* Posts by a_mu

220 publicly visible posts • joined 18 May 2010

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Galaxy S20 security is already old hat as Samsung launches new safety silicon

a_mu

Anoonymous

Its also a great way to positively identify a device / person holding it,

Who needs an ID card,

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

a_mu

Teams on windows 7

Title says it all,

Post Office burned £100m in UK taxpayer cash on Horizon IT scandal legal fees, MPs told

a_mu

A disgusting system,

how can the innocent be penalised, whilst managers at the top go off with golden handshakes and great salaries .

Dammit Insight! You just had two big jobs to do on Mars and you're failing at one of those

a_mu

Wrong direction

Did some one install it up side down ?

Mandatory electronic prescriptions was the easy bit in NHS paperless plans

a_mu

It takes 3 days to get a perscription

Let me illuminate how this new system works,

Our local pharmacy has now gone over to direct prescriptions to pharmacy electronically

It means one can no longer come from doctor to get prescription down road

as the electronic form goes off to a central system, where the prescription is for security checked and filled,

that is then posted by courier to the pharmacy,

who get delivery once per day

So you see Drs Monday, prescription is sent off, it gets filled Tuesday, and sent, it gets to you pharmacy Wednesday, late.

If you want a prescription same day now, you ask for a paper one you can take to the local tesco ,

IR35 blame game: Barclays to halt off-payroll contractors, goes directly to PAYE

a_mu

zero hour contracts

Whats the betting that these are replaced with zero hour contracts.

Security? We've heard of it! But why be a party pooper when there's printing to be done

a_mu

Nuclear launch codes 000000

managers always find ways to c**k it up

https://gizmodo.com/for-20-years-the-nuclear-launch-code-at-us-minuteman-si-1473483587

Industry reps told the UK taxman everything wrong with extending IR35. What happened next will astound you

a_mu

On line decision tool

Do I understand that there will be an on line tool that can be used to see if the IR35 status ?

and this is the decision point, the on line tool ?

Interesting how you could write a law that depends upon a web site !

Intel swallows Brit chip slinger Omnitek in bid to boost FPGA business

a_mu

Omnitek used to have great IP , Pitty all those using their IP on Xilinx parts,

QNAP NAS user? You'd better check your hosts file for mystery anti-antivirus entries

a_mu

windows 7

And just think,

the host file is still on windows 7,

I studied hard, I trained for years. Yay, now I'm an astronaut in space. Argggh, leukemia!

a_mu

magnetics

wonder, how big a reactor / magnetic field would they need to shield themselves ?

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

a_mu

BS idiot

I feel the real problem here,

Is lack of procedures, and documentation...

The number of times I have heard of things being idiot proof,

the problem is there is no standard as to what an idiot is for us to test against..

Now if we had a proper international definition on what an idiot proof interface was,

we could all build and test to it

May be the IEEE should take that on as a task force,

Or may be not.......

Having just come out of a two day discussion on a similar topic,

and having a mountain of paper work and procedures,

and still no idea how its going to work safely.

Humans will always impress me on their new ways of 'thinking'.

God help us when its all voice / thought controlled,

Black Friday? Yes, tech vendors might be feeling a bit glum looking at numbers for the UK

a_mu

Black friday is more expensive

Ive been keeping an eye on mobile phone deals last few weeks,

yep you guessed it, the deals this week are worse than the last weeks,

same seems to be true of the laptops I'm looking at,

Microsoft claims Office 364 back to business as usual. Oh no it isn't, say suffering sysadmins

a_mu

360

Weve always called it 360,

it goes around, but is not up 24/7 and when its down , its down in a big way, no fall backs.

Cisco chucks its hat into the 400Gbps ring

a_mu

Video

Sounds very good news for the video people ,

at 12G per video stream, even 100G soon runs out,

Virgin Media? More like Virgin Meltdown: Brit broadband ISP falls over amid power drama

a_mu

Backup

What happened to the days of expecting a reliable service,

I can't remember in the old Post office days having outages, phones just kept on working, or is that silver lining.

What happened to Virgin having backup power ?

or are they cash strapped, that they cut back on that,

Nope, the NSA isn't sitting in front of a supercomputer hooked up to a terrorist’s hard drive

a_mu

No crypto is safe long term

No encryption is safe long term.

Once upon a time, we had the Geheimschreiber , a un crackable code.

cracked with a lot of effort back then, takes a few seconds now ,

With a back door , it will be cracked, may be not for a decade or so,

but it will be cracked,

and then everything thats has been transmitted in the past is open to be read.

industrial secrets , ha a thing of the past.

