Posts by jonfr

Bad blood: US govt bans bio-test biz Theranos' CEO for two years

Re: Denial: It's not just a river in Egypt

"What I don't get is how she got all that money to begin with. I mean, she was hailed as some sort of visionary, despite there being no evidence that she had any actual product plan beyond a rhetorical question: "What if we could run a bazillion tests with a drop of blood?" Yes, that would be a wonderful thing, but at no point has she managed to demonstrate that she (or anybody she hired) had the least clue how to achieve it."

It's called the internet bubble version 2.0. I guess this might mark the end of that bubble. I'll wait and see what happens next.

Not everyday

It is not every day that you read about person that has less net worth then my self (at least for the moment). It is impressive to go from $4,5 billion to $0 in this short time span. I'm not sure this company is going to survive this whole thing, so that is a factor.

Verizon, KT, Telefonica: On three continents, operators prepare for 5G

Too many G in use

I barley got 4G signal where I'm living, in some other areas this is a lot worse. Some areas don't even have 3G or even 2G signal at all. This is even if 5G won't go into use until 2020 at the earliest.

Prominent Brit law firm instructed to block Brexit Article 50 trigger

Re: And the house of lords?

@ nuked, The EU council is appointed by the governments of EU member states (elected) and approved by the European Parliament (elected). Since EU is not a country this is the way things are done.

The EU Commission has limited power in suggesting legislation (since EU parliament and the Council of the EU can also make law suggestions) and legislation can only be approved by the European Parliament by a majority. Most of the EU laws come from the member states them self, the elected leaders of the member countries (depends of the ministry what laws are suggested to be made EU wide). Those legal suggestions are done in Council of the European Union.

The only country the hold referendum on Lisbon Treaty was Ireland, due their own legal requirement on such agreements. The rest of the EU member states at the time just got parliament approval for it. It was approved after Ireland got legal opt-outs regarding some matters they considered important.

Osborne on Leave limbo: Travel and trade stay unchanged

Scotland is going to leave England+Wales

Scotland is going to leave England+Wales, so is Northern Ireland, I'm just less sure how that is going to work it self out.

Scotland (5,3 million) has a population close that of Denmark (5,5 million). They can easily be on their own as a independent country.

Northern Ireland has the population of 1,8 million. That is close to being the same population as Latvia (1,9 million). This is good enough to independent nation and to join the EU again proper. Not saying the change is going to be easy, it never is. But it can be done and I think it is going to get done once the UK is out of the EU (for the next 60 + years as England + Wales).

No EEA for UK

@Dan 55, That option is not an option for the UK. EEA is an EFTA deal, if it was an option it would mean that UK would have to rejoin EFTA, that they left for EEC in 1973 (now EU). However, EU has sad that no such agreement is an option for the UK or any other country, they are either members or not. Switzerland option is not an option for UK, since EU no longer makes such deals today.

Switzerland agreements and EEA are relics from a time long gone, this was mostly used during cold war era and before current treaty of Lisbon. Today, a country is either an EU member or not.

ENP countries that have free trade agreements with EU do so for one reason only. They are on the way to become EU members (if in Europe). But due to historical reasons and other reasons, the path to membership of the EU is difficult and long.

Re: Even here at the bottom end it's a mess

Since I'm from a country that regularly suffers this type of fall in currency (ISK), what you claim is not correct. This fall in the pound is going to increase cost of living, increase inflation, increase interest rates and the list goes on and on when it comes to this.

In short, this is no good and is going to cost the pubic in the UK billions and that is just in the short term.

EU GDPR compliance still a thing for UK firms even after Brexit

Re: Pop!

"[...] Sorry, was that the sound of another Remain bubble bursting?"

Consider this. No business by EU based companies in the UK (or England as it's going to get renamed to). All the money just going somewhere else.

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

Re: So where is the post to balance this out?

Then UK had earlier agreements with those countries. If it falls to them if the UK leaves then visa free travel for some number of days would remains. Since once the UK membership treaty stops being valid, UK goes back to whatever was before that time.

You can read the UK accession treaty here.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L:1972:073:TOC

Enojy visa application to Spain, Italy (Schengen Area)

I hope the people enjoy the new visa arrangements to the Schengen area once they enter into force. I guess Ireland will be joining soon (unless the common travel area between Ireland and the UK holds, its passport free travel zone, just like Schengen). Anyone from Europe would also need visa to enter the UK, even if the UK already has the power to deny EU citizen an entry into the UK (I think this might be an opt-out of a rule from the common rule of free movement of people).

