Posts by 45RPM 1672 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Oct 2010
Of course, Concorde only had a single aisle - and people plonked down money hand over fist to travel in its cramped and uncomfortable cabin. You could argue that it was an Airbus too. So, perhaps, if they can make the food a little nicer and the plane a smidge faster then it will be similarly popular and glamorous.
How hard can it be?
Apple does request permission to phone home with ‘telemetry’. Every sodding time you upgrade the OS. I gave my answer once - I’m not certain I fully understand the rationale behind having to provide it again. And again. And again.
My answer, for what it’s worth, is yes - phone home. I’m even happy for the anonymised crash reports to be sent out from Apple to the developers of the software. As a developer I understand that it’s nigh on impossible to fix a crash and improve your software without lots of evidence. This ‘telemetry’ is the best way of gathering it.
Once again, at least for Microsoft and Apple, this feels like a storm in a tea cup. A smoke and mirrors distraction from the monumental data slurp and security error that is Facebook and other social networks. Gathering crash dumps is not what we should be focusing on. But well done Microsoft for releasing this tool - even if most users won’t have a scoobies what it means.
Same with cars. Same with computers. Same with food. When I were a lad we was appy t pile into the Allegro an' breakdown repeatedly ont way t Bejam for frozen prawn cocktails for us birthdee treat supper, and to get replacement valves for ma 'n' pa's Ferranti Mk 1. We was so happy that we used to sing 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' all t way cos radio were broken.
Aye. Music were better in them days.
@The Alphabet
Except that they do say clearly which devices will get an update (and therefore, by a remarkably simple process of deduction (if it ain't listed, it ain't gettin' in), which devices won't). Taking iOS, for example, you can see what qualifies for an update here: https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-11/
Now you could argue that Apple has it easy, and you'd be right. Apple makes all iOS devices and, in theory, all Macs too. They have a much simpler job of qualifying devices than Google or Microsoft. Apple can, and does, categorically say which devices are compatible. Microsoft can only offer generalities (although, in fairness, those generalities are usually pretty good). And, owing to the way that Android phones are build to the very loosest possible specification, Google would have a hell of a job to list all compatible devices - an impossible task.
You might also argue that Apple should, on obsolete devices, put up a message saying 'your device isn't up to date, but it's the best it can be. If you want it to be up to date then you'll need to shell out another £600'. But that smacks of 'ner-ner-ner-ner-ner' and would be bound to land them in all sorts of trouble with the seedier side of link-bait journalism. If I were in Apple's position I'd probably do exactly what they are doing. Put all relevant information in an easily accessible website, and signal that a device is up to date if its running the latest possible software for that device.
@Tim99
You say ‘Free’. In fact they had to hand over a minimal amount of dough, and then allow Google access to all private conversations in any room where a google device is installed, including those held by people who may not have a google account.
Your best bet is to put on an ElWisty voice and plan crimes and world domination whenever you see on of these devices (as long as it’s not yours, of course)
So is this a case of n bugs squashed and replaced by n+1 new bugs? /cynicism
I like macOS (and iOS), but some of the bugs that have caught Apple out recently have been a bit obvious. When the console fills up with errors reporting what seems to be an indexing error in Apple OS date handling (13 months a year!?), one does have to wonder how it slipped through unnoticed.
On the other hand, Apples response to Spectre and Meltdown has been excellent (ahem - if the fixes work!)
In many businesses, and even homes, a computer will have more than one user account on it. So, whilst such malware may be able to wreak horrible damage on your account and your files, files owned by your colleagues / family / friends should be safe.
And yes, user data is worth a fortune (at least to its owner). So it must be backed up - and those back ups backed up as well.
Er., yes. But with the proviso that Wine is effectively sandboxed by your user account so, whilst any Windows malware that it executes might be able to affect your documents (and, given the different directory structures compared to Windows, even that isn’t guaranteed), the OS itself will remain unaffected and the integrity of other user accounts is likely to remain secure.
