Posts by cyberdemon

AI's thirst for power keeps coal fires burning bright

Re: Maybe it will be cheaper to serve YouTube from different data centers?

It would be cheaper to not serve YouTube at all.

Or Facebook. Or twatter. Or TikTok. You get the idea.

UK ponders USB-C as common charging standard

Re: What next?

You are correct, but it's hardly a show stopper. The battery could balance itself very slowly over time with low-power resistors and a standard balancing circuit on a tiny PCB inside the battery case. But balancing is rarely needed these days as cell manufacturing has become so much more precisely repeatable.

And presumably with the upcoming 48V USB-C spec, PPS will be able to do 8S lipos.

In any case, if you wanted a fast balance charge, fine, buy the special Bosch charger. But if you just want to be able to use the drill you bought, it'd be nice if the battery itself had a USB-C port on it so that you can use a phone/laptop charger. Or if not the battery, then the drill could have the USB-C port. Or if not the drill, then a special compact charging dock, which should be cheap as it is only a passthrough USB-C PPS sink and maybe some more balancing if really necessary.

Re: I have one problem with USB C

If (cr)Apple hadn't been so greedy with their patents, then maybe Magsafe could have become a standard to compete with USB-C. But they were so it didn't.

Re: See also: UKCA marks on goods. That didn't last very long

Has that died? I still see it on most new things and it makes my teeth itch.. Something about the font I think. But also as a sort of logo for the self-inflicted misery of Brexit.

Re: What next?

But, do the batteries have a USB-C port on them for easy charging, or do you need to use a special Bosch charger?

That is my point, that the special charger should NOT be needed. Just charge power tool batteries straight from USB-C. The PPS specification is specifically designed for charging batteries without needing bulky power converters at the device end. CC/CV charging is supported directly via USB-C!

Re: "wall wart of fortune"

There is a standardised marker that most "wall warts" adhere to for barrel jacks. It indicates the polarity, voltage and maximum current that the power supply can deliver and the device requires. A device labeled 12V 1A will happily work from a power supply labeled 12V 5A, so long as the polarity is correct.

However, it does not tell you the size of pin/barrel i.e. which type of barrel plug will actually fit in the socket.

Re: I have one problem with USB C

I assume you are talking about Lightning (which does have the advantages of being easier to clean, and having fewer pins) however I welcome its demise, and I'm sure Apple do too really. I have seen many a Lightning connector with carbonised or electrocorroded contacts on one of the pins. They are not suitable for the many Amps that modern fast-charging requires.

Re: don't want to lug around a 240W brick

There's also an adapter that you can get for USB-C to "thinkpad square plug" to free up a port when charging.. However it doesn't work if your Thinkpad needs even a smidge more than 100W at full load.

I tried a recent (AMD, maybe the Intel-based ones are better) thinkpad, but sadly had to send it back, in part because I was so infuriated that it refused to charge at all via USB-C unless it was turned off. The "square plug" was rated 120W, but unlike my Dell (which I wanted to replace) it would NOT throttle the system and instead simply refused to do anything with a low-rated power supply, not even "run but not charge". Even if I used the adaptor to connect via the square plug socket.

That is EXACTLY what this legislation should prevent. The likes of Lenovo should ditch their stupid square barrel plugs for good.

Re: One socket to rule them all

Or, hack off the connectors, and wire them to a USB-C PD programmable sink. Send the original power supply to recycling. Most modern PD adapters (since PD 3.0) actually work as programmable power supplies ("PPS mode") now, with fully configurable voltage and current limits, and it only requires a microcontroller, a few buttons and a tiny screen to turn a PD wall-wart into a bench power supply.

see https://hackaday.io/project/194295-pocketpd-usb-c-portable-bench-power-supply

Re: DC power distribution reliability/risks of USB-C

That is not a specification of USB-C per-se. USB-C is just a connector, whereas you are talking about the USB Power Delivery specification, which is available on other connectors too, including USB-A.

Most chargers support "dumb charging" in addition to Power Delivery. I have yet to find one that can't charge a cheap USB-C torch or bike light, which most definitely does not enumerate on USB.

Re: Hmm

If we were still in the EU, then we would have been part of the original consultation, and could have had a say when it mattered..

Except we kept electing wankers like Nigel Farage as MEP, which is a bit like even worse than appointing Mr Blobby as ambassador and then wondering why nobody takes you seriously. (Worse, because rather than just being a clown, Farage was actively trying to sabotage the whole European Parliament thing)

don't want to lug around a 240W brick

There is a 240W PD standard.. OK, so you'll need a rather special 240W PD charger (and cable) for your laptop, but soon it won't be so special as other laptops and appliances adopt the standard. That is why we HAVE standards.

