They're in stock at https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-8gb/ as of Saturday PM Check https://rpilocator.com/ to see who else has 'em
Posts by Martin-R
95 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jun 2010
Tinker Tailor Soldier Pi? Asus's 'NUC-sized' SBC aims to out-Pi the Raspberry
Turning a computer off, then on again, never goes wrong. Right?
Microsoft's AI Bing also factually wrong, fabricated text during launch demo
It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system
BOFH and the office security access upgrade
Hive to pull the plug on smart home gadgets by 2025
Had enough of Hive a year ago
Great system in principle but lousy implementation even with the cloud data... Binned it a while back, switched to Drayton Wiser which is far more flexible and works locally - no cloud required. It also offers nice add ons such as connecting a smart meter to the system so I can see actual usage and cost in the app.
And another vote for Eufy doorbell and other cameras - just works, local hub, no cloud
CAPSTONE mission is Moon-bound, after less rocketry than expected
I think it's more "went righter" than "went wrong". They will work to a range of outcomes from each burn and eight will (probably?) have been the worst case. If you look at the JWST coverage, they ended up with a lot more fuel for station keeping than the 10 year baseline thanks to a very precise launch and mid-course burns - see https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Precise_Ariane_5_launch_likely_to_extend_Webb_s_expected_lifetime
Microsoft veteran on how he forged a badge to sneak into a Ballmer presentation
Open-source leaders' reputations as jerks is undeserved
There are nearly half a billion active users of Start news feed, says Microsoft
Tomorrow Water thinks we should colocate datacenters and sewage plants
Re: unlike your typical UK green energy project
Could you hear me shouting at the radio too…?
I know people who were looking at something like this about 10 years back and the key arguments were, yeah, small reactor less efficient than big, but
1) small reactor much easier to build and manage
2) if you 20 50MW reactors it’s easy to take one off line each month for maintenance rather than losing 500MW for a year or more
As to the technology being unproven, I just assumed RR would be delivering something based on the submarine reactors they’ve been building since about 1966
I say this as someone who lives about 5km from several nuclear reactors and 7km from a recently decommissioned coal plant - I know which worried me more!
Reg reader rages over Virgin Media's email password policy
One decade, 46 million units: Happy birthday, Raspberry Pi
Re: "I can't go out today and license a RISC-V core,"
The problem is having staff skills and time to support it. I was lucky to have staff who could & would go the extra mile when I went off-piste with the curriculum (eg the biology teacher who just happened to have her 2m handheld in school for me to borrow the day I told her my ham radio licence came through - first QSO at lunch time from outside the science block :-) but that was a while a go and funding has got tighter since then (and curriculum much more prescribed). There are some schemes out there which will stretch the brightest without too much staff input, eg UK Mathematics Trust offer mentoring for their challenges, but you're still dependent on the school's awareness of such things - and then of course the volunteer mentors.
Google kills download-shrinking Lite Mode browser tech
UK.gov threatens to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok
Smart things are so dumb because they take after their makers. Let's fix that
Re: "Server error 500"
Oh if only... I was recently locked out of my business banking for 10 days due to a 500 error while they'd been telling other people with the same problem there was no problem... Posting the error message from the Chrome developer console to their Twitter support desk at least got them to admit there was a problem, but it took several more phone calls and them physical posting me a 'magic word' to get it resolved :-(
Hats off however to the Ocado developers who put their recruitment links in the console complete with Ascii art of the logo :-)
Hyperconverged infrastructure provider Nutanix reports bigger loss than turnover
Calendars have gone backwards since the Bronze Age. It's time to evolve
iOS/iPadOS do a reasonable job
My "calendar of record" is the iPad... The *many* Gmail calendars I'm interested in reach it via one Gmail account, and my multiple exchange accounts are configured on it too. It seems to work pretty well - certainly much better than trying to show Gmail calendars in Outlook, let alone something rash like trying to see all the Exchange calendars together in Outlook without ticking multiple checkboxes that won't stay ticked next time you visit!
Somewhat amusingly, the iPad also seems to be the best place to use Teams... at least there I can easily switch between accounts instead of having to log out and log back in again as on the Windows Desktop client.
Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere
Google deliberately throttled ad load times to promote AMP, claims new court document
Research finds consumer-grade IoT devices showing up... on corporate networks
Metro Bank techies placed at risk of redundancy, severance terms criticised
Oh! A surprise tour of the data centre! You shouldn't have. No, you really shouldn't have
Arm says it has 'successful working relationship' with Chinese joint venture run by CEO who refuses to leave
Arms not long enough to reach the plug socket? Room-wide wireless charging is on the way
Re: Repurpose as insect zapper?
If you bumped up the electric field enough for it to actually zap them, not sure I'd want to go in the room myself while it was on... But maybe you could put an electric charge on the mosquitos and then a high enough magnetic field would deflect them all out a window?!
