* Posts by Hull

41 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Sep 2010

Los Alamos finishes installing Crossroads super to test nukes without a big bang

Hull
Happy

Indeed

"smash-hit movie"

Intel adds fresh x86 and vector instructions for future chips

Hull
Go

I guess the OP is referring to either

ISBN 978-0128122761 or

ISBN 978-0128119051

Is there anything tape can’t fix? This techie used it to defeat the Sun

Hull
Linux

Re: Wait ... What?

Remember when you actually were allowed to buy copies of software?

And EULAs forbidding you to modify them?

How the Internet Archive faces potential destruction at the hands of Big Four publishers

Hull

Public Good

We introduced copyright to give authors a means to support themselves instead of being ripped off by anyone willing to create often inferior copies.

Reasoning: If authors and their licensed printers can support themselves, we have a higher probability of good books being authored, and read in a hopefully unabridged and true edition.

We allow free transfer of books between sellers and buyers, and lending. Also to improve dissemination of knowledge for the public good.

Some distribution methods, such as Amazon's Kindle, have put a stop to free transfer and lending. It is often cheaper to buy an ebook, but printing and shipping is also cheaper for the publisher. Are we ready to skew benefits for the publishers?

Why would it be public good to disallow faster and more accessible lending?

If publishers really think they need those extra "tens of millions" of dollars, should we not also force them to provide machine-readable access to all their works for the disabled? We grant them their monopolies on the understanding that they will work for the public good ...

Google's Alphabet to review every project after $6bn decline in profits

Hull
Go

Re: If that's an economic slow-down

The AdblockPlus-Plugin for Firefox under Linux does. I can't comment on other platforms.

Those screws on the Apple Watch Ultra are a red herring

Hull
Stop

I miss the Reg asking Apple for comments

Apple's inacceptable behaviour towards serious journalism should not be normalized.

Brain-inspired chips promise ultra-efficient AI, so why aren’t they everywhere?

Hull
Pint

Thanks for the update

I look at the state of spiking neural network hardware development every few months, you saved me an hour or two.

Lenovo launches face-mounted monitor

Hull
Go

I'd like to try it

Maybe it benefits my back and neck, not constraining me to always orient myself towards a fixed monitor?

I was also interested in the DJI Goggles 2 (NOT the DJI FPV Goggles v2) for that purpose.

Does anyone know if the DLNA support in the DJI Goggles means that you can stream video TO or FROM a desktop?

Intel turns to private equity to help pay for new factories

Hull

If you owe the bank $100 ...

... that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.

-- J Paul Getty

FBI and MI5 bosses: China cheats and steals at massive scale

Hull
Stop

Whataboutism

Whataboutism is an even more egregious form of the tu quoque fallacy. ( ... neologism) It has been known for a very long time as a sophistic trick. The name fits, is memorable and in my experience people immediately understand it. What more do you want?

It is right criticize all wrongs.

But it is wrong to criticize them where it prevents understanding of or measures against the wrong currently discussed. Where would this lead?

Mary Coombs, first woman commercial programmer, dies at 93

Hull
Thumb Up

First time I heard of her -- thanks!

I'll try to work her story into conversation with my daughter.

IBM forges entanglement to double quantum simulations by 'cutting up a larger circuit into smaller circuits'

Hull
Go

If you are interested in faults in your model ...

... maybe you should take a look at the Jan. 19 issue of Nature.

BOFH: What a beautiful classic car. Shame if anything were to happen to it

Hull
Trollface

Re: Deranged

I won't be the one to tell you that this is the way you look. Seems unsafe.

RISC-V CTO: We won't dictate chip design like Arm and x86

Hull
Thumb Up

Re: Industry work in Europe?

Will do, thanks for the heads-up!

Hull

Industry work in Europe?

A fresh graduate who has done a project in Chisel with a RISC-V core asks:

Is any European company hiring people for RISC-V work?

Bloke breaking his back on 'commute' from bed to desk deemed a workplace accident

Hull

Report incomplete

The court decision put special emphasis on the way to the home office only being insured if it can be proven that the insured person was indeed traveling for the first time of the day into the home office, which must be a dedicated room separated from the rest of the dwelling (in this case being on a different level). That first walk is unavoidable, and thus insured, coffee and bathroom breaks probably won't be.

A brief report of the decision by the court: https://www.bsg.bund.de/SharedDocs/Verhandlungen/DE/2021/2021_12_08_B_02_U_04_21_R.html

Can Rust save the planet? Why, and why not

Hull
Coat

Re: Cool!

Cut it out, Paul!

Linus Torvalds tells kernel list poster to 'SHUT THE HELL UP' for saying COVID-19 vaccines create 'new humanoid race'

Hull
Thumb Up

Thanks

Now I can swear in Finnish.

