Posts by JonHendry

Sir Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web NFT fetches $5.4m at auction while rest of us gaze upon source code for $0

Embarrassing

And sad.

Three things that have vanished: $3.6bn in Bitcoin, a crypto investment biz, and the two brothers who ran it

Clever

" It’s rumored the brothers have fled to somewhere in the UK."

Ah, of course. Fled to a place where they will be beyond the reach of law.

UK drone collision study didn't show airliner window penetration

Shouldn't the engines be more of a concern than the windows?

"The 4kg “projectile” (the term is the one used by the study’s authors) was made up of a number of loosely drone-related components, including arms from quadcopters – and, strangely, a full-sized SLR camera, something not found on commercially available camera drones"

Oh? Not found?

https://www.dji.com/spreading-wings-s1000-plus

"DJI Spreading Wings S1000+

Your DSLR in Flight"

Just because they don't bundle the DSLR doesn't mean there aren't drones on the market that are made to carry a DSLR.

I'm not sure what your issue is with this test. It's a perfectly reasonable approximation of a high-speed collision with a large drone. If a large DSLR-carrying drone enters a jet engine it is rapidly going to become a loose assortment of parts, each of which may have the potential to cause damage.

An airliner was taken out of service for 5 hours for inspection when an old lady threw *coins* into the engine. I'm pretty sure coins weigh less than 250g.

Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Re: Can't go AMD anyway.

Someone recently posted screenshots of their 4 processor, 64 core AMD Opteron Hackintosh.

Somewhere at Intel some poor sod is thinking "Now is Itanium's chance to shine!"

Re: Typical

I think the 8th gen are okay.

Is the Linux fix optimal?

Just wondering, what are the chances that the Linux fix is the best possible? Perhaps Apple and/or Microsoft will come up with a faster solution, perhaps a better general solution which could be applied to Linux as well. Or, perhaps OS-specific fixes taking advantage of characteristics of Mach or Windows that Linux doesn't happen to have. (Not a slam on Linux, just noting that the OSes have different architectures and features that could conceivably come into play in designing a fix.)

It's a question worth asking: Why is the FCC boss being such a jerk?

Re: less government = more freedom for the citizens

Plus, it isn't like there's a free and open market in internet access. Generally you have a choice between *a* cable internet provider, or the phone company (probably much slower than cable, unless you're fortunate enough to have fiber available), or kludgey satellite internet.

Not exactly a thriving competitive marketplace.

Re: grr

The Republicans preach that Government is the Problem, and when they get power they give 110% working to prove it.

Re: Inconceivable!

Oprah? No way. Nope.

She promoted "The Secret". I don't want her anywhere near the levers of power.

Re: Bigger Government is never the answer

"can use the extra revenue to improve their services overall "

I can only assume you've never had cable TV.

Re: Bigger Government is never the answer

" less government = more freedom for the citizens."

I don't have a billion dollars to fund lawsuits. Therefore, I like to have the government on my side against the mega-corporations who would otherwise steamroll right over me.

Feel free to prostrate yourself before industrial giants and let them abuse you.

I'd rather not.

Re: Net not-so-neutral-ality?

"as bad as a monopoly is, you can't sell the higher tiers if you don't actually provide speed"

Easy, they'd stop selling general-purpose higher tiers, and start selling site-specific higher tiers. Or make it like cable TV packages. Oh you want access to Netflix and Amazon Prime video and iTunes video at reasonable speeds? Then you buy the Streaming Video package for $50/month on top of your basic cable internet service.

Not pro Bono: Apple's audio junk mail made spammers' lives easier

It only downloads to your device if you have it set to download purchases

The U2 album didn't show up on my iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

My iTunes and my iOS devices are set to *not* download new purchases automatically, and are set to *not* show "purchases in the cloud" in my library. Cloud purchases are noted with a little cloud icon. They are tracks that haven't been downloaded, but which you are able to download if you wish.

When I turned on display of "purchases in the cloud", the U2 album became visible, but still wasn't downloaded. Then I turned it off again and the album went away.

If the tracks downloaded to your device, it's because you have your device configured to automatically download new purchases. If that's the case, I'm not sure you'd have a legal case against Apple for putting the files on your device.