Note my hedging in the use of terms like ‘likely to’, ‘might be able to’. When dealing with malware one can never be absolutely sure - the price of security is eternal vigilance and so forth - all one can do is say that configuration a is likely to be more secure than configuration b.
And you know what they say. Bragging rights come before a fall.
I think thats rather harsh - It does need to run Office, of course, but any office from this decade will do since the primary requirement for most people is the ability to open Microsoft Office XML based formats and accurately render the contents. Job done there (albeit only just - Office 2010 is fine).
Everyone’s use-case is different though - for me, Wine needs to be able to run Visual Studio, and (for me) the free version is insufficient. So, whilst it’s a hugely interesting project and an admirable piece of work, I can’t make use of it myself - I still need ‘real’ Windows. But I kow of plenty of people with less demanding needs who have been able to, and do use it to, replace Windows.
@Rich 11
"Or will it involve the wealthier countries providing more international aid to further support the existing, proven path of increasing the provision of healthcare and of women's empowerment?"
I like this idea. Anything which improves equality and furthers education and health has to be a good thing in my book. Besides, the cost of providing aid seems to be small compared with the cost of waging war, for a given improvement in global safety and reduction of terrorism. Not to mention that it's just the right thing to do.
@The Nazz
"Strange isn't it, the experts would have you believe it's all "man made" warming yet very little if anything is said, never mind being done, to address the explosion of the "man" part."
I don't think that there's any doubt about the majority of global warming being anthropogenic. It's a problem - and we need to fix it. But, if I've understood you correctly, you're suggesting that the real problem is that there are just too many of us. If there were fewer of us then we could enjoy eating meat, driving gas guzzling cars, jetting around and generally having a fine old time without causing any problem at all? Is that it? Have I understood correctly? Because, if so, have an upvote.
It seems to me that there are two solutions to this problem. We can keep shagging and increasing the population, but we'll have to put up with an ascetic, vegan, lifestyle. Or, and this is my preferred solution, we can stop having kids (ideally an average family size of <1 child on average per couple - but <2 on average at most), quarter the population of the planet, and then party like theres no tomorrow. Rewards and bonuses for the winners who manage to get to the end of the ride without having spawned.
…Which counts me out. I am, I'm afraid to say, a massive hypocrite. But it is the sensible solution.
So, let me get this straight, are you nailing your climate change denying colours to the mast by trying to conflate two entirely different conversations? And do you have some kind of Trumpist problem with main stream media? Do you, for example, prefer a conspiracy hypothesis (theory being too solid a term for the nonsense peddled by the alt-right) to a carefully researched story?
I think what I’m trying to get at is, are you a troll or are you howling at the moon stupid?
I’ve seen similar situations where users have archived documents by dragging them all into a Word document to use that as a container. A surprisingly common occurence - but not a very clever idea. Depending on the file type it will be ‘stored’ in the Word document:
a) identically to the original (in my experience, PDF is handled like this)
b) compressed with loss of information (in my experience, video, sound and images suffer lossy compression)
c) as a link to the original document with, at best, a short preview of the content.
If users are habitually going to abuse their software like this, I can’t help thinking that ever easier to use systems are only going to make the problem worse. I long for a return to the utopian days of the 8bit Micro, with an OS like CP/M, MSX-DOS or ProDOS. I never had to help people out of a hole they’d dug using too little knowledge and an OS that gave them a false sense of security.
Sigh.
@Sir Runcible Spoon
You misunderstand me, or rather, perhaps I haven't been entirely plain in my meaning. I'm not saying that these security issues in hardware should be ignored, or that they aren't worth fixing. I'm saying that, if you want to steal someones life (bank account details, identity and so forth) there are easier means than trying to bypass biometric security.
Put another way, I'm not suggesting for one moment that one should ignore flaws in the design of the lock, or put off replacing the lock with one that is more secure, I'm merely saying that a criminal is unlikely to force the lock if the kitchen window has been left open.
