* Posts by pro-logic

58 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Jul 2010

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Microsoft 365 price rises are coming – pay up or opt out (if you can find the button)

pro-logic

If you can't find the opt out button

You need to chat with support. I didn't have the opt out button and had to go though a painful chat experience.

Also do it as close to a monthly anniversary date as you can. I had 2.5 months left on my annual sub. It got cancelled, I got 2x 1 month vouchers, and got switched to the classic plan.

Losing .5 month annoying, but better then having copilot

Boeing, Boeing, burned: Over half a billion dollars by Starliner in 2024

pro-logic

And now with president Musk

I don't think it's very likely they'll be getting a big fat taxpayer bailout.

Singapore says Nvidia's astounding local sales don't mean it's the source of DeepSeek's GPUs

pro-logic
Flame

"the car has to know what time of day it is"

That sounds very complicated. I wonder how many years of training a neutral net it'll take Tesla to know the time

Microsoft tests 45% M365 price hikes in Asia-Pacific to see how much you enjoy AI

pro-logic

Tried to "downgrade" but couldn't

Tried to "downgrade" to my current plan with no copilot. Cancelled my plan but no way up actually get on the "classic" plan without a chat with support.

They've really made it painfully hard.

Finding the chat with support link is an exercise in frustration and clicking tough countless screens... and then they don't offer chat on weekends

Now Dell salespeople must be onsite five days a week

pro-logic

claims to have re-typed the return-to-office (RTO) memo by hand to avoid being identified

Ok, so it sounds like Dell are being pretty evil with this very short notice RTO office mandate... but the above has me genuinely interested.

How exactly does this process work? Is it font size? Font colour? The number of spaces between words and paragraphs? Unique wording? Using Unicode instead of ASCII characters? Would just doing a copy / paste into notepad and removing all double spaces and double break lines keep me safe from such a identification scheme? Just how many devious ways have employers found to watermark text?

Intel to shed at least 15% of staff, will outsource more to TSMC, slash $10B in costs

pro-logic

The job losses suck. I feel sorry for the people who lost their job.

I never realised that Intel was so huge! A ~120,000 staff, before this move. That is a big company!

Security biz KnowBe4 hired fake North Korean techie, who got straight to work ... on evil

pro-logic

The Inside Man

https://insideman.knowbe4.com/

It's almost like someone watched their training videos / TV series about a company hiring a plant IT guy who's out to cause havoc and just went "I bet they'll fall for that!"

Venerable ICQ messaging service to end operations in June

pro-logic

ICQ has announced it will shut down for good in June

Uh-oh!

Chrome Enterprise Premium promises extra security – for a fee

pro-logic
Terminator

I wonder how long it takes for the AI to work out ads and analytics from companies like Google are a threat and decides to terminate them.

Google hopes to end tsunami of data dragnet warrants with Location History shakeup

pro-logic

I can only assume they're doing "the right thing" here because the cost of responding to all the warrants > the advertising revenue they can derive from the data.

I have no idea how much it costs to respond to a warrant, but I'd think for the millions of location history data points they collect, they could sell that data for more, uh, I mean, provide targeted advertising!

Apple responds to critics of CSAM scan plan with FAQs, says it'd block governments subverting its system

pro-logic

Re: Who creates the hash?

Being pedantic, a hash is simply a function that maps an arbitrarily length of data onto a fixed length of data. The definition does not have any requirements around changing the hash with data change. A hash function could simply map all data to the value "1" and it's still technically a hash, just a terrible one.

It just so happens that most hash function we think about in IT are designed to change when a single bit changes.

As for how this specific hash function, Microsoft Research's PhonoDNA is the hash function that's used for this. It is apparently resistant to colour changes, resizing etc. how it works is practice is way over my head https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoDNA

pro-logic

Re: Who creates the hash?

So Apple get a list of hashes

Can't see anybody, anywhere globally, adding hashes of interest into a reginal database and then giving that to Apple.

pro-logic

Who creates the hash?

In the end doesn't this come down to trust in who creates the hash?

