Posts by Sandtitz 1712 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Oct 2010
Not that I'm bored with Nethack (I've been playing since 80s) but I was kinda hoping for new characters, quests, dungeon features etc. after the hiatus. 12 years in the making and all we get are bugfixes and cosmetic changes. I've been periodically checking their website for any updates for a long, long time.
OK, that sounds ungrateful and I'm not, but since the Monk character is the only one I've yet to ascend I was looking for more...challenges.
"The oxidizer was now useless, so the JAXA team dumped it to lighten the spacecraft."
Very interesting this. Are space probes usually made with components that can be jettisoned, or was that the plan once the probe was orbiting Venus? Are they using explosive bolts?
"Are you so delusional as to believe you are beyond bias?"
Certainly not. 'brand tribalism is a piss-poor reason to choose technology.'
Half of your articles usually feature Supermicro as the "answer to life, the universe, and everything" as I see it. I visit other tech sites as well and while some other journos have a visible bias - whether they admit it or not - they usually cover more than just manufacturer's devices unless it's e.g. Apple fanboi site.
Are you getting gratis equipment from Supermicro to review, or are you reviewing only your or your clients' devices?
On another note, the Trident+ can be found in many other manufacturers' switches as well. El Reg had articles about them over 4 years ago.
And D-Link is shite - just above Belkin level in my books. Getting 10 years from basic 100Mbps or Gbit L2 switches seems to be a miracle, I've had to replace plenty of them due to them just breaking down...on the other hand it's kind of a pity to replace those fully functional 15+ year old 3Com/Cisco/HP switches just because Fast Ethernet (or even 10BASE-T) doesn't cut it anymore.
Problem is that the Sony software is pure and utter garbage
I can't really deny or validate that claim since my usage of the Sony "smart" features are a single app for catching up programs YLE (the Finnish Broadcasting Company) has broadcasted - and it works well and hasn't crashed a single time for the 3 or so years I've had the TV. There's a couple dozen other apps for music videos, news and such but I haven't honestly bothered with any of them.
AFAIK Sony has only made the Youtube app and web browser, and the rest are made by service providers like Netflix. Or YLE in my example. Perhaps the Netflix app is crashing because the it's not very good, but I fully agree that it shouldn't take down the TV OS, whatever it is underneath.
"How easy is it for any user to update the software on these devices?"
It could and can be super easy.
My Sony TV has downloaded updates in the background and installed them when the TV was not in use. A couple times it has also prompted that there is an update waiting - asking whether it should be installed immediately or when the TV is turned off. For consumer stuff like this there should be automatic updates turned on with an option to turn them off, not the other way around.
"It's unlikely your typical USB dongle, lacking a webserver, is going to be vulnerable to most of the attacks they describe, so it might have been better to preserve the distinction."
It *should* be unlikely, but my 4G laptop modem (made by Huawei) recently had a "Remote execution of arbitrary code" vulnerability.
The modem can't differ much from your typical USB dongles.
"Just had a quick look at the store at both the watch and the charger, I cannot see it stated that the wireless technology used is Qi so not really sure what the fuss is about"
Apple took existing proven technology - didn't enhance it in any way - and made sure the charger can work with only Apple Watch and vice versa. If the charger could charge the battery faster then there would be less fuss.
The only reason was to maximize profits. It doesn't make the user experience one iota better for the Apple Watch users, and if, for example, a same household has an Apple Watch and non-Apple gear with Qi tech then additional chargers are needed. The Qi chargers are widely available in many forms, even Ikea has furniture with charging built-in, since any modern phone, pad or wearables can be depleted in a single day.
Outside Apple territory the Micro USB is a universal way to charge phones and tablets. I find that way better than say, 5 years ago when each manufacturer made damn sure to have their own connectors for charging or data. How about you?
"No. Windows can be configured to patch and reboot on schedule."
''No. It can't.''
Yes. It can. Provide proof if you want to be taken seriously.
"I wouldn't trust them under normal circumstances. I absofuckinglutely won't when lives depend on it."
You're implying that instead you trust Apple in a life-and-death situation. That's beyond stupid. And this even isn't a critical system.
