* Posts by Robert Carnegie

4532 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Sep 2009

Plug in your iPhone, iPad, iPod, fire up the App Store: You have new Apple patches to install

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Must be a popular one...

I get my updates through iTunes on Windows; I expect it to be more robust or redoable but I'm not certain. I think that last time the download to PC took an hour and the install about ten minutes, but the phone may have had to be plugged in to the PC throughout. Maybe I'll wait a little for this one.

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: What about iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, and iPad 4 ?

The new devices check for their own updates, I don't know if the older ones do. If they're no longer supported then that's that. Do remember that some devices and some OS versions can be crashed or exploited by a "text" message that includes noncompliant emoji, so you really could be stuck with thst problem.

And so I bought a secondhand iPhone 6 last year.

Clone your own Prince Phil, says eBay seller hawking debris left over from royal car crash

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

He's not a bit on the side, he's her husband. And his connection to the British Empire is only by marriage. And do people generally apologise to the other party in a road accident? What would it take to send flowers, the driver's friend is quoted as saying. Well, her address for one thing - which, as the passenger, she presumably wasn't asked for?

The lighter side of HMRC: We want your money, but we also want to make you laugh

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: If we taxed the rich properly

I expect on your private island you can grow the smoking herb of your choice as well, tax free.

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Child benefit... @AC

It's CHILD benefit, not pay-your--mortgage-for-you benefit (do you still get that as well, it used to exist, would it survive austerity, I know where I'd bet).

What it reminds me of, I may be misremembering the story, but my mum grew up with British food rationing and had three brothers. This meant that gran could give grandad an egg with his breakfast every day of the week that was supposed to be for the kids.

Ooh, my machine is SO much faster than yours... Oh, wait, that might be a bit of a problem...

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Silly NIC games ...

Du you buy MAC addresses from a global authority, like IP addresses?

Then it sounds like someone bought 20 addresses since they were only shipping up to 20 network cards in one multi-pack.

Or, after manufacturing each 20, something with a counter on the production line got reset.

Or, the manufacturer actually had 40 MAC addresses and you were just unlucky not to get one Box A and one Box B.

Huawei and Intel hype up AI hardware, TensorFlow tidbits, and more

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: As a fake its unconvincing

From memory (I did write it down), BBC Radio 4 news the other night told us,

"President Trump's dismissed reports that he worked for Russia as a big fat hoax."

Can you tell me if this actually is funny, then I can send it in to "Private Eye". I did e-mail it to "The News Quiz" but I do not expect a conclusive result. They'll laugh at anything. "Unfortunately, Slimming World has had to cancel its meetings here on Saturday mornings as the group is too large for the room."

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Deepfakes

The ones that you notice are unconvincing. And the ones that you make on a phone app probably aren't state-of-the-art. When real money is spent? I think you've been got and you don't know it.

If I could turn back time, I'd tell you to keep that old Radarange at home

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Military Ship Radar

It - oh, joke. It wiped your memory too.

I don't remember getting the sedative, euphoric, anaesthetic, and memory zapping drug I was supposed to have during a colonoscopy examination in 2016, but since I remember the colonoscopy itself at least as well as I might want to, I have wondered whether the anaesthetist pocketed the drug for their own use later.

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

There was an early episode on the Starship Enterprise which led to the ship generating a space-time warp field that made the ship's clock run backwards 71 hours. At the time it was "worry about that later" (er, how?) Later on they became increasingly proficient at time travel. The title for the original event is slightly NSFW so I'll just let you look up stardate 1704.2.

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Running backwards ?

As described at http://www.beaglesoft.com/mainfaqclock.htm the operating system's time is based on a count of the CPU timed interrupt signal. The interrupt is a function to pause application processing and handle some device requiring attention, or in this case just to tell time. However, the web page is to support a utility which deals with early and inaccurate timing runtime hardware by using either the CMOS RTC or "The U.S. National atomic clock" to provide time. In the circumstances, something like that might have been already installed on the machine.

Or, on the lines already suggested, something cues up the time to be added, 00000001, but the microwaves cause this input to be read as 11111111, which is minus 1 approximately ish.

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Hmm.

I'd heard of computers causing gynaecological disturbance but not the other way around. Particularly through electricity.

So I am wondering about, let us say, a convenient product for the circumstance, that might either be wrapped in a plastic polymer with disagreeable electrostatic properties, or contain such a polymer.

Alternatively I'm thinking about French underwear, but I do have work to do, so I'll save that reverie for later.