I assume: (and also hope) that Apple isn't getting a whole bunch of pictures to create the list of hashes, and like all other hashes you can't work out the contents from the hash.

If Apple get's a list of hashes from a 3rd party, say the government, what's to say there isn't a bunch of hashes of Winnie The Pooh pictures? The 3rd party can assure Apple the list is only CSAM, and Apple can feign ignorance as A. A. Milne fans end up in the slammer.

As an aside, what's the size of one of these hashes? I would assume the hash database it in the order of tens of GB.

All the way to Reno: Oppo's latest mid-ranger going global but lacks 5G compared to similarly specced models

pro-logic
Trollface

RAM and ROM (8GB and 128GB respectively)

128GB ROM?

Hope nobody wants to like, take a photo, or install an app or something.

About to install the Windows 10 April 2018 Update? You might want to wait a little bit longer

pro-logic
Mushroom

The 1803 update really did a number on my 7 (almost 8) year old desktop.

After the update the start menu stopped working, which arguably is a upgrade not a downgrate, but anyway.

Also as part of the update process Microsoft had 'helpfully' reverted the driver for my RAID to a old Microsoft one. Which resulted in stupidly long DCP calls pretty much totally killing performance of the system.

Luckily the fix while time consuming was rather simple.

Fiddle with some BIOS settings to disable the old Intel RAID. Change disks from RAID to AHCI. I actually pulled out the RAID a while back, because the system was working, I didn't fiddle with BIOS, cos if it ain't broke!

Fixing the start menu not working was a case of doing a in-place 'upgrade'.

Still, none of that should have to have been done if the update wasn't a total untested turd.

OnePlus smartmobe brand modelled on 'a religion', founder admits

pro-logic

Review

Any chance the reg is going to do a review of this one?

I'm thinking of making this my next phone but would rather that has a decent camera. OnePlus has a reputation for sub-par camera performance.

nbn™ isn’t fixing HFC, it’s ‘optimising’ it

pro-logic

A rate of 100,000 a month

Hmm... I guess that means they'll be doing self install kits.

That include:

- ladder

- power drill

- 20m coax cable

- crimping tools

- various connectors

- wall plate

- ntd

- shovel

- conduit

- ikea style 'how to tap the street coax cable, dig a trench, run the coax into the room you want and connect a ntd'

Oz Budget 2018: Cash for 3cm GPS resolution, federated IDs, payments reform and blockchain

pro-logic

Australia's budget also reduced its beer tax.

Now that is good news for the IT industry!

Although it is shocking that the Australian government equalised the beer tax across kegs by reducing the tax on small kegs and not by increasing tax on large kegs...

But I'm sure nobody is going to look the beerhorse in the mouth, it stinks of beer after all.

ZTE to USA: Sure, ban us, but you cannot afford such victories

pro-logic

"...even implemented SAP."

Isn't that punishment enough?

Google to kill Chrome autoplay madness

pro-logic

Is there actually a way to currently fully disable auto-pay in chrome?

It's been two and a half years of decline – tablets aren't coming back

pro-logic

No improvement is specs

My nexus 7 (2013) model is slowly dying. It has only one use case, I use it to read news in the morning while on the crapper. Better then doing it on my phone because bigger screen, and less awkward then getting out the laptop and putting it on your lap...

My problem is that all the current tablets in the 7" space have specs that are worse than the one from 2013! Lower resolution screens... crap versions of android... if they kept pumping out the same stuff it would actually have been better.

Square Kilometre Array precursor shrinks 5TB of data to 22MB – every second!

pro-logic

I invented a program that downloads porn off the internet one million times faster.

Ahh reminds me of Doug from the Simpsons:

Doug: I invented a program that downloads porn off the internet one million times faster.

5TB to 22MB is impressive compression!

Nice NBN rival you built there. What a shame if someone taxed it

pro-logic

Re: Whaaa...?

I suppose my main issue with this is that NBN itself would be taxed.