Rotten to the core: Apple’s 10 greatest FAILS

Apple IIc was good enough to get cloned

"Falling back on the ever-reliable Apple II once more, Apple developed a carry-around model called the IIc in 1984. The "c" stood for compact, and the slimlime design of the IIc, complete with an integrated keyboard and a carry handle at the back, was an obvious predecessor of the more successful iMac."

I don't think the IIc was a failure at all. It was a much sleeker and compact package than the Apple IIe, which I expect was quite appealing to people. It wasn't very portable, but it was much more portable than the typical Apple II setup, especially if you had a TV or monitor to use at the destination and only had to carry the IIc and its hefty power brick. Many Apple II setups had the computer, a monitor (larger than the Apple IIc's), and two big full-height 5.25" floppy drives. Taking that apart and moving it would be a lot more work than moving a IIc.

It wasn't really meant as a portable in the way we think of one, but it was pretty *transportable* for the time and the price. Remember, the *intended-to-be-portable* 1984 IBM Portable PC 5155 computer weighed 13 kg and cost $4225. The 1984 HP 110 with an LCD and battery weighed 4 kg and cost $3,000, but had no hard disk or floppy, just applications in ROM and some RAM was used as a RAM disk.

Wolfram's new equation: Mathematica+RPi=child geniuses everywhere

Re: On the other hand....

"For the sort of uses that a university-graduate parent is likely to want to make of it, an RPi mostly won't be."

As noted by another commenter, the RasPi is more powerful than the NeXT Computer which came with Mathematica bundled, back in the early 90s. I'm quite certain people were doing serious university-level work in Mathematica on 25MHz 68040 NeXT Computers with 16 MB of RAM. People like scientists at CERN bought NeXTs to run Mathematica.

I think it will be possible to do quite a bit of serious work with a 700 MHz ARM chip and 512 MB of RAM.

Re: Cheap version?

If you have a computer already, you could connect to the RasPi over ethernet, via ssh or X windows. Then you don't need an additional keyboard, mouse, and screen.

The Mathematica for RasPi supports remoting the UI via X.

Re: On the other hand....

Considering that the RasPi version of Mathematica will support all of its parallel processing functionality, a network of RasPi units running Mathematica would be a cheap way to experiment with parallel computing.

[e-mail]

In fact the Raspberry Pi has significantly better specs. The NeXTStation pizza box's base configuration had a 25MHz 68040, 8MB of RAM, and a 105MB disk.

And, remember, while Mathematica was running, the NeXT OS was drawing the entire UI by generating and interpreting PostScript code on the fly.

Apple’s iOS 64-bit iUpgrade: Don't expect a 2x performance leap

You don't *have* to use bigger data sizes...

Pointers will double in size, of course, but if you only need a 32-bit int, you can use int or, more explicitly, int32_t.

Etc.

Hey, Bill Gates! We've found 14 IT HOTSHOTS to be the next Steve Ballmer

I know!

How about Jonathan Schwartz?

Boffins: We have FOOLED APPLE with malware app

Not the Objective-C runtime

It really has nothing to do with Objective-C.

The 'charger' gets the UDID of the iOS device, then logs into the hacker's Apple Developer Account and generates a developer provision file (or maybe an ad-hoc provision) for that specific iOS device. It puts the provision file on the iOS device, at which point it can install apps. Whole, sandboxed apps, just like any other app install.

The fake charger could install a fake 'Facebook' app that looks like the real thing. But it couldn't inject code into the real Facebook app on the user's device. Any apps that the charger installs would be fully-fledged iOS apps, and thus able to do anything other sandboxed, non-jailbroken iOS app can do. But would also operate under the same limitations. They would not restricted by App Store rule compliance, but then again, neither are enterprise iOS apps that aren't distributed via the App Store.

And the apps installed by the charger would likely have to be run by the user - thus the need to install an app that looks like one of the user's apps, like the Facebook app.

Apple's $17bn bond sale not such a good deal for investors

Re: Whilst I am no financial expert...

Right, these weren't bought by regular folks, they were bought by people paid lots of money to know about bond markets and the risks therein.