Social networks are akin to an open window. The people who need to concentrate on more secure locks are those who eschew social networks in the first place (a minority these days, it seems). Those who have social network accounts probably need to look to deleting those first before worrying about how secure the biometrics on their phone are - because, realistically, the phones biometrics are going to be considerably more secure that their digital online presence, no matter how badly the phones manufacturer implemented it.
I'm certainly not arguing for security through ignorance - quite the opposite. I'm suggesting that one should plug the bigger hole before concentrating on the smaller one. But yes, I agree with you entirely that security through ignorance (or obscurity) "leads to moments of regret later on, guaranteed."
Since your fingerprint (or face, or (presumably) DNA) is stored as a salted hash in the Secure Enclave of the phone, unreadable and unsynchronised with the cloud, I’m not hugely worried that this represents a security loophole. It might be a security hole, of course, but it’s insignificantly small compared with the massive security error that social networks represent.
Through tools like Facebook, criminals can fairly easily work out your mothers maiden name, your place of birth, your real birthday (assuming that you haven’t been foolish enough to explicitly tell them), and may even in some cases divulge what you’re spending your money on, when and how much.
With that little haul a malfeasant should be able to unlock your life without going to the inconvenience of nabbing your phone first. I think that putative problems with (correctly implemented) facial and fingerprint recognition are only worth worrying about once the far bigger security issues that millions face everyday have been resolved.
We’ve been using Napatech’s FPGA toting NICs for many years now. We hit 20 Gbps lossless throughput over six years ago, and we now handle 80Gbps without difficulty. This is on Linux, of course, but I’m surprised that Microsoft has a) only just managed 40Gbps and b) considers it newsworthy.
As to running malware on the NIC, I’d love to know how (at least in the case of Napatech’s offering). It’s pretty locked down, and runs (AFAICS) Napatech’s Software only. A little more flexibility might be nice - but, perhaps, not at the cost of security. That said, we haven’t put any effort into getting the NIC to do something other than it’s core function.
That's not actually true now, is it? Imagine a right wing muppet. You know the sort. Objects to immigration, believes global warming is a hoax, hero worships Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, uses terms like Feminazi and imagines himself terribly witty. Have you pictured the oaf? Excellent.
Well, said oaf is browsing the internet, visiting all the sort of websites that oafs like him like to visit - dubious subreddits, DonaldJTrump.com, Conservapedia, the Daily Mail, Fox News - and confirmation bias will ensure that he laps up all the bullshit and propaganda. Given that saner minds are unlikely to be browsing these sources, it's highly unlikely that his oafish peabrain will be troubled by an opposing opinion. Even if they did, and supposing they bothered to comment, the old perception filters would snap down to prevent his meagre intellectual faculties from being troubled by something so disturbing as a thought.
Of course, this applies equally to all the other oafs that you might find on the web. Would be terrorists, for example, and so forth.
So no. Deradicalisation is far harder, more involved, and costly that radicalisation in the first place. How to deal with it? Unfortunately, I suspect that censorship might have a place (in addition to costly deradicalisation schemes). Because, whilst freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, some thoughts (evidence based scientific research for example) really do have more value than others (racism, sexism etc)
**Intel Marketing Memo - Strictly Confidential**
OPERATION SNAILPACE
You’ll have read in the press about this new ‘bug’ which cripples the performance of our CPUs - this applies, of course, only to older models for which we are no longer making any money. Unfortunately, customers had begun to notice that our latest chips are not significantly faster than our older models. With this exceedingly cunning plan we are now able to market our new silicon as 50% faster than the old stuff (after adding on the standard 20% hyperbole)
This isn’t a one off either - from now on each tock will come with a crippling bug that destroys performance of older CPUs and each tick will fix the problem.
But remember - this is top secret so don’t let the press find out.
All of which is great. But High Sierra still seems to think that there are 13 months in the year (I suspect an indexing problem - someone forgot that arrays are zero indexed and referred to month 12)
Take a look in the Console if you don’t believe me. It’s full to the brim with out of bounds errors this month.
This might seem like a trivial flaw - but it’s trivial flaws like this, and especially those which are easy to find, which often form the basis of a serious exploit.
