Posts by conel

Did nobody tell them about the lockdown? Logitech releases new 'luggable' mechanical keyboard for LAN parties

If you can live with wired and a white back light the Razer Blackwidow Lite is half the price.

EU declares it'll Make USB-C Great Again™. You hear that, Apple?

Binding Micro usb

What if the EU had made micro usb mandatory. Would we now be waiting on new rules so we could move to usb-c?

51,000t might sound like a lot but split across 500Mn people in the EU it's only 0.1kg per person. And that's not an annual figure, it's total.

What's the best case scenario with these regulations, reduce the waste by 10%? 20%? So maybe a few 10s of grammes of waste saved per person...

Boeing admits 737 Max sims didn't accurately reproduce what flying without MCAS was like

"Condit makes no secret of another factor: as CEO, he didn’t want to be bothered with tiresome “how-do-you-design-an-airplane stuff,” or boring meetings with Boeing’s key customers (airlines) who came to Seattle."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/01/21/what-went-wrong-at-boeing/

Facebook ad platform discriminates all on its own, say boffins

Mirror Calibration

Facebook's algorithms are a mirror which reflects reality. Some people don't like the look of reality so they want Facebook to distort the reflected image, sounds like a tricky job.

Back to drawing board as Google cans AI ethics council amid complaints over right-wing member

Fact?

The author claims that "the controversy centred on the fact that James has repeatedly expressed transphobic views". Surely there must be some very strong evidence to claim this as a fact. I mean, it's not simply that some loonies have called her transphobic on twitter, is it?

Of course, it is and this is one of her "transphobic" statements "If they can change the definition of women to include men, they can erase efforts to empower women economically, socially, and politically.”

The left really has gone bat shit crazy when they're going after a black woman because she's opposed to having people with penises in women's bathrooms and sports teams. It's kind of funny and the ideology will inevitably eat itself alive, but it's disturbing to think how much damage they might do first.

Google and its terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week in full

Question to Editor

"Those defending Damore pushed an article published on a website that specializes in promoting controversial views (example lead story: Should We "Stop Equating 'Science' With Truth"?)"

The first line in that article: "Actually: no."

The website in question, Quillette published their article in response to a Slate piece titled "Stop Equating “Science” With Truth" (hence Quillette's use of quotation marks). And yes, the Slate author really meant it.

The Reg's editors should consider if they're ok with this kind of blatant dishonesty.

http://quillette.com/2017/08/11/stop-equating-science-truth/

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/08/evolutionary_psychology_is_the_most_obvious_example_of_how_science_is_flawed.html

Your top five dreadful people the Google manifesto has pulled out of the woodwork

You also stated: "Just to be absolutely clear here: If you ever make a statement about what a broad group of people are like, especially in comparison to another group of people, you are going to be wrong. And the bigger that group, the more wrong you will be."

There are real average differences between groups, debate the accuracy, question the research but to advocate for blank slatism is silly.

The irony of your piece is that the memo and responses appear to have brought out the worst in you.

Re: Wow...

You wrote an article so bad that it's making many long term readers question the integrity of the publisher.

Re: Ad hominem

According to the Cambridge dictionary an ad hominem attack is a criticism directed against a person, rather than against what that person is saying.

I think it's clear this is what you're doing.

Re: Ad hominem

Claiming people are biased because they're white is an ad hominem.

Making ad hominem attacks doesn't help.

Wrong think black list

According to the author anyone who studies variance between population groups and considers how the averages affects society is a bigot.

This is truly bizarre, it's extreme blank slatism and is the far-left equivalent of creationism. The inability to consider group differences and still treat people as individuals is the most concerning part of identity politics.

"Just to be absolutely clear here: If you ever make a statement about what a broad group of people are like, especially in comparison to another group of people, you are going to be wrong. And the bigger that group, the more wrong you will be.

And, no, simply inserting the word "average" does not excuse you from making such false generalizations about groups of people; in the same way adding "allegedly" does not let you accuse a random person of being a child molester."

If I was to say that on average women live longer than men would I be wrong?

Google diversity memo: Web giant repudiates staffer's screed for 'incorrect assumptions about gender'

Re: Article by a former "Google Distinguished Engineer"

That was a very weak response, here's another response explaining why:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/450214/google-memo-about-allegedly-devastating-response

Steve Bannon wants Facebook, Google 'regulated like utilities'

Re: "Clash of civilisations"

The biggest threat to western civilisation are it's inhabitants who are unwilling to acknowledge just how good it is compared to anywhere else.

His Muskiness wheels out the Tesla Model 3

Re: It will retail for just $35,000

I'd love to know where people get the notion that charging an electric car is so cheap, £2-3 my arse.