NAND we'll send foreign tech packing, says China of Xtacking: DRAM-speed... but light on layer-stacking

a_mu

interleave

so whats the bet they have the same number of layers,

but address them in threes,

with an input / output mux

Hidden in the burst nature of ddr4 access ?

to me that would be great, I'd find a big use for them in video

but no magic

Cancelled in Crawley? At least your train has free Wi-Fi now, right?

a_mu

Wifi, till there are problems on the line.

We have a few problems on the trains into London "at the moment"

So far I have 100 % correlation between is there even a wifi signal to connect to and is the train going to have problems.

No wifi signal on board, were in for a bad trip,,,

Lazy parent Intel dumps Lustre assets on HPC storage bods DDN

a_mu

Altera

Wonder how this goes with the Altera guys,

Intel purchased them for high performance computing / data storage / array processing,

Through many dangers, toils and snares.... SpaceX to send amazing GRACE to spaaaaace

a_mu

How small an anomaly can be detected

I wonder, how large a lump of mass has to be to be detected,

something dense like a nuclear reactor or a large lump of metal must make a dent in the field !

Scissors cut paper. Paper wraps rock. Lab-made enzyme eats plastic

a_mu

What can go wrong ?

What can go wrong ?

Woo-yay, Meltdown CPU fixes are here. Now, Spectre flaws will haunt tech industry for years

a_mu

CPU comparison web sites

So all those sites that have speed comparisons of cpu's

Are they going to have a long weekend re testing every thing !

Meltdown, Spectre: The password theft bugs at the heart of Intel CPUs

a_mu

Windows 7 Patch ?

How many companies are still using windows 7

will that be patched ?

UK.gov pushes ahead with legal right to 10Mbps

a_mu

pay enough , and you can get any speed you want

So what are the government promising ?

You can ask for 10 Mb/s, then the supplier MUST present you with a bill for how they are going to do it...

So the advantage is ?

Russia could chop vital undersea web cables, warns Brit military chief

a_mu

its not new, cables have been of great use

https://warandsecurity.com/2014/08/05/britain-cuts-german-cable-communications-5-august-1914/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells

Western Dig's MAMR is so phat, it'll store 100TB on a hard drive by 2032

a_mu

Write once drive ?

With this much storage space, and the MTBF of the drive,

how many times would one be able to write all the drive ?

How long would it take to do a format ?

Sysadmins told to update their software or risk killing the internet

a_mu

windows 2K

Just a wonder,

if a company was say running a windows 2000 server , or windows XP machines, !!

would this be another problem ?

Samsung drops 128TB SSD and kinetic-type flash drive bombshells

a_mu

key and value

Now that sounds like a way forward,

store stuff with a key, just like data bases,

I have memory that the old PDA's, was is Palm stuff, used to have an OS where everything was an object in a data base,

HMS Queen Liz will arrive in Portsmouth soon, says MoD

a_mu

tides and sailing ?

If she needs a specific high tide range to get into Pompy

will she not be port bound till the next in a few weeks time,

lets hope noting comes up that needs her to sail sooner..

UK.gov to trial vouchers for 'gigabit-capable' connectivity with SMEs

a_mu

section 106,

Section 106 has all but gone,

used to be a percentage, now its for named projects, which have to be fully costed, with very tight constraint son what is allowed.

so very hard for the local council to qualify for any 106,

Solar panels expensive ?

you would have to give us some numbers on that,

Yes if your roof is not sutable, then yep,

most developments, if they have a north roof, they have a south one also.

New houses already have to have certain connections, even if not used, electricity , water , phone

normaly down ducts to keep local authorities happy.

so a fibre would not seem to be too much of an extra,

a_mu

line speed ? Up to ?

When I have fibre to the house,

is there any reason to get an up to speed ?

would one not have a rock steady connection of N Mb/s,

So then its just up to the ISP to throttle your usage ,

which it currently does, but calls it up to , so ok.

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

a_mu

But will they listen ? 200 Mb or 100 Mb

I was on 100 Mb, got 'crap' speeds,

paid more, got 200 Mb , get crap , but nearer to the 100 mark than before,

No change in my end, just the virgin software and network.

So why should I pay for 200, when I can only get around 100, and its purely the virgin software thats controlling the speed, not the link.

UK.gov tips £400m into digital investment pot

a_mu

what speed will we get.

If we all have fibre to the house

bandwidth / speed can not limited by the fibre, but by the provider.

How will that work withe the 'up to' scheem we currently have to put up with,

Its bad enough now,

I have a link now that gives X baud, if I pay more, same link I can get Y baud.

now X is significantly lower than my up to speed, Y is more like it,

so why should I pay for Y , when I'm only getting X,

and its totaly at the control of the provider !

