Posts by Quando

Just two die for: Apple reveals M1 Ultra chip in Mac Studio

RAM bandwidth on the M1 is 400/800GB/s (Max, Ultra), so SSD is still a lot slower. Workloads that need truly random access to large data sets will still be a problem.

Back up for a minute – Backblaze HD reliability stats show oldies can be goodies

It would be interesting to see if they have the volume of data read/written to/from each drive, and if that impacts reliability.

Google sours on legacy G Suite freeloaders, demands fee or flee

That looks nice, but then all the nice multi-label GMail features get lost don't they? And would it import 15+ years of email?

A moment of tension as the James Webb Space Telescope stretches sunshield on way to L2 destination

Re: Where is it? Check this...

All of that will push it away from the Sun - the same as the engines. 'Slow down' in this sense is reduce speed away from the Sun.

Offering Patreon subs in sterling or euros means you can be sued under GDPR, says Court of Appeal

Re: Any business

Some Patreon subscriptions listed in £'s are subject to VAT too - I have two in £'s, one gets VAT added the other doesn't. Not sure about $ subscriptions as I don't have any of those.

Boffins find way to use a standard smartphone to find hidden spy cams

Re: Haven't movie theaters been doing it for years?

Maybe it detects the lack of a hit on the wallet to pay for theirs?

AMD reveals an Epyc 50 flaws – 23 of them rated high severity. Intel has 25 bugs, too

FFS! It's almost like the people developing this stuff just don't think about security at all.

Apple says it will no longer punish those daring to repair their iPhone 13 screens

Doubt it - in ten+ years of owning many many iDevices I've needed one screen replacement (done by 3rd party) and two battery replacements (done for free by Apple).

The vast majority of devices, or owners, never go near any 3rd party repair places so would notice no difference whatsoever if they stopped servicing Apple devices.

Weeks after Red Bee Media's broadcast centre fell over, Channel 4 is still struggling with subtitles

Audio level change?

Anyone else noticed that the audio level of C4 HD seems to have changed too? Now a few levels below the BBC 1/2 HD level - find myself having to change as I switch channels when I didn't need to a few weeks ago.

Chiptune to brighten your afternoon: Winning 8-bit throwback music revealed

Just a summer holiday? Playing Spectrum games led to a 20 year career in game development!

Swift 5.5 unleashed with async keyword to fix 'pyramid of doom', plus other changes in 'massive release'

Not (currently) supported before iOS 15

The big problem with the Swift 5.5 release on Apple platforms is that there is no support for the concurrency changes on OS versions before iOS 15 / Mac OS 12, which, despite the rapid upgrade of most Apple users, still leaves those real world developers whose apps support older OS versions out in the cold. It's fine for hobbyist developers, but in the real world forcing a latest OS minimum is tough - even if 90%+ of active devices will be using it within 6 months, that last few % tend to be *very* vocal.

There are some comments from internal Apple people on the Swift forums that work is ongoing to back port the changes but no certainty that it will work, or how far back it would offer support. A lot of major third party systems still support back as far as iOS 10.0, so it will be years before they move to a minimum of 15.0 and make this usable, in the meantime they are pushing forward with a Swift 6.0 which sounds like it might also need more OS support and thus be iOS 16 as a base.

DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats sue NYC for trying to permanently cap delivery fees

Re: NYC... permanently cap delivery fees

At 5.8 g/km that must be some heavy tyres! At expected life of 10,000 to 30,000km that would be ~ 60-180 Kg of particle loss.. even split across 4 tyres that is way more than a standard tyre weighs at the start of its life.

10.8 million UK homes now have access to gigabit-capable broadband, with much of the legwork done by Virgin Media

Re: Gigabit...

The Gigabit is 1000/52. Upgraded to it about a month ago from their 350/35.

Pretty hard to get more than about 700 download out of it (probably due to my kit setup), but the upload is as specced.

So what if I pay peanuts for my home broadband? I demand you fix it NOW!

Virgin media are shifting all their phone lines to run over the fibre rather than the old real line. And yep, that does mean that it relies on the router being powered and working, and the internet connection working, to get a phone line. Ain’t progress wonderful?

1Password has none, KeePass has none... So why are there seven embedded trackers in the LastPass Android app?

Re: Not in my settings!

Not in iOS app either

Devuan adds third init option in sixth birthday release

Re: I don't have a fax, I'm Internet only these days

Seems like you comment like a fax - two copies or none....

Wine pops cork on version 6.0 of the Windows compatibility layer for *nix systems

Re: Don't forget Crossover Office

Tool is the whole Swiss Army knife, utility is just one blade.

Boffins store text message inside E coli bacteria using electromagnetic signal – and you'll never guess what it says

Re: "Hello world!" ?