What? Wall Street/City Boffins Made a Mistake? IMPOSSIBLE

Wait, these people are paid vast sums of money because they're brilliant geniuses.

People making so much money to trade corporate bonds couldn't make an error. It's impossible.

It must be the reptilian shapeshifters' fault.

Arbitrators side with Foxconn in brain-damaged worker case

Re: @AC: Why Apple and the PRC get all the hate

"Apple's margins are enormous whereas the margins for every other hardware company range from "paper-thin" to "razor-thin"."

That means the non-Apple companies

a) pass their savings on to the consumer, who is thus profiting from the immiseration of Chinese workers.

and

b) have incentive to pressure Foxconn for even worse working conditions to increase their slim profit margin, and no incentive to push for improvements that would cut into that profit margin.

Standard policy in China...

A report on the BBC World Service recently mentioned that Chinese migrant workers are semi-permanently tied to their home region. Say a person goes from Huizhou to Shenzen to work. Then they need healthcare. They have to go all the way back to Huizhou and seek treatment there.

This is probably where the Huizhou-vs.-Shenzen part comes in, as James100 alluded above.

I suppose the reason the worker has been treated in Shenzen at all is because of Foxconn, and perhaps because it was an emergency situation.

I think there's some kind of residence permit you can get that would move your official residence to the new location for these purposes, but they can be hard to get.

Apple 15in MacBook Pro with Retina Display

Re: Alienware

"The "equivalent" Alienware device is a 14" laptop: Alienware M14x for the cheaper model which costs you £1499"

I configured an Alienware M14x as close as I could to the retina-display MBP. Same CPU, same GPU, same RAM, hi-res option on the Alienware, 512GB SSD (no 768 GB option on the Alienware).

The MacBookPro was $2999. The Alienware was $2549.

$450 isn't a huge difference, given the MacBookPro has the 2880x1800 screen.

I bet that if Alienware offered a 768GB SSD, it might have even cost more than the 768GB MacBook Pro.

Re: no bluraydrive

"And it doesn't help that the 'portable' thunderbolt external hard drive (cost £400) isn't portable at all, because it requires an external power supply."

Then use a USB3 external hard drive.

Re: no bluraydrive

"Such a gorgeous screen, but no built-in bluray drive??? How are you supposed to play back high quality video movies?"

You watch what you just recorded on your moby-expensive HD pro gear.

Pre-Pet Commodore micro up for grabs on eBay

Re: I remember a review ..

Rockwell had their own, similar micro, the AIM-65. Perhaps you're thinking of that one.

30-year-old global temperature predictions close to spot-on

Re: I've never understood...

I take it you don't ever use a toilet or wipe, because that also allows plants to grow more vigorously.

But... but...

A guy who used to ride on boats wrote in the Register that climate change is nonsense!

How is this possible!?

'This American Life' disowns Apple-bashing blockbuster

It's because

"Why, then, is Apple the only company facing fierce scrutiny, petitions, and – yes – "dramatic license"?"

Because everyone else "passes the savings on to the customer".

Exploiting the workers is only bad if it doesn't save you any money.

Stallman: Jobs exerted 'malign influence' on computing

Four freedoms?

Freedom from soap

Freedom from water

Freedom from fitness

Freedom from tact

Not at first

"however CompuServe gave you true internet access."

Not for the first however-many years it existed, before the web.

Borderline

Stallman is dancing on the razor's edge of becoming one of the muttering homeless people in Cambridge.

HP's WebOS mess: When smartphone assets go toxic

Why?

"Why would HP punk out?"

Apotheker's not a hardware guy, let alone a consumer guy. He's going to focus on his former customers, from when he was at SAP. The sorts of people who use Autonomy.

Snap said to show iPhone 5s being stacked by bunnies

Just the bezels

It's obviously just the bezels. You can see through them to the styrofoam underneath. I assume these are going to be sent to another factory or factory area for use in assembling the phones.

Intel: Apple has online app sales exactly backwards

Remind me not to hire you for your business skills

"That doesn't mean the model is wrong. It just means that deliberately limiting the range of goods you sell, for a variety of commercial, ideological, or, occasionally, down-right geeky reasons, is bad business."