I would be less annoying if this 'tax' resulted is a corresponding lowering of the NBN wholesale prices. This obviously won't happen. If it's possible to charge for the same thing twice, the government will work out how to do it.

If they're trying to prevent cherry picking wouldn't it be simpler to make it a "Internet not delivered by NBN tax" tax.

Since 25 Mbps is achievable on 3/4G I would assume this pretty much impacts every mobile phone (cell phone for our American readers) bill too.

pro-logic
WTF?

Whaaa...?

Maybe I'm missing something here.

Isn't/wasn't the entire point of starting a monopoly provider for broadband called "The National Broadband Network" that this "National Broadband Network" could due to it's size, and by virtue of it having 100% of the market, since it's a monopoly, be able to cross-subsidise services to the entire country, yet maintain the same prices regardless of where in Australia one happens to be?

If so, why 'tax' everybody on the NBN, since the purpose of the 'tax' is supposed to be already built into the day to day costs of the NBN.

Forgive me, father, for I have used an ad-blocker on news websites...

pro-logic

Do I feel guilty. No. Here is one of the reasons.

The Sydney Morning Herald which is the local rag in my city

- No adblock page size: 7.8MiB and about 400 requests

- With adblock enabled: 824KiB and 230 requests

Compression tool 7-Zip pwned, pain flows to top security, software tools

pro-logic

I see 7-zip released a new version 2 days ago... so El Reg do we update? I assume that's a safe version?

The change log just says, I kid you not:

"- Some bugs were fixed."

Flying Spaghetti Monster is not God, rules mortal judge

pro-logic

Troubling precedent

Pastafarianism is clearly a 'joke' religion. But the beauty of it is that it's written and designed in the exact same way as a 'real' religion.

The judge has opened a can of worms here...

I would have thought that Pastafarianism is actually registered as a religion in the US by now. In which case it would make it even harder for the judge to go with the 'joke' excuse.

OnePlus X: Dinky little Android smartie with one or two minuses

pro-logic

While OnePlus broke up with Cyanogen Inc because Cyanogen were a bunch of dicks to put it lightly I don't get why OnePlus don't just bake their own Cyanogen Mod.

Surely it would be easier to just fork Cyanogen Mod then create your own entire fork from AOSP.

Does anybody know why they didn't go down the Cyanogen Mod fork?

Please note Cyanogen OS != Cyanogen Mod. My understanding is that Cyanogen OS is the 'commercial' version of Cyanogen Mod. But I was under the impression that Cyanogen Mod was FOSS thus fair game for a company to fork for their device.

Map of Tasmania to be shorn of electrical, data links to outside world

pro-logic

March 19.

"Repairs are expected to take until March 19."

3 years! That's a long time!

19th of March on the other hand would be a for more reasonable repair date!

[Stupid American date formatting is a pet hate]

Volvo eyes kangaroo detection tech

pro-logic
Terminator

How does it work?

I'm curious as to how this detection actually work?

Would a vehicle radar be any good at actually detecting a jumpy organic sack of muscle covered in fur?

And if the radar can't pick it up wouldn't the camera be restricted to pretty much the same distance the human can see? I doubt they've fitted a night vision camera.

The tricky bit with roos and detecting them during driving is they're most active at dusk where everything is grey-on-grey. Occasionally you get the reflected light from their eyes as a warning.

WHOA! Windows 10 to be sold on USB drives – what a time to be alive

pro-logic

Does this mean they've run out of space on a standard DVD to fit the ISO and are now forced to provide it on a different medium?

Subaru Outback Lineartronic: The thinking person’s 4x4

pro-logic

Camera vs Radar

I'm curious about the claims made by Subaru about how good the stereo cameras are

"The benefit of using large stereo cameras is apparently how far ahead the system can detect approaching calamity: 110 metres in reasonable visibility. And then there is the added ability to detect the brake lights of cars ahead earlier than comparable radar or camera and radar-based systems."

To my simple mind using computer vision to judge distance by processing a image from twin digital cameras can't be any faster or more accurate than using a radar. A radar also doesn't rely on 'good visibility' a radar can see through fog that a camera can't.