Has anyone checked human DNA for what our predecessors wrote in it?

Developers! These 3 weird tricks will make you a global hero

Re: MS Windows started this

> Help is one F1 key away

Or is it?

https://genius.com/Amateur-transplants-christmas-number-12-lyrics

Dusty passports, smart tops and tracksuit bottoms: Are virtual events better or worse than the real thing?

I'm on the 'prefer virtual' side - never got a lot out of big in-person events, certainly not enough to cover trans-continental flights and hotel expenses.

The problem with virtual is timezones - trying to do a US West coast virtual conference in real time means shifting my day a lot, or just catching up the next day.

The idea of running more smaller local events appeals to me - a hundred or two at a local event would be much preferred: stream in the main event with one local host to conduct a local discussion.

Where the event is about enabling sponsors to spam people with crud then fair enough - virtual isn't going to work there when you can't force people to watch it. What a shame.

Faster optic fibers and superior laser sensors set to descend from space

Re: Dodgy

Sounds like they all need to take a drive to Barnard Castle to double check.

NHS COVID-19 app's first weekend: With fundamental testing flaw ironed out, bugs remaining are relatively trivial

Re: Critical Mass

Thanks - didn't know that!

Settings -> Exposure Notifications -> Exposure Logging Status -> Exposure Checks for anyone else hunting for it.

Das Keyboard 4C TKL: Plucky mechanical contender strikes happy medium between typing feel and clackety-clack joy

Re: No back light on a black keyboard?

I can touch type until I realise I'm doing it, then it gets all like the centipede considering how it walks...

What would you prefer: Satellite-streamed cat GIFs – or a decent early warning of an asteroid apocalypse?

Headline question

Cat GIFs obvs. And why isn’t there one in the article?

Conflict of interest? We've heard of it. Amazon on selection panel to choose UK.gov's chief digi officer

Re: Omission?

She wouldn't leave what she is currently breaking for a mere £200k...

This PDP-11/70 was due to predict an election outcome – but no one could predict it falling over

Re: Woking

I've got a huge old 1600x1200 19" CRT monitor in my loft (put there on the basis of 'might still be useful' at some point when I was upgrading), made a lovely chunky noise when powering on and de-gaussing.

Unfortunately a few years ago we had a loft ladder put in, which had the side effect of narrowing the loft entrance...and that monitor is now staying in the loft.

Samsung slows smartphone upgrade treadmill with promise to support three Android generations on Galaxies

Re: Competing with Apple

iOS 14 will run on iPhone 6S which will be 5 years old when the OS is released, although it can often be optimistic to try and use it on the lowest supported device.

On iPad they are going back to the iPad Air 2 from 2014 for iPadOS 14l

This years macOS drops support for most 2013 machines.

Until the OS has some underlying feature upgrade it's probably relatively easy to keep a device with a reasonable amount of RAM supported.

It's National Cream Tea Day and this time we end the age-old debate once and for all: How do you eat yours?

Re: Too much arguing = not enough eating

Try Chucklehead. Dry of course.

One year ago, Apple promised breakthrough features to help iPhone, iPad, Mac owners with disabilities. It failed them

The Apple voice over controls for blind/partially sighted people work excellently when the app developer implements them.

Watching a blind person navigate through the system and apps with the voice speed cranked up is something to behold.

But it is a chunk of work to implement to best quality in an app, and most devs/product owners don’t care/have the time/budget to do it.

Working from home on Virgin Media's broadband? Too bad. Outage hits English capital

Got an EE 80/20 as my backup. First I knew about the Virgin part of my setup being down was the email from UptimeRobot about it.

The EE has been reliable, but Virgin is very fast (when it works).

We spent billions building atom smashers – and now boffins think nature's doing the same thing for free?

Re: whether it might even be possible

Cherenkov Radiation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation - is what you get when a particle ends up travelling faster than the local speed of light in material that is making that lower than c. Used in neutrino detectors.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Spacecraft with graphene sails powered by starlight and lasers

Re: "The probe flew past Venus thanks to its 340kg square-shaped light sail"

IKAROS != Light Sail

Fancy some post-weekend reading? How's this for a potboiler: The source code for UK, Australia's coronavirus contact-tracing apps

>> Its a phone app! Of course its meant to be badly written and low quality.

As opposed to all those perfect websites, OS’s, embedded hardware platforms etc.?

Elevating cost-cutting to a whole new level with million-dollar bar bills

Re: Never saw a car crash into a computer

European or African?

Apple bans COVID-19 games and restricts virus-related apps to authoritative souces

Standard developer account (to publish apps (free or paid) on the App Store) is $99, the $299 is for an Enterprise account to be able to publish privately to employees without going through the review process.