Um, no. Limiting the range of goods is *essential*. What you describe, carrying *everything* regardless of quality, demand, redundancy, or relevance, isn't good business, it's more like *hoarding*. And your store would soon look like one of those homes full of 6 foot piles of old newspapers, pizza boxes, fast food wrappers, and dead cats, with barely enough room to walk.

If you think, you might recall that successful retailers tend not to look like flea markets or large car boot sales.

Note to Apple: Be more like Microsoft

Not sharing?

How many *billions* has Apple paid out to iOS App Store developers, Mac App Store developers? At WWDC, Jobs said they'd paid out $2.5 billion to iOS developers.

How much to the producers of the music, TV shows, and movies sold in iTunes?

How much money is being made by non-App Store developers, like VMWare or Adobe on Mac sales?

'Lion' Apple Mac OS X 10.7: Sneak Preview

"Quit and discard windows"

If you hold down the option key when clicking on, say, the Safari menu, the Quit option becomes "Quit and discard windows". You can also press Command-option-Q to do this.

After doing so, the next restart of the app doesn't open any earlier windows.

As someone else noted, when rebooting or shutting down you get an option to remember open things.

It's per-app.

Resume is per-app, so if you quit TextEdit with some windows open, when you restart TextEdit it'll reopen whatever you had open.

It's also works across restart or reboot.

It isn't just dumping the memory contents to a file on disk and reloading that at boot. That's already done as part of the sleep process, so that if the power goes out or the battery dies during sleep, the system doesn't lose everything that was in memory.

Many apps will have to be updated to take advantage of Resume. But any apps that use the NSDocument classes from Cocoa, I think should get the new behavior automatically when run on Lion without even being recompiled.

They've thought it through.

They even handle the case where the changes haven't autosaved yet, but you use the Finder to copy the un-auto-saved file to, say, a thumb drive. The Right Thing happens.

Save as PDF ought to do it

Just save the final version as a PDF, and delete the original file. And delete it from any backups as well, unless you've stored it in a folder that isn't being backed up.

Ballmer leaves investors speechless in Seattle

Or

Like George W. Bush saying "I'm the Decider" when everyone figured Cheney wore the big-boy pants.

Right.

Apple TV.

iPod Hi-Fi, the failed overpriced speakers for the iPod from 2006.

Friggin' iPod Socks.

Apple pilfers rips off student's rejected iPhone app

Different kinds of sync

There'd be no point reading the kid's code. Apple's wifi syncing is tied into iCloud and whatnot, and thus will be using new iCloud-related APIs (plus new crypto APIs, etc) that the kid didn't have, and which have wider applicability across the OS and applications.

They superficially appear to do the same thing, but they accomplish it in very different ways.

Not exactly

"And the icon, the symbol for WiFi combined with the symbol for sync as used by 1990s Palm Pilot."

That's what I thought too, at first, but googling it revealed that the Palm sync icon was actually closer to a ying/yang symbol. The arrows arc around half the circle, similar to the Apple icon, but then meet in the center.

Could have been better, though

" Clearly it makes sense to use the button in this way this so they have given users this option. "

I think it'd be even better if they'd used the headphone remote's pause button. That way pressing the button wouldn't risk moving the phone and screwing up the shot.

You can probably use the volume button on the remote and get that benefit, but using one of the volume buttons seems imbalanced, like the other button should do something to the camera as well.

Of course, the phone itself doesn't have a pause button like the remote does, which is a flaw in my idea.

Eh. Pretty obvious functionality, name and icon

The name is purely descriptive of what it does, sync over wifi. The icons are pretty close to the pre-existing wifi and sync iconography. And it's not like nobody else ever thought "gosh, it'd be nice to sync wirelessly." Lots of people probably thought that the day the iPhone was released and didn't have wireless sync. This guy just went ahead and implemented it.

The case would be stronger if the guy's logo were more original, and if his software's name had been more distinctive.

I doubt this guy's implementation was the same as Apple's new one, because Apple's implementation is probably plugged into the whole iCloud infrastructure, rather than just connecting to your computer wirelessly.