Posts by Fading

You think the UK coronavirus outbreak was bad? Just wait till winter: Study shows test-and-trace system is failing

Re: Because the modelling has been so accurate thus far.......

There will always be morons. Legislating for morons is a downward spiral and will create the dystopian nightmare described in many recent teen novels.

Because the modelling has been so accurate thus far.......

Did the model assume 100% compliance by those tested and traced? Fiddling with inputs and publishing scary papers based on outputs from non-validated models makes good copy but doesn't add anything to the sum of human knowledge - ultimately it is just computational game. Second waves are already occurring in some countries (even where mask wearing is the norm) - this shouldn't be about stopping the second wave but keeping it at levels the NHS can cope with (unless the plan is to wait for a vaccine - but that is going to be an expensive and open ended wait) .

T&T is the only one tool - we could provide postcode alerts with infection rates, public transport infection alerts - inform us all where and when so we can decide for ourselves the likelihood of exposure and isolate accordingly. At the moment the figures we get to see are out of date and the granularity sucks (local authority level).

Elite name on Brit scene sponsors retro video games preservation project at the Centre for Computing History

Re: Screenshot

CGA (cough)

There was an Elite plus on PC that had MCGA graphics.

'I'm telling you, I haven't got an iPad!' – Sent from my iPad

Denial is the first defence.

It is a lot easier to trouble shoot if you know the events leading up to the problem - unfortunately the user is more likely to be a hindrance to this and is probably best kept out of harms way (sent somewhere else so they don't overhear the aghast swearing and incredulous expletives). No one likes to be publicly shown-up and there are benefits for keeping known episodes of idiocy on the QT as long as they know you know (and with Karma you never know when you may require such a face saving) .

DXC says ransomware attack disrupted customer operations at insurance services arm but barely left a scratch

Nice to read an update on El reg...

As DXC/Xchanging have still failed to update us officially on the incident (not insurance sector BTW but we did have an outage). I am still wondering if this was linked to the Cisco ransom episode (as DXC are a Cisco Partner).

Intel couldn't shrink to 7nm on time – but it was able to reduce one thing: Its chief engineer's employment

Re: For now, it doesn't matter yet

Then you are not looking hard enough - the latest Epyc are regularly scoring in the 500 for FP Rate and near 200 on FP Speed. Now add in cost per core and Xeon is not looking good.

Re: For now, it doesn't matter yet

So why only focus on the CPU 2017 integer speed? Epyc seems to do pretty well in FP rates, FP Speed and integer rates? Or was that the only metric that supports your view?

Re: For now, it doesn't matter yet

Erm isn't that a per-thread figure? AMD offers more threads for less money and less power than the equivalent Intel chips so I'm not sure what the win is supposed to be for Intel (and you also don't need to turn off SMT/Hyperthreading because of security concerns with AMD).

Intel's 7nm is busted, chips delayed, may have to use rival foundries to get GPUs out for US govt exascale super

B550 motherboards

Are not direct replacements for B450 motherboards - they are a step up in quality and specifications (to the point where the cheaper X570s look poor in comparison) . The motherboard manufacturers have finally accepted that AMD chips are not the cheap and cheerful option (and therefore only require cheap and cheerful motherboards) but quality chips in their own right (I'd swap my skylake-x for a ryzen 9 3950 at the drop of a hat - even on a B550 board) .

Competition isn't just about prices but also about driving innovation and quality.

Bill Gates debunks 'coronavirus vaccine is my 5G mind control microchip implant' conspiracy theory

So if it was true.....

Will the vaccine crash randomly? Will I lose functionality in the next update? Will I need a physical upgrade to run the vaccine properly? How much memory do I need?

Citrix denies dark web claim of network compromise and ransomware attack

Unrelated to the ransomware...

attack on DXC recently? Are they the "third party" mentioned in the above?

Oh what a cute little animation... OH MY GOD. (Not acceptable, even in the '80s)

Adult floppies...

Smut was more like magic-eye pictures in those days - you had to stare for a few minutes trying to work out what it was.....

UN warns of global e-waste wave as amount of gadgets dumped jumps 21% in 5 years

Or...