European electric vehicle sales surged in Q4 2019 but only accounted for wafer-thin slice of total car purchases

Re: Range & Time for a FULL charge

Your 440V @ 20amps giving a charge rate of 8800 W is not going to cut it. You get 7KW from a home charger.

Roadside rapid or superchargers are 50KW up to 150KW these days, with 350KW coming soon. So at 440V that is 795amps - a chunky heavy cable.

The Tesla 150KW chargers use 480V DC, the higher power ones will be moving to 800V.

UK's Virgin Media celebrates the end of 2019 with a good, old fashioned TITSUP*

Re: don't go with just one supplier

As a home based worker most of the time I got an Openreach based ISP connection as a backup to my Virgin media (consumer) connection. Put them through a dual WAN LinkSys router and I have a load balanced and fail resistant network. Some websites get funny as my IP address changes during the session, but surprisingly few.

Connections are 350/35 on Virgin and 78/19 on the FTTC one, overall cost much less than a business line from one - which wouldn’t help with outages anyway, just might mean more info and compensation.

Only one Huawei? We pitted the P30 Pro against Samsung and Apple's best – and this is what we found

About 2

Are you sure your disc drive has stopped rotating, or are you just ignoring the messages?

Re: I can believe it!

Evolution worked out that they couldn’t be relied on to remember to breathe and came up with the autonomic nervous system.

Bitbucket wobbles but it won't fall. Oh, snap...

Re: "and are seriously considering other options"

Ha ha ha ha.

Azure Dev Ops as they are calling it this week is the only thing that has made me pine for JIRA/Confluence. The git part of it might be ok but the rest is super shite.

Wiki that won’t export pages.

Can’t get a notification when a wiki page changes.

Task item editing that needs a save button (hello floppy disk icon...) to keep changes.

Pipeline pages that have changed format about three times in the 5 months I’ve been forced to use this shite.

And they are promising/threatening another big UI change any time now.

Avoid at all costs (and it isn’t even cheap....)

Creased Lightning: Profits wobble at Virgin Media while fibre project stays sluggish

Re: Vermin media

Everytime I’ve go to the end of contract period and called to get the new customer price and speed it’s never been a problem. Not had to threaten to leave. Only get broadband with them, so not sure if it is easier to get a price match on single service.

Virgin Media admits it 'fell short' in broadband speeds ahead of lashing from BBC's Watchdog

Virgin are so variable. I've been with them a few years now, and I get more of the up to speed than I did with ADSL - but don't normally test it in the evening (but never noticed serious streaming problems).

I did have a long period where it would drop out a few times each week - often mid morning: noticeable when I was working at home. It got so bad (and customer support were the usual chocolate teapot of usefulness) that I got a VDSL line from someone else and a failover/sharing router - Linksys LRT224. That has worked nicely to smooth out any problems - and as far as I can tell the VDSL has been stable (and quick ~75/19).

More recently (last six months) Virgin finally rolled out the 200Mb service in my area (after years of missed promises) and some initial problem I've checked and I've had one outage of 9 minutes since the end of March on the Virgin line, which I'm not going to complain about for consumer grade product. Don't check the other one but the router says connected for 9 days - so something happened.

I guess because the Virgin network is put together from varying quality bits and pieces they bought from others they are going to vary around the country. [Not apologising for them - they are scum on pricing for existing customers, not rolling out new tech until a competitor gets close, (lack of) customer service, marketing spam etc. etc. - but they are generally predictable scum working with shit infrastructure that customers wont pay to have improved.]

Is Apple's software getting worse or what?

Re: On the flip side..

Settings -> Phone -> Show My Caller ID, but obviously not easy to turn on/off per call. Doesn't dialling 140 or 141 before the number stop it in the U.K.?

Matt LeBlanc handed £1.5m to front next two series of Top Gear

Re: Still Undecided

@I like heckling : C4 is publicly owned, but self funds from advertising and other activities. Hasn't had any government money in a long time.

$329 for a MacBook? Well, really a 'HacBook' built on an old HP

Re: EBay

@jzl: Forward delete is fn + backspace

Sealed with an XSS: Popular vulnerabilities probed

Do they mention anything about getting people to login via https rather than http?

Who wants a quad-core 4.2GHz, 64GB, 5TB SSD RAID 10 … laptop?

But but but...can it run Crysis?

Comcast 'rolls out' 'world's first' DOCSIS 3.1 modem, pumping 1Gbps over existing cable

So guesses for when Virgin Media start offering this? 202X?

EE is UK's biggest loser on customer broadband gripes – AGAIN

Re: @ AndrueC

You can get Virgin Broadband without a phone line - probably have to try *very* hard on their website to avoid a bundle deal, but it is doable, but not sure how much it will save you. I pay £38.75/mth for 152/12 broadband and nothing else from them.