@iron - the 1960s called. They want you back.
Frankly, I take exception to your dullard use of the, frankly abhorrent, ‘word’ Feminazi. If you mean Feminist, then perhaps you should think of it as meaning “Functional, moral, human being”. It’s not just for women you know - it’s about recognising that there are no fundamental differences between the sexes when it comes to intelligence, ability, or how they should be treated / paid / respected.
I’m sorry if that came out as being a bit frothingly incoherent on my part, but I’d like to kick users of the term “Feminazi” until my right leg was worn down to a bloody stump and then attempt to repeat the punishment with my left leg.
Idiot.
@ecofeco
In the dim and distant past, back in the days of the Raj, the tendrils of the British Empire were able to claim India because the Maharajahs practically invited the Brits in. The Maharajahs got to keep their palaces, and the British would help administer the place and exploit the poor on their behalf (skimming off a fat profit, and keeping anything that they particularly liked like the kohinoor, dontchaknow). The consequences of inviting a greedy and rapacious regime in to 'help run' your country weren't fully considered - at least, not until the bullets started flying, and perhaps not even then.
I mention this only because, in recent years, Western businesses and governments have been busily handing over their crown jewels to those helpful chaps in China, who only want to assist us with those tedious tasks that we can't be bothered with. Little things like running infrastructure and manufacturing. They'll do it so much cheaper than we can. Until we discover that we've dismantled all our management and manufacturing capacity - and oh shit! The price just went up.
Apple isn't the only business showing such a lack of foresight. Name any Western business or country you like - we're all in the same boat. It's quite a leaky boat, of course, but don't worry - China can fix that for us…
Incidentally, I don't blame China for behaving in this way. I'm British. We built an empire in just this manner - and it'd be most hypocritical of me to object to the taste of our own medicine.
@AC
There are plenty of iPhone lookalikes in China already, although to my eyes one phone looks much the same as another. Rounded rectangular shape? Check! Big screen? Check! Available in a selection of discrete or gaudy colours? Check! I don't think I can work up much excitement for the form, I certainly wouldn't claim that one is more ground-breaking or revolutionary than another.
The secret sauce is in the OS. That's where competition and choice is required. If Google has the field to itself in China, as it most certainly would if Apple pulled out, then (in my view) that would be a bad thing for the consumer. And a cloned iPhone wouldn't be running iOS - it might look iOSish, but it'd be just a skin on Android.
@james 68
Incidentally, a wise man (benefit of the doubt, anyway - it was certainly a sensible thought) once wrote "Being stuck in a room with people who have diverse tastes makes for much more interesting conversation than the conversational circle-jerk when everyone likes the same thing."
I'd like to add an addendum that, for such a conversation to work, both parties have to listen. Or, at least, read what was previously written.
@James 68
You didn't actually read what I wrote, did you? You just jumped right in with your own prejudices and assumptions. No. The 'nice, easy, way of evading the restriction' is to install from source - not from the app store. I use OpenVPN - you can download it here (https://github.com/AnhTVc/OpenVPN-IOS) and then build and install it on your iOS device without having to trouble yourself with the AppStore - or any official restrictions - at all.
@tiggity
But, as I point out, if they walk away then everyone loses. Including the Chinese people. And the only ‘win’ is that they get to be smug about it. Don’t you think that they’re smug enough already? I think that there’s more than enough smug in the world!
Surely it’s better to comply - and provide a nice, easy, way of evading the restriction? They’ve done that - and, at least in my opinion, this is a better solution to the problem than more wanton smuggery.
If Apple were to stop selling in China (well it’s that or remove VPN (and other apps) from the store) then the only people who’d be hurt are the Chinese. Better to submit to the will of the government so that iDevices can still be sold in China - otherwise the only option for the Chinese will be Android devices which are locked down to the dictatorship approved specifications and which are worse from a privacy point of view.
Besides, Apple has given to the Chinese government with one hand (complying with this directive) and taken a whole lot more with the other (making it easier than ever to, in effect, sideload from a compiler). Download VPN source from the internet, build, and install your home built app on your device. No need for the store - so who cares what’s allowed there or not? Easy.