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: EMC

I read "a bag of plastic coins", which raised many questions, such as can you get middle-age onset dyslexia!

I believe some people jingle coins in their pockets, and at a certain time in the past, the pockets might be all nylon or whatever. I don't intentionally... but I do use a plastic box in a flattened egg shape as a pocket coin purse - which along with a case of unusual design for my keys, continues to prevent wearing holes in the fabric - and at a brisk walking pace, it rattles.

Having AI assistants ruling our future lives? That's so sad. Alexa play Despacito

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

Actually, no thanks, foul stuff.

I got a non-smart Breville "Hot Cop" machine. When activated by hand, it dispenses 500 ml of good boiling water from its spout, after 60 seconds.

If you don't want an exact multiple of 500 ml of boiling water at 60 second intervals then you are out of luck, and I find it more than I need - in fact I needed extra-large cups. But a current model of the machine now allows the quantity to be varied. But, as far as I know, not verbally.

It just occurred to me, maybe I could put glass marbles or something in the machine and get less water out. (Is that what they've done?) Supposing that I can buy Pyrex marbles...

South Korea reckons mystery hackers cracked open advanced weapons servers

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Hmm. DAPA.

Is that like DARPA, but instead of Research Projects, it is just Purchasing?

To be honest, I know the answer is "no", but it struck me.

Oh, SSH, IT please see this: Malicious servers can fsck with your PC's files during scp slurps

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Please tell me if this is a stupid question.

So do we need to update rcp as well?

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: WinSCP 5.14...

The article says yes, but https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2018-20684 says:

"In WinSCP before 5.14 beta, due to missing validation, the scp implementation would accept arbitrary files sent by the server, potentially overwriting unrelated files."

Version 5.13.5 apparently is "before 5.14" but perhaps is not counted?

I think, firewall: don't let your WinSCP play with strange servers.

Having said that, I'm looking at an old WinSCP version here, which says:

"SSH and SCP code based on PuTTY 0.63+"

If WinSCP is based on PuTTY, and PuTTY hasn't been fixed, then...…huh???

Do you feel 'lucky', well, do you, punk? Google faces down magic button patent claim

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Yiddish?

Further down, Wikipedia says Arabic was also "official" until 2018, and presently has "a special status". Which sounds a wee bit like when the Dilbert organisation assigns an employee to "a special project", which I'm sure is the intention.

The article is not adequately edited, to which I attribute calling the plaintiff company "the Israeli" - I presume corporations are considered people and citizens only in the U.S., and so this is, at best, a form of grammar that I'm unfamiliar with - but it's only a word short e.g. "the Israeli company" so maybe the writer forgot they hadn't typed the word "company". That happens often to my train thought.

Come mobile users, gather round and learn how to add up

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Aproximate

Specifically, when you're doing mathematics with infinite decimal places then the difference between 4.0 and 3.99999999... is 0.00000000... which obviously is 0. So 4.0 and 3.99999999... are the same number written two different ways.

Personally I distrust this infinite stuff, but I'm comfortable imagining someone starting to write out the digits of the number, and never stopping. But there's no question of getting to the end; there isn't an end.

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Testing gone wrong

I may be missing the point of the story about electronic road signs. It said GO TEAM all across the city; wouldn't it only be a problem if it said STOP?

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Itchy Chin

Possibly most of the internet is now free of servers displaying today's date as January 14th, 19119. (It's a Millennium Bug thing. Ask your legacy team.)

http://snapahead.freeservers.com/ reports that as of that date "I don't have many mp3z". Right-click to see page source produces a message "I don't want U to steel from me!"

It's like tasting a madeleine cake.

Computing boffins strip the fun out of satirical headlines

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Better safe than sorry.

If AI is required to judge whether the user is joking or not, the "Little Lost Robot" scenario (i.e. danger of death) could arise. Those who don't like BBC humour nowadays may prefer a machine that defaults to saying "¿Que?" when instructions are unclear.

Begone, Demon Internet: Vodafone to shutter old-school pioneer ISP

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Wild West Days

That was Elvis "The Pelvis" Presley. The Internet can do you a topless Cliff Richard.

Just for EU, just for EU, just for EU: Forget about enforcing Right To Be Forgotten outside member states

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

What's the "M People" connection?

"Search for the Hero" doesn't seem quite right.

I think "What have you done today to make you feel proud?" was a solo title by the singer.

I understand the group also covered "Don't Look Any Further" and "What a Fool Believes", and an original album track was, possibly, "Never Mind, Love".