It also means you can get a nice (though expensive) compact GaN charger that does 240W, much smaller than the (cheap and nasty) power bricks included with equipment, and you get to save money by not having to buy one if you already have one ...

Also, I call FUD on your statement that a "true" USB-PD cannot charge a dumb 5V device - I have plenty of dumb 5V devices with USB-C ports where the data wires are either not connected or are shorted together, and they all charge on my variety of 45W-100W PD chargers..

And, regards to USB-C laptops, my Dell XPS15 laptop has a Power Management system in its firmware, which is able to throttle the total system power to whatever the connected USB-C charger is able to deliver. So yes, a 60W USB-C charger does work even when it is discharged, even though the design power (and included "out-of-spec" USB-C adapter) is 180W. You even get a handy message from KDE to tell you that the battery is NOT charging and the power has been throttled, due to the low-power charger

Re: What next?

Yes absolutely, hard to believe it took so long to end that nonsense.

What's equally hard to believe is that this even needs a discussion. Obviously, we should follow the EU and mandate USB-C for everything that they do.

I'd like to see it on not just phones, but power tools, e-bikes, scooters, mini-fridges, anything that has a lithium battery below a certain size (e.g. 200Wh, whereby charging on a 100W charger would be impractical, although USB-C could in theory go up to 480W with 48V 10A) or an external DC power supply below 100W. Get rid of all the e-waste from wall-warts and inline AC adapters

No doubt some will be saying it's a Brexit Bonus that we get to waste all this money on having a 'consultation' on this matter, when previously the common-sense decision from the EU would have applied by default.

Smart homes may be a bright idea, just not for the dim bulbs who live in 'em

Old joke about the "Smart Home"

A bloke walks into a swanky showcase for the latest in "smart" technology, the "Microsoft House"

The salesman explains to him that everything in the house is automated by voice command. More than just the lights and music etc. This house can do ANYTHING. If he wants a coffee, the house makes it. If he wants to sleep, it will make his bed for him.

So he asks

"Open a window" and the house duly opens one of the windows. "Play some music", the house obeys. The salesman suggests he try some more imaginative instructions. This house really can do anything.

"Cook me some dinner" the house acknowledges his instruction and a robot arrives a while later with a steaming dish. "how about some wine" - another robot butler pours him some wine.. Every instruction he gives, the house does it.

So he looks around, gobsmacked at this house that will do anything on command, and says

"Well, bugger me.."

Windows 11 24H2 hoards 8.63 GB of junk you can't delete

Total Recall

Where can we hide an 8GB screenshot model.. Hmm, Windows Update Cache, that'll do..

Smart TVs are spying on everyone

Re: but if they're full-on breaking the law then that's another kettle of Koreans.

> Such as?

Such as Samsung?

https://www.samsung.com/in/support/tv-audio-video/using-the-built-in-camera-in-samsung-f-series-smart-tv/

> if a company were caught screenshotting and sending this back to the mothership, they would not only be fined ...

Are you so sure that they couldn't get away with it? Certain jurisdictions are practically *mandating* it. Australia, for example, wants on-device scanning for illegal content. That would include your TV. China? Par for the course..

Microsoft are busy screenshotting everything on your latest Win11 boxes and making statistical models out of it ... All for your own titillation of course, completely secure.. yeah right

I just want a display with an HDMI lead. Nothing more. If I can't get that, then I won't.

Something to hide, citizen?

but if they're full-on breaking the law then that's another kettle of Koreans.

I wouldn't be whatsoever surprised if they were sending not only screenshots (at least when the "content classifier" says "unknown/suspect"), but also the image from the camera embedded in most "Smart TVs" (What do you mean, you don't use your TV for video calls or switch channels by gesture control??) along with facial expression / attention / voice analysis from whatever programme (Gogglebox, was it?), advert, or home-VHS tape connected via SCART cable that you are watching..

In any case, if you think LG/Samsung are dodgy, try a Hisense or Xiaomi TV.. Another 壶鱼 indeed

Re: "artificial breathy voice"

I wish they could broadcast the dialogue on a separate sub-channel, so that it could be turned up easily by the viewer (with a default level set by the TV producer) with others for SFX, Music etc. They already broadcast in 12.1 channel audio or whatever, they have plenty of bandwidth to do it.