Sold: €15k invisible sculpture that's a must-see for art lovers

Hull
Angel

You don't need to insure it

It will outlast us all. Timeless, transcendent.

Boffins improve on tech that extracts DC power from ambient Wi-Fi

Hull

Re: Crystal radio?

50 MW? That would be very impressive.

QNAP caught napping as disclosure delay expires, critical NAS bugs revealed

Hull
Stop

TS-231 spinning disks up when OFF

My TS-231, bought new a few months ago, spins up its two also new 4TB Seagate Ironwolf disks about once a minute even if I explicitly turn it off.

At the same time, the network indicator lights blink a few times. To make sure this is not some kind of Wake-On-Lan functionality, I've also tried physically disconnecting it from my LAN. No difference.

I disconnected it from power after that. Anyone with the same behavior?

The GIMP turns 25 and promises to carry on being the FOSS not-Photoshop

Hull
Gimp

Re: A heartfelt 'Thank You' to everyone who has ever contributed.

"I owe you all so many drinks I'd put you in hospital."

That might be considered an oddly appropriate thanks because of the user experience allegedly delivered by GIMP.

Not by me though. I unreservedly love GIMP, along with its vector graphics partner Inkscape! I've been working with GIMP for approximately 15 years, for illustration purposes and a little photo work. Thank you, dear contributors, for allowing me to ditch closed source software.

The only remaining software I really miss is voice recognition. I do not want to surrender privacy to Google and its ilk.

Gone in 9 seconds: Virgin Orbit's maiden rocket flight went perfectly until it didn't

Hull

Re: TITSUP?

Technical Idol Totalled, Stache Under Pressure!

Runaway Latvian drone found meditating in tree after shutting down nation's skies

Hull
Stop

Re: Great

Nah, that brought it down.

Icon for exception interrupt.

Beer gut-ted: As many as '70 million pints' spoiled during coronavirus pandemic must be destroyed in Britain

Hull

Re: Milk consumption?

That's a bit harsh, isn't it?

Dumpster diving to revive a crashing NetWare server? It was acceptable in the '90s

Hull
Pint

Closed a knowledge gap

When studying compsci, I could never really answer: What would be a practical and achievable use case of "cyber-physical systems"?

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Light-powered nanocardboard robots dancing in the Martian sky searching for alien life

Hull
Pint

Nice article!

In spite of studying physics for a few semesters I had not heard of the thermal creep effect. Thanks!

Guess what's heading to trial? IBM and its tactic of yoinking promised commissions after sales reps seal the deal

Hull

Hospital malpractice NDAs unlawful?

Great idea, we need that here.

Since Dutch is sadly not among my languages, I have trouble finding info about that declaration. Could you kindly provide some links?

Rocket Lab CEO tucks into hat as company shares plans to reuse Electron first stage

Hull
Gimp

Eat his hat?

Why, harmless fetish?

Amazon: Carbon emissions from our Australian bit barns aren't for public viewing

Hull
Stop

Re: Not really sure...

All right, bombastic bob, you have an increased risk of being asked to provide reason on this site.

You claimed two things:

1. "CO2 is released from water as it warms [...]" This is probably true, since at least this PDF https://sites.chem.colostate.edu/diverdi/all_courses/CRC%20reference%20data/solubility%20of%20carbon%20dioxide%20in%20water.pdf states that mole fraction of CO2 in liquid phase drops from 0.000814 @15°C to 0.000704 @20°C (both read from the last column at 100kPa, since one atmospheric pressure is 101.325 kPa). This may be different for fluids like seawater with salts and other gases and higher pressures underwater and maybe saturation has not been reached at all, but I am willing to accept your claim for now.

2. "CO2 only absorbs black-body IR radiation that corresponds to temperatures below -50F and above about 140F [...]" (-50F~=-46°C, 140F~=60°C) This is the part where you could provide reason to me: The following PDF https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/wea.2072 provides a red curve of CO2 absorption on the second page. It shows a peak @ 15µm. The black body emission spectral energy density for 0°C and 20°C on this graph http://www.giangrandi.ch/optics/blackbody/blackbody-ambient-large.png at 15,000nm (15µm) is not far from its maximum.

Did I make a mistake?

How do some of the best AI algorithms perform on real robots? Not well, it turns out

Hull

Biological NN vs. common computer models for machine learning

From Goodfellow, Bengio, Courville (2016) - Deep Learning:

Datasets

on which common computer models learn: 10^4 - 10^9 (e.g. images). // Humans: when we are awake: full-time video, audio, tactile, smell, etc.