My spare room - still have 486 DX2 and AMD 64 3200+ tower systems in there, a drawer full of old mobile phones, some 8 bit computers (Amstrad and C64) plus CRT monitors.

(Icon because there are a fair few old and dirty keyboards as well)

I suspect I am not the only one hoarding old kit.

CompSci student bitten by fox after feeding it McNuggets

I see an obvious flaw in their plan.

"University authorities will attempt to reduce debris in the hope that trims campus rodent populations and causes foxes to move elsewhere of their own accord." but according to the story the students are another food source - so perhaps they need to be culled so the foxes move on?

After 84 years, Japan's Olympus shutters its camera biz, flogs it to private equity – smartphones are just too good

SP-600UZ owner here

Nice little bridge camera from about 10 years ago. Whilst on paper its specifications don't compare well to a decent mid range phone it still takes better pictures (IMHO) . Of course I don't take as many photos with it as a phone is much more convenient but the ones I do take tend not to get deleted (unlike the majority of phone pics).

The other advantage of a camera with a sizeable lens is I have fewer pictures of my thumb......

UK police's face recognition tech breaks human rights laws. Outlaw it, civil rights group urges Court of Appeal

Re: What's a "Human Right"?

Pretty sure the Bill of Rights 1689 will still apply (which reinforced the Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679) by codifying certain rights and liberties) .

Segway to Heaven: Mega-hyped wonder-scooter that was going to remake city transport to cease production

I look forward to the time.

When "Segway" is part of the management presentation lexicon but no one (in management at least) will know the origin of the word.

PC printer problems and enraged execs: When the answer to 'Hand over that floppy disk' is 'No'

How to be diplomatic in the face of idiocy?

As Sun Tzu states "Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across." but how do you manage to keep a straight face when in similar situations?

Sony reveals PlayStation 5 will offer heretical no-optical-disk option. And yes, it has an AMD CPU-GPU combo

PS4 to PS5

And no complaints it causes Covid-19? Looks like the love-child of the Alienware X51 and the new Aurora R9 not necessarily a bad thing but isn't exactly unassuming.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes: UK man gets 3 years for torching 4G phone mast over 5G fears

All this outcry at 5G....

Just wait until they turn it up to 10.

Publishers sue to shut down books-for-all Internet Archive for 'willful digital piracy on an industrial scale'

Re: Digital Era

I also have a nook - and yep it is now pretty much impossible to purchase books to read on the device from the usual sources. It is a lot easier to get hold of pirated books to read on it then go the legal route (not that I'd ever advocate such a thing) . Thankfully most of the ebooks from Humble Bundle are DRM free and in epub format already.

Can you be on the side of authors and electronic libraries....

But against publishers? The music scene has started adapting to life in the digital age and I find I'm more likely to buy directly from the artist than on any online store. This cuts out the middleman publishers/distributors as frequently the bands/artists I like crowd fund the initial run. Most books I read are electronic (I've run out of space for hard copies at home) and these are either via Amazon prime or lately humble bundle (I now have a lot of tech books to get through). The internet archive is a great resource and I would probably be willing to pay a reasonable subscription fee for access - much as I already "borrow" some e-books from Amazon. Set up a model that pays the authors directly, cut out the publishers and put a reasonable time-limit on copyright (author's life +10 years after, 10 years seems to work in pharmaceuticals ).

Australia to refund $720m in 'debts' determined by dodgy algorithm

Governments don't pay for anything...

Unfortunately the only ones that end up paying are all tax payers - so unless the ministers pay with their jobs there is no justice. The first ones that should be paying with their jobs are those that continued to apply the algorithm even after they suspected it to be unlawful. This kind of unthinking adherence to procedures that reverse the principles of law without adequate oversight and a proper appeals process really boil the blood.

Cutting down on fraud is a worthy goal but using the easy option of assuming everyone is committing fraud unless proven otherwise is not the way to do it and should have rung alarm bells.

Surprise! That £339 world's first 'anti-5G' protection device is just a £5 USB drive with a nice sticker on it

Surely to work....

It needs to remain in the USB superposition (https://www.cookieshq.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/usb.jpg) or its quantum state will collapse. Ergo by plugging it in they are using it wrong.

cmd.exe is dead, long live PowerShell: Microsoft leads aged command-line interpreter out into 'maintenance mode'

Hmmmm....