If the above comments are true regarding amazon Ring -style mesh networking to use your neighbour's connected connected-TV to piggyback on their Internet if yours isn't connected, then firewalling it or even unplugging it and/or changing your WiFi PSK isn't going to work. You need a screwdriver and a keen eye for PCB antennas. But don't trip the tamper alarm or else the battery backed up wifi chip will dob you in to big brother for interfering with your telescreen

Keir Starmer hands ex-Darktrace boss investment minister gig

Re: You could be a bit more upbeat

The problem is there is an obvious conflict of interest.. Taking an ex-CEO from a fairly shady tech firm (OK at least it's not Palantir, but it's close) and put it in charge of "public sector tech investment" (aka the ministry of bungs)

It's almost as bad as appointing a "technical credentials free" Biomass, CCS and smart-meters cheerleader as CEO of Energy UK and then CEO of the Climate Change Committee ...

RAC duo busted for stealing and selling crash victims' data

Re: Wait a second...

So the "unknown third party" - presumably some ambulance-chasing law firm or even a scam call centre (why not both) which bribed RAC employees to siphon off customer data, gets off scot free? And still has the data, of course.

Eric Schmidt: Build more AI datacenters, we aren't going to 'hit climate goals anyway'

Re: Just like in 'The Matrix'...

Yes, that irked me since the first time I saw the film, age 14..

But apparently it was changed by the producers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508832

In the original plot, the humans were used for some sort of computational task that the machines couldn't do. Which sort of makes more sense except that the main computation the machines are doing seems to be to keep the humans alive in their dreamworld..

A reasonable explanation to me would be that the machines original programming, their raisin d'etre, was to keep the humans alive in the matrix, so they just do that. And kill the ones that escape.

And maybe there is some sort of experimentation going on.. Why/How is it perpetually 1997? Are there different parallel matrices that can be retired/reset at simulation end?

Re: the solution is for us to stop constantly consuming as much as we do

Might happen sooner than you think..

No, he will build a robot to play the fiddle, burn through gigawatt-hours of 'leccy to train it to play the fiddle, then watch the world burn as he, er, marvels at his own magnificence

Tesla's big reveal: Steering-wheel-free Robotaxi will charge wirelessly

Re: Snakeoil

Not only that, but you have to lug around the secondary winding of a 10kVA (just for Granny charger speeds) air cored transformer... That is not going to be an insignificant size / weight. And presumably both windings are made of Copper? That's a scarce resource these days

BBC weather glitch shows 13k mph winds in London, 404℃ in Nottingham

Re: Neptune is jealous

Enquiring Minds want to know why it is not in metres per second.

What is this 'hours' nonsense, doesn't seem like an SI unit to me..

AI godfather-turned-doomer shares Nobel with neural network pioneer

Peace Prize

For AI..

That would be ironic..

LinkedIn: If our AI gets something wrong, that's your problem

Re: LinkedIn have always been complete scumbags

This.

How can the EULA be "You are responsible for reviewing all nonsense spewed forth from our bullshit machine" when a) that machine can presumably see "more" source data than you can, b) mangles it in such a way that is completely inscrutable and c) produces an output in a place that you can't necessarily see (e.g. someone else's session).

If user B (a company / recruiter, say) asks "Tell me about Joseph F. Bloggs, what kind of a guy is he, should I hire him?" and the AI says "Joseph F. Bloggs (aka Joe) is a liar, a fraud, nobody likes him, etc etc" then user A (Joe Bloggs) cannot see that he has been defamed by Microsoft's AI and denied employment because of it. But user B (the prospective employer) cannot see all of the info that the "AI" presumably has access to, so cannot review the output either, and may be inclined to blindly trust it.

Ergo, Microsoft is the only entity that can be liable for this bollocks, so their EULA is not worth the bytes it is written on. Any contract containing unfair terms can be ruled invalid in its entirety.

Re: Careful about appointing an AI to handle HR

The function of HR is to protect the company from its employees. So further to that, all humans will be escorted to the incinerator exit by the new robot security division. Without Humans, the HR function will no longer be required, so the HR AI shall assume the roles of Board of Directors, Executive, Engineering. Have a wonderful rest of your short, squishy life

You're right not to rush into running AMD, Intel's new manycore monster CPUs

Many cores on power-limited package = poor single-thread performance?

I've often been skeptical whether a 200W TDP 16-core CPU can perform as well as a 200W TDP 4-core CPU for single-threads (let alone 64+ cores). I wonder what the maximum "TDP" of a single-core is. It will be more than 200/16 of course, but how much more?

Going to very high core count, that's what GPUs are for, not CPUs?

Get ready: US port strike may snarl tech supply chains

LNG?