"Hence the need for a device which lasts the entire flight."
Except that the device doesn't last the entire flight as you've been told.
"Do you need pictures? In crayon perhaps?"
Try not to insult at first.
"Even MS themselves say this in the quasilegal blurb of the EULA..."
Please don't troll. Apple is parroting the same lines in their EULA:
7.5 YOU FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE iOS SOFTWARE AND SERVICES ARE NOT INTENDED OR SUITABLE FOR USE IN SITUATIONS OR ENVIRONMENTS WHERE THE FAILURE OR TIME DELAYS OF, OR ERRORS OR INACCURACIES IN, THE CONTENT, DATA OR INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE iOS SOFTWARE OR SERVICES COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL, LIFE SUPPORT OR WEAPONS SYSTEMS.
2. Sorry, but touch-interface ecosystem on Windows is garbage. The touch UI restrictions make the resulting apps horrible and there is not a huge ecosystem of developers who are skilled in making touch Windows apps.
An application doesn't have to be "modern" to utilize touch. In Point Of Sale sector the operating systems are typically Windows/Linux and the GUI exposed to the end-user works beautifully with touch.
3. Sorry, Windows does randomly reboot for patches. It also locks up when it gets bad patches.
No. Windows can be configured to patch and reboot on schedule.
I've had to fix iPhones and iPads that booted into recovery mode after an OS patch. Any device with a sufficiently bad patch can be hosed.
And Windows at least gets patches. The first iPad was supported for only two years before Apple dropped support.
4. Um, "standard USB interface" means nothing. There's way more mobile gear for Apple (using lightning or the audio jack) than there is for USB.
You've moved the goalposts. First talking about $external_devices and @external_interfaces, and now Apple mobile gear? This Pad is working in a cockpit, Starbucks Interface isn't needed here.
Are you seriously claiming that there are more devices available for iPad with their proprietary connector than for USB? RDF is strong with this one.
7. Corporate devices in theory will allow you to control patches, etc. Unfortunately, this isn't guaranteed. Microsoft has completely broken the faith and lost the trust of any rational or sane person when it comes to update management
Please explain both sentences.
NB: iPads are fine devices.
"Using the vendor's site does not avoid such subterfuge. For this and other reasons, there are no Adobe or Oracle products, paid or freely available, on my computers."
Apple should be in that list too. Installing iTunes usually means that sooner rather than later your PC also has Quicktime, Safari and Bonjour, all of which are practically useless for 99% of users. Thankfully Safari was dropped but many, MANY computers still have the out-of-date insecure version installed that Apple just apparently abandoned without a notice.
I haven't seen the Adobe update processes offering anything but updates, too bad their free downloads usually have Chrome or McAfee tickboxes checked by default.
Is the revenue from these shitty 3rd party downloads so great that these Billion dollar companies like Oracle and Apple feel the money really outweighs the badwill they generate? How much does Google (for example) pay Adobe to have Chrome installed along with Reader or Flash?
"The first question that popped into my mind on reading this was: how the hell do they know what people are storing on there? Yes, of course, they have the technical ability to find out - it's elementary - but what does it say for how much Microsoft respect their customers' privacy?"
Maybe MS just asked the user?
"Sure, offering "unlimited" data storage is a stupid, unsustainable thing"
Google, Amazon and Dropbox all offer unlimited paid storage. If the 75TB users move to the other providers they'll probably have to scale back or implement more expensive tiers.
"pretty much nobody uses OneDrive anymore."
You know, comments like these need to be backed up with some sort of factoids.
"MS has a bad habit of killing off stuff at random, or rolling back benefits."
I thought that was what Google does with its annual service purges.
Sounds very much like what Microsoft is doing with Windows 7, which is on extended support since last January until early 2020: only security updates, no new features or bug fixes unless a real show-stopper is found for 5 years. In short: end of all development for the platform.
How long until Apple announces their "revolutionary" "industry-first" OS model called Singularity?
"I don't think I've ever seen a mobile device without either a swipe pattern or PIN."
Ever? When Nokia ruled with the Symbian phones it was rare to see anyone protecting their phone with a PIN - if it even was possible (can't remember). Sure the SIM had a PIN code but that was needed only when rebooting the device.