Might be time to convert my daily batch scripts to PS - some have been running happily for so many years it seems almost sacrilege to retire them though.

Wanna force granny to take down that family photo from the internet? No problem. Europe's GDPR to the rescue

Re: If all PII was removed from the image metadata

Is your face as a child PII though? My baby photos could be of pretty much any ugly baby not exactly PII are they?

Where does the copyright law stand on this?

Assuming the grandmother created the photo she retains copyright over the image. As such if she wished to publish said image she is entitled to as she owns the copyright? If all PII was removed from the image metadata would this then pass the GDPR provisions?

Das reboot: That's the only thing to do when the screenshot, er, freezes

Re: ID10T error

Depends on the usability of the workaround - the one suggested would work for all situations of email image versus GUI. Faux understanding leads to the same repetitions as no-understanding it is just harder to spot and impossible to call out politely.

ID10T error

These types of error are sometimes the hardest to solve especially if you wish to minimise embarrassment (in the work place this can be essential for long term success) . It is though an opportunity to be creative - nodding sagely, muttering about broken links in emails and showing a way around the problem would probably have been quicker than trying to explain the concepts of static images versus GUI. Ignorance is forgivable - will-full stupidity, not so much.

Capture the horrors of war in razor-sharp quality with this ruggedised Samsung phone – or just lob it at enemy forces

Battery life?

Not going to be particularly useful during a covert op, if you are struggling to find somewhere to plug it in every day.

To test its security mid-pandemic, GitLab tried phishing its own work-from-home staff. 1 in 5 fell for it

I have been caught out....

Reporting a suspicious email that was an actual company email (even had the suspicious spelling mistakes) ....

Microsoft claims it has spun up a top-five AI supercomputer for its pals at OpenAI – but won't reveal the full specs

285,000 CPU cores and 10,000 GPUs

And it still falls over when encountering a 2GB Outlook pst file.....

As Brit cyber-spies drop 'whitelist' and 'blacklist', tech boss says: If you’re thinking about getting in touch saying this is political correctness gone mad, don’t bother

Re: 250 comments largely opposing the change

Change for change's sake (especially when it takes so long to get things agreed in the first place) is fairly unwelcome in most instances. There is a word missing from the new terminology anyway. A whitelist isn't an "allow" list it is an "explicitly allow" list (and deny all else) and a blacklist isn't a "deny" list but an "explicitly deny" list (and allow all else) . This is a known association with the whitelist/blacklist paradigm but not in an allow/deny one.

ICANN finally halts $1.1bn sale of .org registry, says it's 'the right thing to do' after months of controversy

Re: What's Really Behind This?

I made no comment and did not indicate the direction of any support......

Re: What's Really Behind This?

Just leave this here....

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/03/rnli-volunteers-sacked-dispute-mugs-adorned-naked-women/

Intel is offering more 14nm Skylake desktop processors, we repeat: More 14nm Skylake desktop processors

And another motherboard needed....

Because erm Intel. Same node pretty much the same chips (just i9's renamed as i7's) nothing much new on the chipset (well Wifi 6 is nice to have as is 2.5GB Ethernet but fairly moot when nothing else on my network can communicate at that bandwidth) and a new top end with a 25% increase in cores (though still less than AMD's second place chip).

Power use is going to be insane at the top - remember all the jokes about AMD's chips that could clock really high but needed industrial coolants to get there? Ahead of their time.....

Won't need stickers saying Intel inside as you will know because your pc is now heating your entire house.....

But you will get an extra 2 fps so all good.

(where's the Chipzooky icon?)

Lars Ulrich makes veiled threats of another Metallica album during web chat with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

Great v Good

I would agree they haven't made any great music in 30 years - good yes, great no (I'm not as cynical as the article's author). There is also the aura surrounding Metallica that doesn't enhance their image - yes many bands are in it for the money and happily take the corporate 30 pieces of silver but many musicians actually seem to care more about playing music (Dave Mackintosh of Dragon Force fame can frequently be seen in pubs playing around the home counties in the band "The Machines" - go see them when the lockdown ends you won't regret it) .