-----

Connections per neuron

Computer model: 100 - 10^3 (there are outliers, but not commonly used) // Human: >10^4

-----

Neurons

Computer model: 10^6 - 10^7, also, neuron models are simplified a lot. // Human: 10^10

There is a lot we cannot efficiently model in silicon and more we don't know about individual neurons and their local interaction. One problem: we want to be able to transfer learning (topology, weights) between computers, so we have to use digital circuits.

-----

Size is limited by computation speed, and well-parallelizable. I hope that Intel releases Stratix 10 MX soon, and not only to national interest buddies in the US. I think the work that can be done by current neural networks is impressive.

Suffering ceepie-geepies! Do we need a new processor architecture?

Hull

Re: FPGA

FPGA reconfiguration at runtime: It's being researched in academia, see scholar.google.com "partially reconfigurable FPGA"

Some state-of-the-art FPGA by the big vendors can already do this, support in their design suites is less-documented and incomplete, by my last information (1 year old).

Lester Haines: RIP

Hull

Sad to see you go

Your articles often pulled me up when I needed it. Condolences to your family.

Drum roll, please .... Results are in for the collective noun for security vulns

Hull

I like a flash of vulns

A shingles of them would also be nice.

Two driverless cars stuffed with passengers are ABOUT TO CRASH - who should take the hit?

Hull

To those advocating programmed selfishness

Have you considered following scenario:

You are driving on a confined road, an out-of-control lorry rumbles towards your car and the only space you can evade it is currently occupied by 20 philosophers. Do you want your car to drive through them?

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

Hull

Avoiding market correction fallout

I understood that these theories posit:

In the long run, as information becomes available, speculation will drive asset prices will toward asset real values. The players that do not (net)speculate in that direction will lose their ability to speculate for lack of funds.

I guess that is true. I think my father also told me that when he started speculating.

How little latency in speculation is needed to enable this driving of asset prices to their real values?

In the subprime bubble, some players suspected early that those houses were worth much less than consensus players assumed. And they were able to act on it, betting short months/years ahead, getting rich when the bubble imploded. These people did their homework, and acted at the right time for the long run to vindicate them.

I do not see how low-latency/high-frequency/high volume trading enables better and earlier homework, preventing large bubbles from occuring.

In fact, it enables those who do not do such homework to ride the bubbles. They can escape with less losses than those not doing such homework and not having access to low-latency trading (non-investment banks, fund managers ...). They can capitalize on the near-random fluctuations of the market and avoid the worst part of bursting bubbles.

Leaked Obama brief reveals US cyber defense, offense policy

Hull

Coincidences

Funny, these things are leaked to the press right before the US negotiates at the highest level with the chinese about these things.

Probably by parties concerned with the state of human rights and the constitution in the US, right?

Faustian descent into backup hell: A play in two acts

Hull
Facepalm

Same here, wish you had posted this two days earlier.

I wanted to make an image of my newly bought Lenovo X220 tablet system, because I wanted to migrate to a separately bought SSD.

Lenovo recommends to use Acronis True Image (among others) in their handbook. I didn't want to take the time to make a working linux live flash drive, so I decided to throw my money at Acronis.

Of course it didn't work. (Same problems)

So now I'm deleting the old installation, made a linux stick and will install a free windows license I got from my employer, wishing I didn't have to install their shitty windows software.

Google admits Android 'both open and closed'

Hull
Linux

Linux on a slate?

I was going to buy the first serviceable Android tablet with

- a screen of 10" or more

- Google Marketplace access

- good stylus input. (E.g. a larger HTC Flyer)

I'm buying an Asus Eee Slate now, and hope for good Linux drivers and software in the future.

Does anyone here know any Linux tablet developments?

Nutter repairmen scale 1,768ft TV mast

Hull
Stop

I worked in wind turbines

to pay for university. Until I fell from 36ft height onto a steel floor.

http://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Monteur_st%C3%BCrzt_im_Windrad_ab

The climb down from the turbine should have been (relatively) secure since I followed regs and used protection equipment. But the anchorage in the wind turbine tower was installed incorrectly and bent open when my hands slipped on the oily ladder on a cold December morning.

In Germany you can't sue your employer for negligence, since there is a "Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung" that insures him against all your claims, unless he tried to injure/kill you on purpose. In return, the "Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung" is supposed to pay for an equivalent education if you can't do your job anymore and compensate you for permanent consequences of work accidents.

In my case, that means no help in getting an education (since I was still a student at the time of the accident) and 400€/month for not being able to walk without a crutch, two smashed elbows, some nerve damage to the arms and higher back pain when my back is upright. The courts still have to decide on that, though.

Nothing for about 20 month of hospitals.

At least I can type, and luckily my parents pay for food and room while I finish university.

I recommend against believing you will be cared for if anything happens to you while working in Germany. I don't know about other countries.