I also hope the UK enjoys the new roaming chargers on their mobile. It's going to be like 3,6p/m (based on Switzerland roaming rates). Data is 3,6p pr MB.

There is a long list of what is going to go away if the UK leaves the EU. I'm not just talking about Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (it might stay a little longer due to complexities).

Brexit: More cash for mobile operators or consumers? Pick one

Re: Scaremongering

Turkey is at least 50 years away from joining the EU based on how things are currently going for them. That is being a good estimate, it might take them up to 90 years or more until they are able to join the EU.

Under current government in Turkey it just won't happen. They don't qualify for any of the renaming chapters. Not even the super easy ones.

Dad of student slain in Paris terror massacre sues Google, Twitter, Facebook for their 'material support' of ISIS

Re: Some points to consider.

Reporting violent content, like a picture or a video on Facebook for instance is a useless process in most cases. It is met with "It didn't break our rules", report a nipple (or a breast, or a nude women) of a women and its removed just about soon as you press the report button.

This is little better at Twitter and YouTube, but not by much. They remove some of this propaganda material from the terrorist, but not everything, calming that some of it doesn't break their rules.

This man is not wrong, but I don't think he has any grounds to sue those companies. That is the government job.

EU referendum frenzy bazookas online voter registration. It's another #GovtDigiShambles

All the visa applications

Once the UK is out of the EU, all the people from the UK have to start filling out visa applications before they go on holiday to Spain, Portugal, France and so on.

It is going to next to impossible for people from UK to move to other country in Europe, being outside EU and all.

EU ministers to demand more data access after Brussels attacks

Burner phones

It seems that the attackers in Paris and Brussels where using pre-paid burner phones. No amount of data access can stop that. This demand is just a security theatre and does nothing but infringe of rights of people.

Google spews critical Android patch as millions of gadgets hit by Linux kernel bug

That covers Android 6.0 (most versions)

At least the version on my phone is 3.10.84 so it means it is vulnerable. I don't know when Sony is going to issue a patch. At least I'm not holding my breath over it.

Time acquires Myspace, creates 2004's most fearsome media giant

Myspace users?

Myspace has users? I don't have account with them any more. I deleted mine back in 2011 and never looked back.

EU could force countries to allocate 700 MHz band to mobile by mid-2020

My Sony Xperia Z5 supports EU 700Mhz plan* (I think, it supports bands 12,17,28), even if it's not offered anywhere at the moment. But it also supports 2300Mhz that is supposed to be used for LTE. The problem here is not spectrum, but old systems in use. They could phase out 3G in favour of LTE (better speed) and use 2G for voice and slow data speed.

EU / U.S 700Mhz bands are not compatible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_2008_wireless_spectrum_auction

*If they use the same plan as APT countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia-Pacific_Telecommunity_band_plan_in_the_700_MHz_band

As for antennas for TV, they are going to receive the signal but the televisions don't do anything with it. The risk is if the strength of the signal is higher than the tuner can handle, resulting in a burnout.

'Blue light services will get 4G on London Tube!' Cool, how? 'Errrrm...'

Re: What's wrong with TETRA?

TETRA is secure, since it allows for encrypted communication, since it is a digital standard designed for military and emergency response use. SDR is not able to brake that encryption at the moment, since new versions of TETRA have upgraded the encryption standard (far as I know).

What's wrong with TETRA?

What's wrong with TETRA? It has voice, granted it doesn't have any data support speed (691.2kbit/s latest version) as LTE networks have. It only supports low speed data, but over a long range (up to 200km from a transmitter).

It is possible to build a dual radio set today, that can support TETRA for voice and LTE for data, with a decent frequency range (TETRA is designed for 380/410/450/480/810/900Mhz). For LTE the normal frequencies applies.

The hardware is stable, secure (as can be) and no risk of blockage or overcrowded transmitters in a emergency.

Boffins baffled by record-smashing supernova that shouldn't exist

3,8 billion years ago is a long time ago

This did happen really long time ago, around 3,8 billion years ago. When it happened our one solar system was nothing more than a gas cloud and some alien imagination.

But the energy numbers from this explosions are mind boggling. What did happen when this did explode was no small thing and nothing anyone want to be a nearby when it exploded. I'm sure the afterglow is going to be interesting to monitor.

Nokia, ARM, twisting Intel bid to reinvent the TCP/IP stack for a 5G era

Re: What about 2G, 3G, 4G?