"If that was a rebels' Buk, you would see a lot of evidence of this - satellite images of position, radar emission detection, rocket launch flare detection, and so on. Nothing like this has not been published."
Use logic and the Occam's Razor.
Russia has their own share of spy satellites orbiting Earth, and it it very likely that some are over Ukraine since they're orchestrating the rebel strategy. If there was any reasonable evidence to support Ukrainian BUK launch the Russian government would have handed them over to everyone.
Since the rebels mostly consist of (former) Ukrainians, it is likely that some have been part of Ukrainian Military and Anti-aircraft divisions. The rebels have BUK systems, reported by AP journalists. The systems either belonged to Ukrainian bases in rebel zones - therefore possibly explaining the older missile type - or handed over by Russia, which has denied providing anything else but humanitarian help since the beginning.
From the article: "...WPA2 with a key spinning out to at least 20 characters."
The WPA is spec'd to handle 63 ASCII characters so why would there even be a lower limits in the user interface, and furthermore, why would the German govt be happy with a shorter key?
I'd also like to see WPA-Enterprise option in each wireless AP since Windows 10 (and others) can easily share standard WPA passwords with the rest of the world unless your SSID contains "_optout" or "_nomap". You'll never know if the person you gave the password has a device that shares the password with Google or MS.
An internal RADIUS service should also be a huge plus for easier home deployment.
"I reckon Belkin is probably the worst."
It is. The only Belkin products I could approve would neither require any device drivers and couldn't be managed in any way. That leaves only unmanaged L2 switches, cables, antennas, USB chargers, and things like that.
So the university sued Apple in Wisconsin since the Uni is located in Wisconsin. The patent troll route would have been to choose East Texas for the lawsuit venue.
Serving the papers in Hawaii would have probably delighted the Uni lawyers but would have been quite an expensive endeavour.
"I sometimes try to imagine who might still prefer to use the ancient magnetic swipe reader found at the side of every point-of-sale card keypad."
Lack of imagination then.
People in shops and restaurants even here in EMV Land use magnetic stripe readers for them to personally log to a POS register - usually with a PIN code as well. The same MSR's are used also to process customers' gift cards and loyalty cards.
Empty magnetic stripe cards are cheap to buy and program and the equipment for batch programming is also relatively cheap compared to chip cards.
Technically speaking MSR's don't usually require any drivers since they appear as keyboards and implementations likely require less computer code too - in essence just parsing keyboard input. With chip readers you usually have to use not only drivers but may have to embed some 3rd party libraries from the manufacturer and sourcing from multiple manufacturers requires multiple drivers and DLL's too.
There is of course a small risk with loyalty/gift cards theft or other cards as well (my library card is a magstripe card), but you'll always need to factor in the cost of implementing 2FA vs the risks.
"Thats 'cause these Chinese outfits fail to respect GPL. So you could spend +500$ for a device that might last for say can. Five Years... Or spend ca. ~100$ a Year for a newer device. (i.e. Landfill Android!)."
5 years is a very long time in this business, and I can't come up with any handset that has had 5 years of support. iPhone 4S is the oldest phone which got the IOS9 and that's a 4-year old model. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple dropped support for it come next summer and IOSX. 5 years ago the Android models were fitted with Gingerbread - how many phones can be upgraded to Lollipop - and how painful the end result would be to use?
So, in the end, would you buy one of these landfills each year and surely have the latest OS and possibly some newer technology too, or hang on to the trusty relic that isn't getting any new apps and probably has had one battery replacement during its lifetime - if it was even replaceable? The battery and other hardware has a good chance to work for at least a year, and in EU (at least) you'll be covered by the warranty.
Isn't it Apple's job to offer bounties for security exploits in their products?
Since each IOS version has had security exploits granting root rights to jailbreak (or to just install malware), I think Apple should offer big money for these jailbreak enabling exploits and for each exploit deny free coffee from the IOS coding team. (cruel and unusual punishment?)
Also, why isn't Apple using signed bootloader like Winphone or some Androids? AFAIK, none of those devices have been jailbroken.