60kWhr * £0.14/kWhr = £8.4 (not including charging losses)

Although that's four times what you're claiming, it still sounds kinda cheap compared to diesel/ petrol. But it's not when you consider the taxes.

A similar car would need about 18l of diesel/ petrol to go the model 3 range of 215 miles (assuming 54mpg). That would be £20.7 at £1.15/l, but when you strip out the taxes it's only £6.84 at £0.38/l.

Add back in the electricity VAT rate of 5% and you get £7.18 worth of petrol to go the same distance as a Tesla model 3.

Electric cars do not work without subsidies.

Ex-Waymo engineer pleads the 5th in ongoing Uber law fight

Surely he's just going to bugger off to Brazil or somewhere similar.

No H-1B visas? No problem, we'll offshore says Tech Mahindra

Re: H1Bs have an easy fix no one talks about

An auction seems like the obvious solution to me. Limit the number of visas and whoever pays the highest salaries gets them.

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

Re: Heat engines

Super critical steam turbines can hit efficiencies of over 48%. So not much difference with CCGTs maxing at about 60%. Utterly irrelevant though, has to be considered with the fuel and the energy density of nuclear fuel can't be beaten.

https://www.xkcd.com/1162/

BTW, gas turbines are heat engines too.

(Pointless discussion but I saw an excuse to link to XKCD)

Three non-obvious reasons to Vote Leave on the 23rd

Re: Repeating history

"Looking at the statistics for 1974 casualties in Northern Ireland there seem to be 294, and of those 73 were probably army."

The UK joined Europe in 1973 and according to the below data 479 people were killed in 1972. Not that the exact numbers really matter, the point is the UK wasn't a utopia immune to internal strife as Andrew is trying to make out.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=phNtm3LmDZEM2Jpkp5e0ldQ

Re: Repeating history

"No blood had been shed here affecting change for a very long time. "

That's as far as I got through the article as well, bizarre claim. The year before joining Europe was the height of the troubles, 500 killed in one year.

A gold MacBook with just ONE USB port? Apple, you're DRUNK

Aesthetics versus Function.

Criticising the number of ports is like criticising the number of pockets on a Burberry handbag.

What will happen to the oil price? Look to the PC for clues

Utter BS

This is just plain silly and is a good example of the hubris of economists. Their models are incapable of acurately respresenting the economic world they're supposed to be made for yet economists are happy to apply their nonsense to other disciplines. Mainstream economists not only didn't predict the economic crash but many had convinced themselves that a crash was impossilbe because of how brilliantly they were managing the economy.

This report - which is the type of fluff the Reg usually derides - seems to have been inspired by the increasing use of the term "factory drilling". Factory drilling is used to describe the massive productivity improvements that drilling has achieved through automation and repition. These improvements have been immense but it still doesn't justify the nonsense idea that oil production is no longer an extractive industry and is better described as a manufacturing sector.

http://www.drillingcontractor.org/%E2%80%98factory-drilling%E2%80%99-boosts-rop-with-automation-11614

This report is coming from someone who knows nought about the the oil industry, there are some simple clues like referring to Tengiz, an old field, when he clearly meant Kashagan and using the term "fracking rig" which belongs in a Guardian article.

TEEN RAMPAGE: Kids in iPhone 6 'Will it bend' YouTube 'prank'

Re: Great work

The phones are there for demonstration purposes and the kids were told the phones couldn't be bent... So they were merely testing the assertion of the sales clerk. Don't see how they could be held liable if they can prove the sales clerk told them the phones couldn't be bent.

If I'm told something can't be bent the first thing I'll do is try to bend it, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that instinct.

Boeing CEO says no more 'moonshots' after 787 Dreamliner ordeal

OUT-SOURCED PROFITS – THE CORNERSTONE OF SUCCESSFUL SUBCONTRACTING

Boeing moved their headquarters to Chicago from Seattle partly because the management weren't interested in the designing-and-building-airplanes aspect of their business.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/01/21/what-went-wrong-at-boeing/

"In the interview, Condit makes no secret of another factor: as CEO, he didn’t want to be bothered with tiresome “how-do-you-design-an-airplane stuff,” or boring meetings with Boeing’s key customers (airlines) who came to Seattle"

Their fundamental problem with the 787 development was excessive outsourcing. Sadly engineers within Boeing knew full well what would happen.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2011/02/04/2014130646.pdf

Google and Apple in DRAG RACE: It's fanboi Mercs VS fandroid Audis

SELF-DRIVING CARS!!!

"Audi and Ford are expected to demonstrate self-driving cars at the Consumer Electronics Show"

I'd have said this was a lot more interesting and significant than twitter feeds on a dash.