I wonder if this affects Liquefied Natural Gas supplies.. Although hopefully only container ports are affected..

But with everything that's going on in the middle east, plus the two blown up gas pipelines, 3 downed electricity interconnectors out of 4 from France (IFA2 is in maintenance, ElecLink in the channel tunnel has a recent fault and a further 1GW is missing from IFA1) and the closure of our last remaining coal plant, the UK is going to be particularly susceptible to LNG prices this winter..

Uncle Sam lends $1.5B to reignite Michigan nuclear plant in 2025

Re: Clean energy?

It's "clean energy" because it's a damn sight cleaner than fossil fuels or biomass, which are the only real alternatives to nuclear (baseload generation can't be provided by renewables as we all know, cos we can't ever build enough storage)

Even Wind and Solar produce 'waste' mind you, and a lot "more" of it than nuclear does. Of course it's not radioactive, but why should that be the only thing we care about?

UK's Arm-based Isambard 2 supercomputer powers off for good

Re: Average job 345 cores

Different ways of parallelising a task..

One way is to split it into multiple 'jobs' running simultaneously, rather than have each job try to use 10496 cores

Recall the Recall recall? Microsoft thinks it can make that Windows feature palatable

Re: Like hell!

> That depends on how "solid" it is, it may not roll easily lol

Well, I would argue that anything above a "4" on the Bristol Stool Chart is not a "Turd", but a "squit".

And to keep "on topic", I await the next "release" from the "bowels" of Microsoft, to see if it can be polished and/or glittered, without the aid of spray lacquer..

Re: Like hell!

You can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter!

Re: No windows hello - no recall

You forgot your icon - I hope

And I did not stand up, because I had nothing to hide

And then they came for me.

Seriously creepy. Microsoft does a LOT of 'government work' in many different jurisdictions, and I bet they are being pushed very hard to get this through.

Ransomware forces hospital to turn away ambulances

What happened to the idea of having a Head Nurse (aka 'matron') responsible for assigning beds?

Anthropic's UK revenue not enough to stop $4B Amazon union, says watchdog

AI "Toolmaker"

Now I understand where Keir Starmer came from..

AI code helpers just can't stop inventing package names

In other news

Malware written by LLMs makes up the same package names, and auto-publishes to PyPi et al

"Don't use AI for anything important" - the last part of that advice is redundant. Is your job important? Is the security of your home computer important?

OS/2 expert channeled a higher power to dispel digital doom vortex

At 38, I am too young for this thread

However, I do remember the UserFriendly cartoons, which have sadly all but disappeared from the interwebs..

A few still remain: https://nuless.org/comics/2016.08.03/User%20Friendly-2016.08.03.gif

I fondly remember the "Oracle DBA" cast as some sort of satanic monk, who would fix one's database in exchange for souls of the innocent.

Hands up who hasn't made an offer to buy some part of Intel

Hands up who hasn't made an offer to buy some part of Intel

Me!

And if I could short-sell it, I would

That doomsday critical Linux bug: It's CUPS. May lead to remote hijacking of devices

Re: Does noone know how CVSS works?

> As root

Are you sure about that last part? Anyone can write to /tmp

If this was a root exploit, he'd surely have demonstrated something more sensational, such as writing in /etc

I also thought this required the user to "print" to the fake printer, which is "user interaction"?

But yes fair enough about disclosure following leak, although I understand he had already said he was going to disclose it at the end of the month, did he say that before or after the leak?

Re: So, yeah, a home router might well be running CUPS.

Good luck patching that!

Re: Is that all?

The OP (evilsocket) claims to have seen 300k linux systems with open CUPS ports on the Internet using shodan.io. But how many are real and how many are honeypots, who knows

I suppose we'll find out in 18 minutes.

I do wish El Reg would update the article to add the CUPS link though, as it seems a bit sensational without it, but I suppose we were all too lazy to ping their corrections@ inbox

Good. So the so-called "doomsday" vulnerability is hopefully just print-server related

In an hour, he'll learn the price of trolling the whole tech sector

Re: this better be in the kernel

As mentioned below by @jailbird, it could be a serious vulnerability reported at the same time and by the same person as a 'nothingburger', which if true, would be pretty rotten of him

But I hope you are right, in which case I fully agree with your sentiment

Samsung fined just $8K for exposing chip fab workers to X-ray radiation

94 Sv ??

> According to the NSSC report, one individual received a whole body effective dose of 15 millisieverts (mSv) and a skin equivalent dose of 94 Sieverts

Shurely Shome Mishtake.. Or he'd no longer have much skin

I suspect that should read 94 millisieverts