"But they're to blind to see that its their failed works... Vista, 8.x, and now 10"
I politely disagree, and would like to see some hard evidence backing this popular hypothesis. Yes, Vista and Windows 8 are sometimes rightly dismissed as failures but during Vista the business computers were usually downgraded to XP, and they did the same with Windows 8 (to Win7/XP). Consumers just keep using what is available and the Joe Sixpacks can't even tell Vista and 7 apart. Consumers have started to flock onto the tablet market since iPad and other devices cater to needs of most people, they're much simplified for even IT declined people. I think that's a major reason why consumers aren't buying PCs. Tablets have also made inroads into businesses but I think people are just postponing PC upgrades since the old Win7 computers work well enough.
Searching for PC yoy growth rates shows that during Vista the growth rate was steady 20% or so (with usual fluctuations), and the market began severely tanking during Windows 7's reign before Windows 8 was released. Even if MS was to settle with Windows 7 back then I'm pretty sure the PC market would have just as it happened.
"along with the removal of standalone Office that's actually causing everyone too leave"
The standalone Office with perpetual usage rights isn't going anywhere with the 2016 version released today, actually!
"Why should I replace a decent mid-2000's Core2Duo with some ithingy CPU, when its more the capable of running everything I need?"
This I agree with. We've reached the good enough stage and since CPU frequencies aren't really climbing anymore the single-thread performance hasn't generally gotten much better.
"Makes One wonder, what would happen if MicroSoft would actually gave us what we actually wanted"
Most people don't know what they want. What did you want?
Saddest thing was Opera going over to Chrome
I think that wasn't so sad since Blink (Webkit) is not a bad web engine. The sad thing was that Opera 15 was just Chrome with a new skin and all the nice features removed. (kb shortcuts, popup menu etc)
I couldn't see a reason to hang on to Opera since the old version 12 was going to be EOL'd soon and I didn't like Chrome.
PS one minor point: " Venezuela is a shithole", yes, but is that just because of their economic policy or also because of the massive levels of corruption which are endemic in that part of the world?
Spot on, Graham. I was about to post the same thing. Venezuela is annually ranked in the bottom 20 of the Corruption Perception Index, whereas Sweden is on the other end of the table.
"And a grovelling apology for foisting such crap on you in the first place."
I've never seen an RT device, nor know anyone who owns one, so can you tell us how it was crap?
I know the app selection was very poor but was the device itself somehow crap, i.e. was the hardware slow or unwieldy or unstable? Was it the UI - Windows 8 on phones is perfectly fine and Windows 8 on PC's with touch display is also fine, but was the WinRT UI crippled beyond recognition or something?
At least Microsoft is still providing patches for the devices until 2018, according to Wikipedia.
Doesn't matter.
The plan is to sue Dotcom, deny bail, and the next X years see that every avenue of appeal is used to exhaust Dotcoms assets and make an example of him. Even if the government knows that the case cannot be won they will pursue him to the end with no regard to costs since hey, it's not their money.
"PATCH, but remember to ensure keep everything 'valuable' updated on an unmounted remote drive too."
In my experience Cryptolocker is delivered via email attachments, usually as a fake CV.exe or similar, and the only good remedy is either to educate people or lock the PC down. The latter option requires supervision if the users want this and that program installed and who's gonna provide it? And as even well educated people have fallen to Nigerian scam, well...
If the Cryptolocker was available to Macs and Linux systems (is it?) the stupid users would happily click away each warning and type their SU passwords when asked for.
Patching and backuping as you say is of course sound recommendation. Most (home) users just don't know how or otherwise just couldn't care less...
"I would suggest that nowadays 8GB (and a 64bit OS to access it) is the new norm."
The new norm should be SSD. It really is the best way to level up any computer in 99% cases. And 32 bit (Windows) operating systems haven't really been sold to consumers for several years now (with the exception of some low-end 32 bit only Atom CPUs)
These laptops are fine for surfing, watching films, light gaming, Office software and such. None of those scenarios really need 8GB. If Chrome is the top reason to standardise to 8GB, I'd just select another browser that works correctly.
With otherwise identical specs I'd choose each time a laptop with 4GB & SSD than 8GB and HDD.
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