Why a Robin Hood tax on filthy rich City types is the very LAST thing needed

Asymetric Speculation

From the article is seems that the "Noble" winners are suggesting that the issue with the US housing market was asymmetric speculation, as in lots of people going long and not enough people going short (of course Goldman et al were going short but few people knew).

The suggestion isn't that there wasn't enough speculation but that the speculation was unbalanced due to the nature of the market. To use this to suggest that all speculation is great and that there is a "scientific" consensus that the more speculation there is the better is just plain silly, even if you pretend that economics is a science.

The article reeks of ideology as opposed to clear thinking.

Brits give thumbs-up to shale gas slurping in university-run poll

National Ground Water Association

These guys sound like they might know a thing or two about the subject matter.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwat.12056/full

Google Chromecast: Here's why it's the most important smart TV tech ever

HDMI-CEC Remote Control

The dongle supports HDMI-CEC so it can control the tv (turn it on and select input). HDMI-CEC can be used the other way around so it should be possible to use the tv's remote control to play/ pause the chromecast content.

I've a raspberry pi connected to a Panasonic TV. The Panasonic remote can control the pi using HDMI-CEC (no set up required). Google may prefer people to use the touch screens though...

Decade to 2010 was hottest, wettest: WMO

Data

The second paragraph of the article jumps out at me.

"The WMO's report, which should but probably won't put paid to the idea that warming has stopped"

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding about what is meant by warming having stopped. By looking at the below graph from Wolfram Alpha it is very clear that there was a warming trend from approximately 1975 to 1998.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=global+mean+temperature

From 1998 to 2012 the temperatures have been shown to be flat, this is entirely consistent with the statement that the last decade has been the hottest on record and it would also be expected that a larger number of temperature records would have been broken in that decade than in previous ones. What isn't happening is the continuation of the trend from 1975 to 1998, I actually didn't think this was considered controversial.

The report is just pointing out something which is obvious from looking at the Wolfram graph... The hottest 10 year period in the last 150 years has been in the last 10 years!

'Liberator': Proof that you can't make a working gun in a 3D printer

Exactly, the gun trade is in the opposite direction, from the USA to Mexico. It's the drugs that go the other way.

Why do Smart TV UIs suck?

Panasonic not fully learning

I just bought a Panasonic smart tv, every time I turn the thing on I get an ad for music from Myspace. That's pretty annoying, although not as bad as every time you turn on the EPG.

There's apparently different standards of Panasonic smart tv, the one I got doesn't have the web browser for whatever reason.

Another thing about UI that annoys me about a lot of tv's is the standard of the remote control that comes with them. The Panny remote is terrible, has all the expected functions but is just plain awkward to use. It really does make me appreciate Sky's remote and UI.

It would help if when tech journalists - definitely looking at the Reg here - would actually put an appropriate emphasis on the quality of the UI and remote when reviewing a TV instead of going on about differences in video quality which are only really apparent when looking at the sets back to back, or if you're trying hard to notice.

Don't panic, but UK faces BLACKOUTS BY 2015

The Guardians Solution

Below is a link to an article from a supposedly serious newspaper about how to deal with climate change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2012/oct/01/50-months-climate-interactive

They've basically asked 50 people how they would solve the global warming problem, which of course is bound closely with energy policy. I'd genuinely recommend looking at all 50 comments, you'll either find it hilarious or depressing.

You'd hope that there's a higher level of discussion going on in DECC...

Google promises autonomous cars for all within five years

Re: Future consequences

I think motor sport will survive, horses no longer have a utilitarian purpose but people still ride them for sport.

Re: praos

Roughly my thoughts as well. For me, the interesting thing is that it will take a start-up or a company like Google (no interest in the automotive industry) to make the change.

Once driverless cars are common people in general won't own private cars (except maybe toys for wealthy people). People will instead use automated taxi like services. So we'll end up with lots of black cab like cars on the roads which will be commercial vehicles so will be designed for long lives and high reliability.

In this scenario there will be far fewer cars manufactured per annum to do the same work as the vast majority of a car's time is currently spent doing nothing so it will take far fewer automated cars to replace them. These new cars will be quite utilitarian so it's hard to see where the market for high end motors will be.

The long and the short of it is the current automotive industry is not going to embrace automated motoring.

How hard is 3D printing?

Even home 2d printing isn't all that great

3d printing used to be known mainly as "rapid prototyping", it's now being used ever more for "rapid manufacturing" and this makes a lot of sense for low volume products.

Various parts of the media, from geek websites to the FT, have been putting forward the notion that 3d printing will revolutionise manufacturing by putting a 3d printer in everyone's home and allowing for decentralised manufacturing. I don't see how this is even remotely plausible.