When everyone else is on vacation, it's time to whip out the tiny screwdrivers
Redpilled Microsoft does away with flashing icons on taskbar as Windows 11 hits Beta
Tech support scams subside somewhat, but Millennials and Gen Z think they're bulletproof and suffer
Can’t be bothered with baiting them any more, just installed a call blocker. Once I’d remembered to white list the kids (they always call my mobile rather than the landline, except that once…) it’s been pretty seamless. And from the reduction in calls in the logs, I think some of the scammers may have blacklisted *us* :-)
The old New: Windows veteran explains that menu item
Ordnance Survey to take a poke at Pokémon-style gaming with outdoorsy AR adventure
BT to phase out 3G in UK by 2023 for EE, Plusnet, BT Mobile subscribers
Windows 11 still doesn't understand our complex lives – and it hurts
Browser Profiles
Chrome supports multiple profiles, they just open in new windows rather than different tabs. Works a treat for keeping all the different O365 accounts separate (and that increasingly includes for voluntary groups as well as work clients)
The frustration with the Teams client for Windows however is quite justified... Outlook is sitting there quite happily supporting six different Office 365 accounts simultaneously, letting me receive emails from any of them and send with little more fuss than a dropdown to select the account. Teams on the other hand is struggling with my work account and one client 'guest' profile; to support any more requires major logging out and and in again. Ironically the best client I've found for Teams so far is on the iPad...
IBM insiders say CEO Arvind Krishna downplayed impact of email troubles, asked for a week to sort things out
New Yorkers react to strikingly indifferent statue of Elon Musk with cheerful hostility
The M in M1 is for moans: How do you turn a new MacBook Pro into a desktop workhorse?
Apple warns kit may interfere with implanted medical devices at close proximity
Re: kit may interfere with implanted medical devices
From reading the AHF paper, it would appear that these implants have a 'magnet reversion mode' that triggers a certain behaviour when a doughnut magnet is placed over the device. Normal phones have 'little to no risk' of interference but the Magsafe alignment magnets are in a ring that appears to do more than a passable impression of the doughnut magnets - 3/3 devices for their in vivo tests vs a previous study that found none in 148 patients with an iPhone 6
Who would cross the Bridge of Death? Answer me these questions three! Oh and you'll need two-factor authentication
Hubble Space Telescope may now depend on a computer that hasn't booted since 2009
Linux gods at last turn their gaze to Pi 400: Computer-in-a-keyboard receives mainline kernel support with v5.14
8GB Pi 4 Model B is showing as £73.50 inc VAT. chuck in an SD card and PSU and I guess we're at ~£85 a pop, plus the mess of extension leads for the PSUs. So if you're only doing something short term, or experimenting with say a cluster, then may be it is worth it. 'Course if you do buy them outright, you have to be wary of the damn things breeding - I seem to have 3 running full time at home doing various jobs plus the one I tinker with...
Australian cops, FBI created backdoored chat app, told crims it was secure – then snooped on 9,000 users' plots
BMA and Royal College of GPs refuse to endorse NHS Digital's data grab from surgeries in England
Desktop renaissance? Nope, rebound of hefty PCs is just because there's notebook shortage – analysts
All that Lego has a purpose: Researchers find that spatial memory improves kids' mathematical powers
Protip: If Joe Public reports that your kit is broken, maybe check that it is actually broken
To which I can add "have you turned it off and left it for four weeks?" Power shower stopped working after a couple of power cuts in quick succession. "The Internet" says yeah, can happen, turn it off for an hour, it'll reset. Nope. Left if off 24h. Nope. Decided to survive on feeble shower for a few weeks as bathroom needs completely refitting anyway. Chap comes out to do survey and estimates, turns it on, works... aargh!
Crane horror Reg reader uses his severed finger to unlock Samsung Galaxy phone
PCs continue to sell like hot cakes and industry can barely keep up with demand – analyst
Mostly I'd agree with you - in the last year my laptop's lid has really only opened for access to the power switch. But in normal times I'd have to visit clients one or twice a week so then I do need a laptop. Running a laptop and a desktop and keep everything in sync (even with all the cloud tools) is more grief than I can face, aside from the expense of two machines :-(
Also open to suggestions on a small screen laptop that will drive two external monitors - I don't need a QHD touch screen when the lid is shut, but all the smaller ones I've found seem to only support one external monitor
'No' does not mean 'yes'... unless you are a scriptwriter for software user interfaces
Oh for yes/no/cancel
My least favourite remote access tool has a helpful popup with words to the effect of "this will disconnect your session" followed by an OK button and only an OK button. No it's not OK, it's far too easy to click the button that ends the session accidentally, give me a cancel button!
I also love applications where closing a record with unsaved changes usually says "do you wish to save your changes first?" and at other points says "this will discard your changes, do you wish to continue?" - but at least there are yes and no options in both!