with BB10, Android App support and a usb-c port (keeping the user changable battery of course) I'd have it on pre-order.

5-year-old Fairphone 2 is about to receive a major update to Android 9

Re: "an upgrade to Android 9 feels marginal at best and outdated at worst"

I have a fairphone 3 and a Gemini. They are both good phones in their way. Both have replaceable batteries but my Gemini is three years old now. Contacted Planet Computers about a replacement as you can't buy official batteries anywhere and was quoted £100 to replace the battery and I would have to send it back to them. I need it for work so can't be without it for even a day. Think that's the old builder's trick of not wanting to say no to work so giving quotes that will never be accepted. Could risk Chinese knockoffs that say they are compatible, hell they might even come from the same factory but not that desperate just yet. I would like it to get an upgrade to Android 9 but it seems like the software side of the operation is pretty weak compared to the hardware. If sailfish had android app support for the Gemini I'd happily jump ship but there are apps that I need to be on it.

There are quite a few e-readers based on Android 8 so hoping Google keep supporting it for a while yet.

Missile systems software dev leaker has sentence almost doubled after UK.gov says 4½ years was too soft

Re: It's all about the presentation

You might want to look at the history of indefinite detention and the problems it's still causing.

Re: "The sentence for refusing to hand over his password was increased to 2½ years"

If you think that you need to look at how the police used seven day detention in Northern Ireland or investigated familes like Stephen Lawrence's for dirt when they are trying to coverup their own failings. The fact of the matter is this power (five years for not handing over passwords) is ripe for abuse and we'll never hear about when it was used to threaten someone and it worked.

AMD performance plummets when relying on battery power, says Intel. Let's take a closer look at those stats

I have a thinkpad A285. It's a great little machine but Lenovo have throttled the CPU. The TDP is as low as it can go and the intel chip in the X280 is allowed to consume more power. Can't find the reference but remember reading there was only one heat pipe on the AMD chip v two on the Intel. Other laptops have feature like single channel RAM which hits AMD CPUs harder. It would not be difficult to find a laptop that sips power for AMD and gives Intel every advantage in the performance stakes so I'd take Intel's stats with an ocean's worthof salt.

Best buds? Apple must be fuming: Samsung's wireless earphones boast 11 hours of listening on a single charge

Creative have ear buds that last 14 hrs and are cheaper.

Facebook iOS app silently turns on your phone camera. Ah, relax – it's just a bug, lol!?

The obvious solution for Facebook getting access to transaction records is the same as Google getting access to health records, buy access to the data through a business venture and pinky promise to not merge data sets (until you do).

Boeing comes clean on parachute borkage as the ISS crew is set to shrink

On the moon by 2024? Sorry to say I'll believe that when I see it. Too many agendas pulling NASA in too many directions without enough funding to fulfill them. Hope to be proved wrong though.