Microsoft: We'll beef up security in Windows 10 Creators Edition Fall Update

a_mu

wonder which browsers the new security guard works with

By By Google

2 kool 4 komputing: Teens' interest in GCSE course totally bombs

a_mu

pointers ,

My kids school,

talked to teacher, they did not do C or C++

did not know what a pointer was,

But knew all about Python,

till you asked them a question, then if it was not in the text book, no hope.

Kids learnt more in two weeks placement than they did in two years at school.

one even said if they had been taught like that at school, they would have 'got it', and carried it on ..

Who will save us from voice recog foolery from scumbags? Magnetometer!

a_mu

no magnatomiter in new phones

Google took the requirement out of the latest Android spec for there to be a magnetometer in the phone,

look at the Motorola G5

US spook-sat buzzed the International Space Station

a_mu

That must have used up some fuel,

wonder was the ISS checking on the spy sat, or the spy sat calibrating what it could do / see on the ISS,

does the ISS have a test target for it ?

Britain's on the brink of a small-scale nuclear reactor revolution

a_mu

McMurdo Container Nuclear reactor

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/

72-layer flash die from SK Hynix towers over all, capacity a bit meh

a_mu

this can't go on for long

Hassle I see, is

every doubling of capacity , doubles the height of the die,

4 more generations and one will need 26873856 dies in a stack !

WD unveils grown-up USB stick in My Passport slab form

a_mu

g force 1500 ?

Can some one tell us please,

How do they calculate the g force from a less than 2 m fall ?

Did your in-flight entertainment widget suck? It's Panasonic's fault, claims software biz

a_mu

Terrible software anyway

Come on

how often have you been on a flight and the entertainment has had to be rebooted, or has gone US.

They can't even make a system where when the switch from external to internal power happens the system does not reset.

Its a terrible hack of linux, run on terrible hardware.

Bring it BACK... with MODs! Psion 5 storms great tech revival poll

a_mu

windows interface

Have / had psions from the 1 up to the 3mx,

the 5 did not have sufficient battery life for me,,,

I'd not have stopped using the 3mx, if it was that it could no longer work with windows,

I could get AA batteries anywhere in the world,

BUT, what would I use the Psion for now ?

word docs / pdfs , web , I use the tablet,

contacts , on the phone, where they should be.

But I still have a nostalgic link to the psion,

if only they had got into bed with some one that made mobile phone modules,

Ah well.

Watch: MIT's terrifying invisible gel robo-eels snatch live fish

a_mu

Not a robot, JUST a grabber

Accordion type grabbers have been used on robots for years / decades, drive by compressed gas or a hydrolic system..

The only new thing here is the 3D printed hydro gel

And as for a hand, as these are X amount water, wonder how long they last in the dry air /sun,

Even the fish they caught, seems to have been corralled into the glass where it could not escape and grabbed..

Hyped up !

RIP Eugene Cernan: Last man on the Moon dies aged 82

a_mu

Land speed record

I also seem to remember that he holds the Luna land speed record, for flooring the Luna rover .

something like 10 MPH I seem to remember.

Now that took some bottle... and needs to be remembered,

RIP

Customer: BT admitted it had 'mis-sold' me fibre broadband

a_mu

customer can't get service

If I pay for say 100 mb, and get 60, and then pay for 50 Mb and get 30

same equipment, same supplier, its the supplier that is throttling my link, not the link length,

so they are not supplying ,

What other service can the supplier change what they supply at will and charge us the same amount?

Its like paying for electricity per month, but the supplier will drop the voltage to zero if they want to.

thank god there are regulations on the electricity suppliers on voltage limits.

I bet, if we paid per Gbyte, then the speeds would increase fantastically,

New Windows 10 privacy controls: Just a little snooping – or the max

a_mu

Dont you HAVE to have a microsoft account to use this

So you have to 'login'

So do Microsoft then know even more about you ?

What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas: Razer prototypes nicked

a_mu

Large screen TVs gone

Attended a show a few years ago in the UK representing a big company.

Last day of the show, it gets crazy, every one trying to get to the lorries first.

so we , having had a great show, went out back of the stand to finish up the complimentary drinks or three.

came back hours or so later, the stand was empty.

8 large screen TVs ripped of the wall stands,

NASA – get this – just launched 8 satellites from a rocket dropped from a plane at 40,000ft

a_mu

Why is air launch not done more

Is this not 'logical' way to do things,

use the air when yo have it into efficient engines, then rockets when you have no air,

Dons't Virgin Space have this sort of thing in the pipe line ?

or am I missing something,

Sysadmin told to spend 20+ hours changing user names, for no reason

a_mu

2IC is correct ...

As a contractor, a very familiar situation.

Time to ask the "what colour do you want the new SQL data base" type question.

Just do it,

but

as your you have outlined its a large amount of extra work with extra risk

, and your already busy,

Present overtime authorisation forms before you do the work,

and remember to thank them

and to have a good Christmas.

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