Whichever side of the Android / iOS debate you’re on (and perhaps, like me, you’d prefer the debate to go away and for people just to buy the device that suits them best without getting religious about it), surely we can all agree that choice is a good thing and it drives the market forward. There are only two dogs in the Phone OS fight - and taking one of them away isn’t going to help anyone. We need more dogs - not less.
@AC
I’m not necessarily calling bullshit - but that’s a mighty big claim and one for which you’re going to have to provide some evidence. From everything I’ve seen on iOS, if Location Tracking is off then it’s truly Off. But if you know differently I’d be very interested to learn more. Cite away…
@inmypjs
Whether or not you are a fool, that is a very foolish statement - and one that betrays you as a member of, at the very least, the cult of “anything but Apple”. It is foolish for two reasons:
1.) Because if you had a genuine interest in the whole glorious spectrum of digital information technology and computing you wouldn’t need anyone to tell you what represents good value. You’d read about it, and go out and play with it.
2.) Your use-case differs from mine and therefore what you consider to be “good value” is likely to differ, perhaps markedly, from what someone else considers to be good value.
For my use-case the iPhone SE represents excellent value for money, as does the base model iPad. Equally, much as I like macOS, the Mac doesn’t make a compelling case for itself right now - certainly not one good enough for me to consider replacing my seven year old computer.
“Fools and their money” - it seems to me that the biggest fools are those who religiously say “I’ll never buy a… (Microsoft / Google / Apple / Amazon - insert product of choice here)” rather than considering the merits of the product itself and whether it fills a need at a particular time. Similarly, a fool might fixate on the size of the price ticket without considering whether it represents good value for money. There’s no doubt that £1k is an awfully large sum - but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a product so priced is bad value.
A famous motoring journalist once waxed lyrical about the qualities of a motor car made by brand X (no, I’m not saying which one - if you read the article too then you’ll know who), describing it as better built, more comfortable and more refined than a Rolls Royce. He then fixated on the price and said that he wasn’t prepared to spend 80K on a car made by brand X. If his review was accurate (and I haven’t tried the product in question because I don’t have 80k) then he’s a fool because, by any measure, an 80k car which outperforms a Roller is staggeringly good value. He’s fixated on the badge and not on the product.
Of course, not buying the product because you don’t have the necessary funds (80k, 1k - or even a tenner) is another matter entirely. But that has nothing to do with the badge.
I used to be in the habit of using virtual sticky notes to remind me what changes I needed make / what functionality had been asked for. Eventually, of course, I’d have so many notes that they’d begin to get in the way of the development environment that I was using - so I’d overflow onto the bezel of the monitor using the real sticky deal.
One morning (the very wee small hours) whilst pulling an all nighter and successfully closing my sticky notes as I completed my actions I came across one which wouldn’t close. Damn thing was stuck. And worse yet, I couldn’t get my mouse pointer over to its top left corner in order to close it.
I don’t think that I need to say any more. You’ve already worked out the problem, and that I am a massive eejit.
The only thing that BT understands is competition. Until they have solid competition then Templeton, and communities like it, will get little to no love from Buzby and Co. We were in a similar situation. Risible broadband performance, with frequent timeout disconnects, until a competitor came to our sleepy village with promises of a minimum of 100Mbps synchronous broadband. Many of us signed up - and guess what happened? BT suddenly discovered that they could provide half decent performance to our area after all! 100Mbps to our village from BT, who’dathoughtit?
I say half decent because its only asynchronous - a distinction that won’t matter a jot to most people. Perhaps I should have said quarter decent though because, as far as I’m concerned, they’ve burned their bridges.
@404 Nevertheless, I’m prepared to bet good money that, in ten years time, what remains of your car will be a 4’x4’x4’ cube. 228 thousand miles is half way there and, sad to say, I don’t think it’ll be the (repairable) oily bits that let you down. It’ll be all the electronics for the ECU, gearbox, cruise control, safety systems, navigation and so forth. I sincerely hope that I’m wrong - it’s good to read that there are still people who look after their stuff carefully but (shakes head in despair)
We live in a disposable world now.