Great music sometimes isn't just about the sound - it is also enhanced or reduced by the emotion you know is behind it.

(Beer because I miss watching a live band in the pub)

Why should the UK pensions watchdog be able to spy on your internet activities? Same reason as the Environment Agency and many more

Re: VPN Always Essential - Now Compulsory

Not just a VPN - what we need is a little browser plugin to provide innocuous internet traffic (randomly browse BBC and other "sanctioned" sites, official twitter feeds etc). Something to provide continuous plausible deniability....

Video game cloud streaming shaken up as Nvidia loses more big names, Microsoft readies its market killer

And just like the TV streaming services....

Market fragmentation means you have to pay for many services just to ensure you can get to play what you want (it's bad enough needing to have Steam, Epic, Uplay, Origin, Battlenet, Wargaming.net, Arc and gamesessions installed - but at least the launchers are "free") . At least with GOG the "Galaxy" launcher is optional.

Of course the main problem with streaming is the weakest link - your ISP. Can I rely on my ISP not falling over when I want to kick back and game? Well if experience is anything to go by the answer is a solid no. Sorry streaming services it is bad enough when origin goes down and takes down my EA library with it (offline can be enabled but getting into offline mode when the EA servers are down is a giant faff) at least I have other games I can play. Entrusting my leisure time to a streaming service isn't for me and I would need to realy make use of it to justify another expense.

From Amanda Holden to petrol-filled water guns: It has been a weird week for 5G

Re: Who'd have thought

The full quote is "people have had enough of experts from organizations with acronyms that have got things so wrong in the past" - puts a different slant on the whole thing wouldn't you say?

Intel's 10th-gen Core family cracks 5GHz barrier with H-series laptop processors

Re: So does that make this an

I just assumed you were Canadian.

Intel must be running scared.....

of AMD's new Ryzen 9 4900H and HS 45 and 35W chips. The cinebench R20 results put the 35W AMD part significantly ahead of Intel's i9-9880H even when the latter is running at 90W.

Not only is Zoom's strong end-to-end encryption not actually end-to-end, its encryption isn't even that strong

Re: If Boris says Zoom is secure...

He didn't actually say that though did he?

Zoom's end-to-end encryption isn't actually end-to-end at all. Good thing the PM isn't using it for Cabinet calls. Oh, for f...

Re: wait, what?

Probably makes it easier for GCHQ to watch the briefings........

PC owners borg into the most powerful computer the world has ever known – all in the search for coronavirus cure

Re: BOINC

Must be aiming for particular GPU's on F@H - my 1080 Ti gets a WU every time I connect (don't have it on 24/7 as need to keep the noise down during conference/video calls) .

Depends on the GPU...

Any gamers using the AMD Radeon VII will be donating 3.45 Tflops of double precision compute performance. My lowly 1080 Ti can only manage 354.4 Gflops. But that's the beauty of distributed computing - the power is in the numbers not the individual.

Completed

A couple of covid-19 work units already. This i7 7820X with 1080Ti is certainly a lot faster for F@H then the previous machines I used for my first 100 work units.

Microsoft Teams usage jumps to 32, no, 44 million as Windows-slinger platform slides onto home workers' PCs

Using the freemium version here....

As a messenger and video caller it works fine for the price (not on 365 yet - well I have a personal subscription but work is still exchange and office 2016) . It is simple enough for even the less technical minded to use so does have that going for it.

AMD, boffins clash over chip data-leak claims: New side-channel holes in decades of cores, CPU maker disagrees

But the code used..

Was pre-existing side channel exploit code that has been mitigated? Seems that if you have patched for the existing side channel attacks then this method as outlined in the paper would not work. Of course this doesn't mean a new side channel attack that has not been discovered and mitigated could not take advantage of this exploit but that is a harder attack vector than many others are already out there.

I'm still a little more concerned with the IME exploit and the many meltdown/spectre variants that my intel chips are vulnerable to - thankfully I am probably not a high value target.

'Unfixable' boot ROM security flaw in millions of Intel chips could spell 'utter chaos' for DRM, file encryption, etc

So the Intel IME..

Is a 486 with 1.5MB of RAM running a custom Minix.... so who is going to be the first to get Doom to run on it?