"If I remember my el reg articles correctly 4G was a term coined by the marketing rather than the engineering department. 5G maybe the same. I take your point about network coverage though. Will handsets have to support three generations of wireless standards and their various flavours around the world? Could end up pushing the price of phones up."

They also have to support wide range of frequencies. My newest mobile phone supports.

GSM 850/900/1800/1900

WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100

LTE (4G) 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 12(700), 17(700), 20(800), 28(700), 38(2600), 40(2300)

What is missing is LTE 450 that is being tested and developed. It is going to be used in the Nordic countries (Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland + Greenland and Faroe Islands).

All this spectrum is big drain on the battery due to scanning. It also has NFC (13.56Mhz). Bluetooth (2.4Ghz) and WLAN 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. This is a lot of antennas (some might be shared) for one phone and battery drain if everything is turned on. I try to keep most of this turned off.

I got Sony Xperia Z5.

What about 2G, 3G, 4G?

They haven't even finished building 3G network in many places and some areas are not even close to have 4G connection and they are going directly for 5G already.

This is not going to end well I say.

Estonian vendor sparks Li-Fi hypegasm with gigabit demo

What about 61Ghz

What about using 61Ghz - 61.500Ghz, that frequency has 500Mhz free for short range devices.

Reg reader achieves bronze badge, goes directly to jail

Bade system, upvotes, aliens?

While I don't know or care what this person did go in jail for. I hope just for minor offence, anything more serious would be awful, since it made the news.

One Bitcoin or lose your data, hacked Linux sysadmins told

Re: ZFS is looking more and more attractive...

If you want secure BSD you go with OpenBSD or NetBSD. FreeBSD is fine, while secure than any linux out there it is less secure than OpenBSD or NetBSD.

Microsoft now awfully pushy with Windows 10 on Win 7, 8 PCs – Reg readers hit back

Don't go with Linux

While I might be stepping on some toes. I don't recommend linux today (any distro). Due to the mess it is in (linux being the kernel, not the top layers build on it). Along with the mess of many of the system layers like systemd that is being used today.

What I recommend is *BSD, a desktop friendly version of it.

http://www.ghostbsd.org/

If you want something more secure you can go with NetBSD or OpenBSD.

As for Windows 10. What Microsoft is doing is putting the base for operating system that is in subscription. While I have to use Windows 10 for games (mostly streaming that I'm planning) I don't plan on buying any subscription for anything from Microsoft. I expect that subscription is going to start with Windows 11 or 12 (version equal of it).

Miss Brittany dethroned for posting 'nude' Facebook pics

Twitter accounts suspended

I did notice that twitter accounts of the former Miss Brittany and the new Miss Brittany are both suspended. Possible that they were fake accounts, but I don't think that is the case. I wonder what is going on.

Beauty pageant are strange and have even stranger rules. John Oliver covered it here.

https://youtu.be/oDPCmmZifE8

Don't want to upgrade to Windows 10? You'll download it WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

More options then Linux out there

You can always test out *BSD that is out there. You got several distros to work with. You have.

OpenBSD

NetBSD

FreeBSD

GhostBSD

PC-BSD

This are all the major BSD versions that I know of. There are others used in different tasks.

Illegal activty by Microsoft

This is illegal activity by Microsoft in any country that has computer crime law. As it falls under chancing person computer without permission, illegal use of bandwidth and so on.

I can't see how Microsoft can justify this. This is also how the cloud is supposed to work in personal PC level. I don't want that. I do need Win10 for gaming in few months. I'm only going to limit it to that activity.

Astroboffins EYEBALL 13 BEELLION-year-old galaxy far, far, farthest away from Earth

Re: re: those galaxies 20 billion light years away won't register on Hubble

Light can and does travel from none observable parts of the universe all the time to our observable part of the universe. What matters is time.

More details can be found in this youtube video, https://youtu.be/XBr4GkRnY04

French woman gets €800 a month for electromagnetic-field 'disability'

Non-ionising radiation does not harm people

If it's not ionising radiation, it's not going to affect people. The most damaging radio waves are infra-red, sunlight, x-ray, gamma rays due to how short they are. The frequency band of 2400Mhz is around 200mm in wave length, 13.000Mhz is around 10mm and so on. Mobile phones and such are close to 428 - 115mm range (700 - 2600Mhz). This means the frequencies used for mobile communications are to large for sells and DNA to cause and damage to them.

More details can be found here.