My car has a choke. And a foot operating main beam switch. It doesn’t have fog lights, hazard lights or an intermittent wash wipe. But, on the other hand, it has got half a million miles on the clock - a number that, I suspect, most modern cars will struggle to reach before succumbing to terminal bit-rot. Not all old technology is bad. Some of it is very good indeed.
For years we’ve heard about the benefits of OLED and why, thanks to this wonder-tech, we should all be buying Samsung or LG phones. Now, as soon as Apple starts to use it, it turns out that we all misunderstood and that the technology is, in fact, complete crap - akin to an old TV tube.
So which is it? Is OLED crap? Should we all be sticking to good old LCD? And what are the benefits of this apparently ill-conceived technology supposed to be anyway?
@Bronek
I realise that your question wasn't directed at me but, when I was programming in APL (SAX APL - with the SAX APL font), I carefully drew all of the APL symbols onto my keyboard with a CD marker - being sure to mark the front of the keys so that prodding with my fingers wouldn't wear my scribblings away. Eventually, of course, I didn't need to look at the markings - any more than I look at the keys when I'm typing this.
Not a trick you could do today with the fashion for low profile chiclet keys!
@hellwig
Python is a superb teaching language - a modern day BASIC. It’s fantastic for teaching kids how to code but…
…and this is the lightning in the bottle compared with other teaching languages…
…it’s great for real work too.
For short scripts and processing text I’d still use Perl for preference, but Python has Perl soundly thrashed when it comes to more substantial projects. In my view, anyway.
As with most programming languages, Perl has its uses. Personally, I think that it’s best used for short test processing scripts - a sort of user-friendly sed if you will. I had to maintain a application of tens of thousands of lines of Perl once - that was not a pleasant experience, and I wasn’t allowed to rewrite it in something like C. I had ample justification too, besides not liking Perl for large projects. The code was written by an imbecile who left ‘strict’ out because it made his code crash. It was unreliable and crashy, and still I wasn’t allowed to do the job properly.
The worst language I ever had to use was APL. I have a knack for picking up languages quickly, which meant that I’d often have to pitch in on eclectically coded projects. APL tested my abilities and patience and - although I got to be reasonably adept at it - I never want to touch it again. A vile waste of time, and not even as efficient and fast as its adherents claim. Every challenge that APL's fans have thrown at me to prove its mathematical prowess I have been able to beat on identical hardware just by using a sensible language. Like C. :-D
Whilst I don’t particularly care for social media, I don’t necessarily have a problem with it per se. I don’t use it so, generally speaking, it doesn’t affect me. However, when a powerful company like Facebook shirks its responsibilities to ensure that it doesn’t disseminate lies and prejudiced propaganda (racism, sexism &c &c) and in doing so furthers the cause of petulant man-children like Trump and Farage, then yes - I have a problem with them. At that point they affect all of us, whether we signed up for the service or not. And the fact that they gobble up personal data faster than a Stazi agent on a binge doesn’t help their cause either. Do you trust them?
Should Facebook have to police its service? Perhaps, in an ideal world, they shouldn’t. In an ideal world we wouldn’t need antivirus software either. But given that many (possibly most?) people, not just users of Social Networks, have trouble parsing even simple stories and sorting out fact from fiction, I’d say that Facebook has an absolute duty to police, and even censor, its service most thoroughly. If a story fails the snopes test, and garners significant clicks, then that story should be deleted - it has ceased to be harmless. On the other hand, if a story is in the public interest and passes the snopes test, then it should be promoted and spread - no matter how distasteful it might be.
Similarly, I have a problem with Reddit and Twitter - but, since they aren’t the subject of the story, they’re out of the firing line of my ire. Actually, if the story hadn’t had such an excellent headline, and it is a truly funny headline (to me, anyway), I’d have skipped merrily by without a second glance.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