Steamer closets, flying cars, robot boxers, smart-mock-cock ban hypocrisy – yes, it's the worst of CES this year

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Since it substitutes for what mouth and hands can do (*), it ought to be able to participate in business meetings on your behalf. Particularly if you already have to treat your boss n the way this wonder machine is designed to.

(*) It seems to me that it should look much more like an excited squid. Maybe it does when you take the cap off?

Fake news? More like ache news. Grandma, grampa 'more likely' to share made-up articles during US election

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

I'm not their consumer but

Arguably Fox and Breitbart are amongst the best at selling stories with minimal truthful content. They have quite the audience, for one thing.

One "good" bad trick is to report opinion, what's been said by the President or the White House or the candidate running in Springfield. On the other side... well, the other side really, isn't hugely different, politically. Like homo sapiens and chimpanzees, they are 99% the same. What's really different is other countries. Therefore also what's really scary. I don't think I see a lot of partisan content from the other side, except for someone who keeps posting a list of Republican office holders who are child molesters. And I don't know which cases are accurately stated but I assume that those who are known to be child molesters are the ones that we don't have to worry about. Anyway, the point I was going for is that a "news" site whose actual business is transmitting partisan statements from partisan third parties is technically lying only in calling this stuff "news". Oh, and in the words "Fair and balanced." And "Most watched. Most trusted." Though... if you don't "trust" them, then why watch, so they must be at around 99%.

Gyro failure fingered for sending Earth-gazing Digital Globe sat TITSUP (That's a total inability to snap usual pics)

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

You have redundant parts when you expect some of them to break. So, some of them break Then, more break... You still eventually run out.

S'pose you could send another box up that only contains extra gyros, and that mates with the original. Or send up a new bird with a better camera.

A few reasons why cops didn't immediately shoot down London Gatwick airport drone menace

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Somewhere, deep in space, three hundred years hence...

So, let's use Jeff Wayne's material instead. ...What?

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Somewhere, deep in space, three hundred years hence...

I think an XKCD comic that I'm not bothering to search for pointed out that nearby stars are a few years or a few decades away in terms of their light reaching us, not usually centuries etc. Your laser beam might reach a close star in a bit over four years, and then, maybe, they could shoot back. That would deal with the drone problem worldwide, at least.

Unless they sent this drone in the first place. Have they tried playing John Williams music at it?

Fake 'U's! Phishing creeps use homebrew fonts as message ciphers to evade filters

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: From bitter experience I must disagree

Wimbledon: presumably different games (or, same game, different matches).

If they pass coverage from BBC1 to BBC2 or back then it's liable to run in parallel on both until there's a pause.

It's how tennis is - when it's on, there's a lot of it. Five-a-side or more would let more people play at one time and on one TV channel.

Robert Carnegie Silver badge
Joke

Bjlljkks :-)

Your mates vape. Your boss quit smoking. You promised to quit in 2019. But how will Big Tobacco give it up?

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Look out

Vaping causes drooling dementia in 90 percent of users exactly 20 years after the first or only huff. Possibly. But since it isn't 20 years yet, it hasn't been detected. This is how medical research works: long term effects require long term research.

Oh, it's 30 years if you were just standing next to a vaper. But whichever comes first.

It's a Christmas miracle: Logitech backs down from Harmony home hub API armageddon

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Please forgive my ignorance, but isn't "undocumented API" an oxymoron?

I don't know the details, but I think perhaps it's that the Harmony Hub may include open source or other imported software that implements this API as well as other functions - but Logitech didn't plan to offer this API or advertise that it was there in their device - although not in its specification?

On the first day of Christmas, Microsoft gave to me... an emergency out-of-band security patch for IE

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

419 not 491

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam unless for some reason you did that on purpose.

"The number 419 refers to the article of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud."

Influential cypherpunk and crypto-anarchist Tim May dies aged 67

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

A minor point

Credit cards have suffered occasional spectacular failures.

https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-01-11 ... basically any mention of "credit card" is bad news.

Talk about a GAN-do attitude... AI software bots can see through your text CAPTCHAs

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Last time I tried to look up a quantity of addresses in Scotland - at https://osg.scot/portal/

After the first few, I got one of those graphical CAPTCHAs. Then a little later, two. Then, four, then eight... then I took a long break.

(This is for address data that I already have - to check it.)

This was inconvenient but I respect the goal of preventing data from being ripped wholesale. And I suspect that the results don't need to be 100% correct, and that I'm scored against other human players, not against a computer recognizer... or there would be no point.