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

To calculate the wave length (in meters, millimetres and so on) of frequencies, please go here.

http://www.onlineconversion.com/frequency_wavelength.htm

Samsung looks into spam ads appearing on Brits' smart TVs

Profit and the stock market

The problem here is the stock market and the endless demand for increased profit. So the companies (that are under the control of the share holders) start injecting ads into everything they make in order to increase profit. They also obsolete there hardware at faster rate now than few years ago (10 - 20 years ).

DOUGHNUT (donut?) and whale FOUND ON PLUTO

Data rate from Pluto

The data rate from Pluto is around 1kbps (they can get it up to 2 - 3kbps for a short while), it means it is going to take at minimum of two weeks to get all the Pluto flyby data to Earth.

More details can be found here, http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/01300800-talking-to-pluto-is-hard.html

Amazon enrages authors as it switches to 'pay-per-page' model

Re: As a writer publishing on Amazon

If we put you trough Google Translate we might get some results or maybe not. I might have been too optimistic.

Re: As a writer publishing on Amazon

I must give you credit for decent trolling. Too bad you didn't learn the art from the irc days.

Re: As a writer publishing on Amazon

The problem with pay-per-page in the lending (that I am now going to avoid on Amazon) is that it leaves writers on a short stick. The general rule for libraries is that they pay {amount} x {number of lending} depending on agreement by the country copyright group for writers (or publishers). Popular authors get more out of that pool as is normal then less popular writers.

Details. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Lending_Right

Details 2: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/06/authors-public-lending-right-payments-frozen

This pay-per-page on Amazon lending undercuts this income source for writers. It won't change anything in the world of paper. Many writers might not allow lending of there ebooks on Amazon because of this. I sure won't allow it from now on.

Re: As a writer publishing on Amazon

The problem lies with English grammar rules, they are not spelled out as they sound, as many languages do. There are also no simple rules on how English is used.

Then there are all manners of varieties of the English language.

https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/all-about-linguistics/branches/varieties-of-english/what-is-varieties-of-english

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

So this might not be my grammar, it might be your local version of English confusing you. I keep things mostly English - UK standard as I can and trying to avoid spillover from English - U.S variant.

Re: As a writer publishing on Amazon

It won't just hurt my income, it is going to hurt everyone income large writers and small. As for you making things up, I never sad that "as you believe them to be crap", that is your own word into my mouth, I am going to shovel you out of there right this moment. Since I don't take kindly to people claiming that I have sad something, when it is clear that I have not sad it.

You have not read my stories, so you can't criticise them. This are also just short stories, it takes a long time to write a good book and a complete stories due to all the details that must be right and to make sure that no holes are in the story as it is written. I am also just starting out as a writer, so it is going to take me a few years to build up a good collection of stories on Amazon and other ebook publishers if I want to.

Good story is not necessary based on page length, it is based on what is says and how the story is told. I doubt that you would understand such a detail, given on your behaviour here (that is to say, is sadly less then adequate for human communications).

As a writer publishing on Amazon

For me as a writer, this means only one thing. I won't allow renting of my ebooks on Amazon, since that is the publishing platform that I am using at the moment.

As for length of stories on the ebook platform. A study showed that shorter stories are better for digital devices then longer stories, since it appears that people don't like to stare for long period of time on a screen, since it tires them (or the eyes). This means for me that my books (120+ pages) have to come out in print (I will deal with that once I get at that time).

I can't find the link to that study, but I found this link about similar subject, it's interesting in my view.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/why-digital-natives-prefer-reading-in-print-yes-you-read-that-right/2015/02/22/8596ca86-b871-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html

Here are the two stories I have published so far. I know that DRM doesn't work so it's disabled on all of my ebooks.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ZO9I9LE?*Version*=1&*entries*=0 (UK link).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00M9WD38I?*Version*=1&*entries*=0 (UK link)

If the links are not here they have been removed by a moderator. I price all my short stories around 3€.

Vodafone splashes €2 BEEELLLION to kick German TV sideways

Re: Geographic "bleed"

How the spectrum is used close to a other country is based on the border agreement. What they normally do is to limit the usage to 1800Mhz / 2600Mhz so it doesn't leak too far into nearby country. As it stands Germany is moving to DVB-T2 from mid-2016 and finishing the move in 2019.

More details on that can be found here.

www.ndr.de/der_ndr/technik/FAQ-DVB-T2,faqdvbtzwei100.html

The change on the 700Mhz block from TV to LTE service is going to take place from November 2015 (world wide I think). Once some meeting at ITU is finished.