I always think of home inkject/ laser printers when the notion is put forward. Would anyone seriously consider printing and binding a book at home to be preferable to ordering it online and having it delivered the next day. Consider the cost, time, reliability and hassle. Even for a custom book you would still be better off going with something like blurb.co.uk (think about the difference in quality, TCO and cost of you own time). And this is with technology which is fundamentally a lot simpler to 3d printing and has had decades to mature and become dirt cheap.

I can imagine industrial scale 3d printers, which would be the equivalent of the printing machinery used by the likes of blurb, being used more widely for spare parts and such but the notion of it being done at home seems fanciful to me.

TERROR in SEATTLE: Gang of violent LEPRECHAUNS on the loose

Re: And If i feckin hear "Southern Ireland"...............

Mmm, couldn't be much more wrong if you tried. Southern Ireland is not an official name, it's Republic of Ireland if you want to be proper. The reason southern Ireland is an annoying name is the most northerly point and county on the Island is in the republic, so calling it the south is silly at best. Derry is the original name, London may have been added a few hundred years ago but Derry is still the original. And part of Ulster is in the republic/ south/ eire/ 26 counties, simply wishing it isn't doesn't make it so.

GiffGaff in data spaff, goodybag gaffe: ICO says its 'avin a laff

Overly Sensitive

I use Giffgaff and will continue to, because its cheap...

I've had trouble ordering goodybags, not just the last couple of weeks either. And when I ordered a sim recently it took almost two weeks to arrive. So the reg is right, they are a bit rubbish but they are very cheap.

And for those over sensitive Fans, the style of the article is exactly in keeping with the Reg, and long may it continue!

Study: The more science you know, the less worried you are about climate

Assumptions

The problem with the discussion here is that the study made some assumptions. Whether or not the're correct can be debated but the position of the authors is that it's correct to have a high level of perceived risk about climate change. They knew going into the study that the level of perceived risk in the population is lower than they considered correct. In order to explain this they considered two hypotheses. One that people were too scientifically illiterate to appreciate the risk and secondly that people's ability to perceive risk is biased by their social environment (peers don't believe it so it's best if they don't either). The first hypothesis was proved incorrect and the second one correct.

It would have been interesting if as a control they considered the belief in god or evolution instead of just risk associated with nuclear, although that is a bit different to perceived risk... Maybe risk of eternal damnation then?

Commentards! Know a good hosting firm? Recommend a good laptop?

Kimsufi.co.uk

Kimsufi.co.uk for the hosting, they're a cheaper brand of OVH.

Ex-BP engineer cuffed 'for deleting Deepwater spill texts'

Only Texts

The part that bothers me is that they're only bloody text messages, informal communications which would easily be taken out of context.

The important part of the investigation is what caused the spill in the first place not some comments from one engineer to another after the fact.

Whatever about him, I certainly make sarcastic, black comments to colleagues which would have no use to a formal investigation and could easily be misconstrued. And he's not a scum sucking lawyer so he shouldn't be expected to have the same appreciation for the legal requirements.

Ofcom calls for end to 0800 charges on mobiles

GiffGaff

On GiffGaff 0800 numbers are actually free!

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Learn-giffgaff-Top-Tips/0800-numbers-are-free-But-there-s-more/td-p/2372

GiffGaff goes titsup again in 'leccy cable gaffe

Working fine in Aberdeen.

Activist supplied illegally obtained docs to DeSmogBlog

Re: Sir

He didn't come clean because of honesty, he came clean because someone else figured out it was him.

Why Amazon, eBay and Google are building bricks-and-mortar stores

From the sound of the linked article google are thinking of opening a visitor type shop at one of their big offices. Hardly a sign that google are desperate to move offline.

I'm a bit annoyed with myself for clicking on an article with the "open and shut" warning.

Samsung Galaxy Note

Purchase from Amazon

You need to purchase it from Amazon, not one of the other ebay like sellers on the website (Amazon are a few Euros more expensive).

Ordered from?

Care to let us know the name of the site?

Why grill Google over web dominance? It has none

Matt Assay and his google bashing is getting a bit old. Fair play to the register for labelling his posts as "open and shut" so they are easy to ignore.

COMET WILL DEFINITELY NOT HIT EARTH – NASA

The wings are not on fire!

The Marty amok airline pilots sketch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq-cw2DHQeo

Apple cripples iBooks for jailbreakers

The Point!

It's a struggle to see what you'd do with an atv without it being jailbroken. I just bought one to run XBMC.

BBC apologises for Top Gear outrage

Unscripted?

'unscripted TV", and you call May naive