I do think that the pictures are faked anyway because surely American streets don't have that many signs all over them... even in famous small towns which have peculiar traffic regulations specifically to earn fines from unsuspecting visitors.

More data joy: Email scammers are buying marks' info from legit biz intelligence firms

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

I wonder how the researchers got all this information about the scammer gang.

Probably the scammers are wondering that, too.

"Don't tell 'em, Pike" ;-)

Brits' DNA data sent to military base after 'foreign' hack attacks – report

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Counting

Did you say that 100,000 Genomes is one million?

Why, you're no better than an 8-bit hustler: IBM punts paper on time-saving DNN-training trick

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Previously

When I last tried speech recognition, 8-bit audio which sounded quite clear to me did not get recognized. It had to be 16-bit, which I think is officially CD quality.

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Our own vision uses it...

It works because we look around a lot. And we don't notice what we don't see.

Something that I don't remember doing before in an eye test: the optician asked me to look ahead while he moved his hand around - I was to say when I saw his fingers wiggling. I assume he was wiggling throughout the test, but for an evidently not unusual amount of time, I was aware of the hand but not the wiggling. I repeat, this is a test of SIGHT.

My test in 2016 was somewhere else and included a screen behind which lights twinkled and I was to click when I saw one, which I think I messed up by breathing on the screen and misting it up so that a lot of it couldn't be seen.

STIBP, collaborate and listen: Linus floats Linux kernel that 'fixes' Intel CPUs' Spectre slowdown

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: why aren't we blaming millennials' parents

We are the parents...

Microsoft: New icons, new drivers, AI! Everything is awesome!

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: New icon design

The Fendahl in 1970s "Doctor Who" were a "gestalt" organism, and not one to get involved with. The Time Lords uninstalled the lot of them, but one escaped...

BT pension scheme will stay on RPI interest rates for now

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Oh well.

If you're referring to the "Pension Protection Fund", I think that's paid for by taxing other pension funds. Which means basically that pensioners and pension fund members are paying for it. Now, ideally that's everybody.

Sorry, we haven't ACLU what happened in sealed 'Facebook decryption' case, but let's find out

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Possibly inspired by the USB C connector - the other day I found on sale a patented Micro USB charging cable whose plug goes both ways - if you plug it "upside down" it still fits and works. For power, anyway.

Whereas most USB connectors don't work -until- you turn it upside down to insert the wrong way, then the right way.

Why is my Windows 10 preview build ticking? Microsoft reminds users that previews have timebombs

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Isn't it just wonderful ?

Only the alpha or beta unfinished trial releases expire... for now. But each "finished" version eventually will be unsupported, and hacked to heck by hooligans from h-overseas. I suppose you know that Windows 7 will, too.

Alleged crypto-crook CEO cuffed by FBI after $4m investment in his bank bafflingly vanishes

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

I had trouble with the headline.

"Alleged crypto-crook CEO cuffed by FBI after $4m investment in his bank bafflingly vanishes"

I read this as, the FBI arrested him, but then he vanished. But no, the money apparently vanished.

Clunk, bang, rattle: Is that a ghost inside your machine?

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: I really don’t believe in the paranormal, but

Have we mentioned "Pepper's Ghost" already? Done with mirrors of course.

Where to implant my employee microchip? I have the ideal location

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: Faulure is extremely valuable

If David Cameron had left the EU when the referendum told him to, then by now we could be already applying to get back in.

Australia to build a pirate-proof fence: Brace yourselves, Google

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: re: stop me painting my own copy to hang in my living room.

So if Katy Perry doesn't like President Donald Trump playing "I Kissed A Girl And I Liked It" at his political rallies, it's just too bad for her? Even when he does the motions with it.

Some content has legitimate value arguably by its artificial scarcity, such as pay-per-view shows of "Some People Hitting Each Other".

Many art galleries prohibit photography, if you want a copy of Michelangelo's Little Willie to take home then you must proceed to the gallery's gift shop and try to get it over the counter. I think the days (several days) of lesser painters camping out in the gallery while cunningly producing a duplicate or near impression of the great piece also are mostly passed, but I haven't generally looked.

There is much to worry about in the present Australian legislation, but happily also a fair chance that the entire continent will be razed by fire in the near future, so that those of us who don't live on or anywhere near it can cease to worry about matters that don't directly affect us.

Azure MFA falls over, Windows 10 struggles with Intel drivers, and Microsoft gives us... more Sticky Notes?

Robert Carnegie Silver badge

Re: As I have explained to the admin multiple times

Workaround: carve the password into your desk, cover it with a -blank- post-it to avoid suspicion and spying.