The majority of nose-to-tail-to-nose-to-tail crashes I've seen were caused by poor visibility.

Although it's nice the system can detect a cars brake lights up ahead all that really says is somebody is applying a break and doesn't tell you anything else like how hard they're doing it. You'd need to work that out from the way the distance between your car and the car in front changes over time. Something your car needs to do constantly anyway.

Anyway, my point being, I doubt the answer is 'optical only' or 'radar only' but the typical computer vision answer of 'the more different types on sensors the better'

What do others think?

Robo-car wars: Delphi's near crash, prang, wallop with Google DENIED!

pro-logic

Re: Fact...

"if they spot the signalling of other cars correctly"

I hope that the robo cars actually put a minor weighting on the signalling lights of other cars.

On the road I regularly see idiots change lanes without indicating, or indicating once they're 3/4 across, and on the flip side see idiots with their indicator on for several kilometres with no intention to change lanes.

Milking cow shot dead by police 'while trying to escape'

pro-logic

Were the steaks really so high that they needed to shoot the cow?

Or were the cops milking this situation just to shoot something?

If I was the owner of the cow I'd be udderly disgusted and cheesed off at the fuzz.

I swear on a dairy basis you hear about cops using excessive force.

Oz battery bossmen: Fingers will be burned in the Tesla goldrush

pro-logic

Richard thanks for the article.

RedFlow is one of those companies I've been keeping an eye on precisely for the same kind of use target that Powerwall wants to be.

As far as I can tell RedFlow has just done a ZBM3 which is intended for 'home' use. However at a $9,500 USD purchase price it costs $0.44/kWh which is a fair bit more than the Powerwall.

Still if the reg has time I'd love to read like a 'battery technology round-up' that talks about price per kWh, cycle depth, effective price kWh, number of cycles etc etc. How many http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/ grapefruit of volume I'd need to store it and all that kind stuff.

According to Netflix, Australia's slowest ISP owns half of Foxtel

pro-logic

Re: Telstra says nothing wrong.

CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + S will bring up a speed override thing. On the debug screen you should also see a 'current video rate' thing towards the top.

Since you seem to be getting 18Mbps+ you should be getting HD without any issues. If not, i'll ask the dumb obvious question:

1. Are you paying for a plan that supports 1080P? I believe only the top tier 4 device plan supports 1080P and above. The intermediate plan supports 720p and the one device plan supports only TV quality.

2. If you do, check that you don't have bandwidth limiting enabled in your netflix account.

I believe Netflix like Aussie television stations define HD as 720p, not 1080p.

pro-logic

Re: Telstra says nothing wrong.

On Windows (at least on Chrome) using keyboard mash:

Ctrl + Alt + Shift + D

You'll get a debug screen the second last section will read:

Latency:

Throughput:

Bandwith (normalized):

Max Sustained Video Bitrate:

Simples! *squeak*

Australian Labor Party toys with a return to fibre, sometime, somewhere

pro-logic

Re: Fibre! Fibre! Fibre!

After the recent storms in Sydney the Telstra pits in my street got flooded and the Internet went to hell.

This being the same copper that will be used under the Lib NBN, which means rain will keep being a problem... which is a laugh.

pro-logic

Fibre! Fibre! Fibre!

The great thing about Fibre (to the Home) is it's the answer to so many questions we haven't even come up with yet. So Fibre! Fibre! Fibre!

Microsoft discontinues Media Center with Windows 10

pro-logic

"Do you need to change your software for the time being?" Nah, I'll probably stay in Win7 for a long time, unless Win10 turns out to not be totally crap.

"How many tuners do you need?" Have 4 at the moment on a single PCIE card.

"Is buying new dedicated hardware out of the question?" What kind / what price?

"Do you have any special requirements, such as automation?" The most complex after record a TV series from EPG data is Can My Grandma Use It.

"Are you planning on buying a new TV in the near future - since some of them can record to USB media?" Nop, happy with what I has.