Linus Torvalds asks kernel devs to take a break so he can too

Moving to FreeBSD

Since I like my systems with compile options I am going to move my desktop to FreeBSD (rather then PC-BSD) once I manage to find money to buy new computer. At least I plan on looking into it moving my desktop to FreeBSD.

As for Linux, both kernel and user-space environment, it is a mess and it has been a mess for many years now. I fear that might be Linux undoing in the end, when that end might happen I do not know.

Would EU exit 'stuff' the UK? Tech policy boss gets diplomatic

Re: A question of English?

Being in a country that is in EEA (Iceland). I can tell you one thing, everything is more expensive in EEA then in EU. It has everything to do with customs and all that. Inside EEA UK would also not have any power of EU laws that they would have to adopt in law.

Nigel Farage and all of the anti-EU crowd on the EU parliament (for the UK) would be out of a job. That is the only positive thing about UK leaving the EU.

Manchester car park lock hack leads to horn-blare hoo-ha

The 433Mhz band

The 433Mhz band is licensed as low power frequency band.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LPD433

It is also common to use 868Mhz for wireless sensor (LTE interference is now a problem in that frequency). I don't know about car keys.

4K refresh sees Blu-ray climb to 100GB, again

All the new standards

I don't rush into getting into new standards. I only got me a HDTV three years ago along with blu-ray player since they do give better image in HDTV then DVD players. The difference is that many DVD players are analogue (scart connected) while blu-ray players are all digital (HDMI).

As for upgrading to 4K blu-ray. I might do so in about 10 to 20 years. Since there is limit to how much resolution they can offer people in the long run. I don't think it is going to a lot above 4K.

I continue to use VHS and DVD. Even if they are old standards. VHS being analogue it doesn't has the sharp image of digital image. It does not look bad on HDTV if the tape is not damaged.

PEAK PC: 'Most' Google web searches 'come from mobiles' in US

Peak mobile

Now there is peak mobile (device) at the moment. When it is going to end I don't know. What I do know that once it ends there is going to be a lot of free spectrum around.

As for PC. I don't think they are going away. What might happen (and in short of has) are people living without computers and internet at all. I don't have any numbers that are new, but for Europe (EU) in 2012 that was at 73%.

Source: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/sites/digital-agenda/files/scoreboard_digital_skills.pdf

Not so fast on FM switch-off: DAB not so hot say small broadcasters

Denmark to turn off FM in 2019

Denmark is planning to turn off its FM broadcast signals in 2019. I don't know why since not many people in Denmark use DAB or DAB+ radios and few cars have them installed at the moment (far as I know).

This won't apply to cable companies in Denmark that send FM signal over cable.

Microsoft uses Windows Update to force Windows 10 ads onto older PCs

Re: Old joke

You should have installed FreeBSD or some other variant of *BSD. Linux is a mess today and that is not going to change any time soon.

Disclaimer: I am currently running Gentoo Linux, but I am working on moving to FreeBSD or PC-BSD as a desktop in the future. When that happens depends on the amount of money I have. At the moment that change is long distance away. I hope that is going to change.

Turkey PM bans Twitter, YouTube as 'tools of terrorist propaganda'

Google video ads

I've been getting annoying Google Adsense video ads that auto-play with sound in this article. I want to know if anyone else has been getting this also.

As for Turkey, there chance of getting EU membership any time soon are now far, far away and the distance is increasing at the moment. This blocks are against EU law and values (far as I know).

SPY FRY: Smart meters EXPLODE in Californian power surge

Smart meters location

Meters are placed before the fuses (or circuit breaker) in the house. So they are not in place to stop this from happening, this is according to what I know about house electricity at the moment. As for the smart meters exploding, the electronics in them are clearly weaker then in there older analogue power meters (higher level of complexity).

Ofcom can prise my telly spectrum from my COLD, DEAD... er, aerial

I don't see the need for this

I don't see the need for this. While 2G (GSM) is currently being used the usage of that old standard is dropping, since many users have moved over to 3G and LTE connections already. What is the problem is coverage, that has nothing to do with spectrum.

Current mobile bands are today, 800/900/1800/2100/2600Mhz. It is my view that such coverage is enough and steps should be taken in order to start phasing out 2G slowly. That would free up 900/1800Mhz in Europe for 3G and LTE. It might happen naturally as thing advance, at the moment, it is not doing so.

As for usage in 700Mhz. I think that UK is the only country in EU that is planning such usage at the moment. Rest of EU is going continue to use this spectrum for DVB-T/T2 broadcast signals.