The only other requirement is some form of device to stream from said media box. Preferably the existing Xbox or Rokus so as not to have to buy yet another device with yet another remote.

pro-logic

I have one of these PCs set up like this. Does a good job. So any suggestions what software to replace MC with?

Something that runs as a windows service and is able to act as a PVR? Preferably with a Roku app for remote viewing.

Tesla Powerwall: Not much cheaper and also a bit wimpier than existing batteries

pro-logic

Only El Reg is on my Adblock exclude list. So I guess I must have picked it up from El Reg!

I wonder if its because I'm sending Do Not Track, so it just sends completely random ads.

That or it saw the two powerwalls side by side and found an image that had similar features and decided to use that as the ad.

pro-logic
WTF?

Is anybody else reading this article about batteries and current getting the:

"Date <random Asian country> women" ads on The Reg in the right hand ad?

http://postimg.org/image/w1o77py8x/

pro-logic

Re: Inverter?

I guess my point was more:

How much more expensive than a 'standard' solar inverter is one that also has batteries in a hybrid power set-up.

pro-logic

Inverter?

An ordinary solar inverter just converts all the power it gets from the panels to AC, in the case of the battery you only want to convert what you need, so you need smart inverter.

Anybody work out what kind of DC to AC inverter / controller you'd need to run a few of these things?

I assume if you want to charge the batteries you'd also need a AC to DC controller.

But yeah, without the price of the DC to AC (and potentially AC to DC) inverter/controller (3 phase?) the numbers still aren't complete.

I guess at the end of the day battery tech will flatten out the power demand curve and this should result in the flattening of the power price curve over a 24 hour period too.

Tesla reveals Powerwall battery packs for homes, Powerpacks for cities

pro-logic

"How many times you have to go out because you can't cook at home?"

0 in the last decade of living at my current address I doubt I've had more than 12 hours without power. Total. Longest blackout was 2.5 hours.

I'm not saying the numbers don't make sense for others, in other parts of the world or even Oz they might make a lot of sense.

The 7 year payback also assumes the battery after 7 years still has 100% of new capacity.

Musk is smart, but if he's managed to create a lion battery that doesn't lose charge after 2500+ full discharge cycles capacity he's a genius.

pro-logic

I did some back of the envelope calculations.

USD$3000 -> AUD$3800 (claimed 92% efficiency)

2kwh inverter -> $625 (claimed 97% efficiency)

Peak power: $0.35/kwh

Offpeak power: 0.12/kwh

7khw (the capacity of the battery) would taking efficiency into account take about 7.8kwh to charge, or about $1.02. Using that same power from the grid during peak would be $2.75.

So for each cycle you'd save $1.73. To offset the $4,425 purchase price would take 2552 nights. Or pretty much 7 years.

At least I think those numbers are right.

These are purely grid-connect time shifting power requirement. Solar generation would change the numbers, but probably depending on your solar farm size. Even assuming you change for "$0" from the solar panels it would still take 1600 nights of about 4.5 years.

The numbers don't quite stack up in my neck of the woods.

NBN Co loses the “Co” for AU$700,000

pro-logic

Name shortening: $350K a letter.

Sounds like good work. Where do I sign up to do such work with NBN? There is still $1.05 million worth of name shortening work with them.

Avengers: Age of Ultron – blisteringly big banter, brawls and brio

pro-logic

*MOVIE DISCUSSION POSSIBLE SPOILERS*

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I have to say I found the movie to be a let-down. I actually think this movie shows the first cracks in the Marvel movie universe.

I'd give it between 2-3 out of 5.

Maybe it's because I just finished watching season 1 of Daredevil and I thought that was well done.

Yes Age of Ultron has great fight scenes, it tries to hit the usual comedic notes in the character interactions etc. But overall I found the plot to be pretty piss poor (even by comic book movie standards). Oddly I felt the movie to be 'small' and 'insignificant' is scale.

If somebody asked me if it was worth seeing I'd honestly say no. Possibly only if you're a maaaasive fan of the MCU but other than that nothing special.

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