Posts by druck

Xeon-bashing Tachyum claims its Prodigy CPU will run AI jobs as well as traditional apps

Is it...

...April already?

Home Office opens AWS cash firehose a little wider with police IT deal

Buckets of trouble

We look forward to every Poilice record appearing on an unsecured S3 bucket any day now.

Grad sends warning to manager: Be nice to our kit and it'll be nice to you

Re: Faulty user

My wife printed off her masters thesis 5 minutes before the last possible minute to drive it down to the uni on submission deadline day. It was not until it was being assessed that she found out that half way through it terminated with a postscript error - she didn't think to check! Somehow she managed to get the masters despite the thesis not containing a conclusion, but after reading the full copy her tutor told her told she would have got a distinction.

Arm reckons its 'any device, any data, any cloud' IoT tech has legs

ARM not Arm

As above.

Mamma Mia! UK film fans forced to Q as Vue's website craps itself

Re: Queuing system WTF?

The website was still queuing at 7pm last night. The cinema is a only 10 minute walk away, but it was a last minute decision to go, and we wanted to make sure there were a couple of good seats, ended up taking longer on line than the walk!

Brit web host biz UKFast gears up to IPO on London Stock Exchange

Junk

I suspect they will successfully float with investors who don't bother to do any research in to the company, but if they keep up their terrible record of reliability, it will soon be rated as junk.

How to (slowly) steal secrets over the network from chip security holes: NetSpectre summoned

Re: Yup

It makes lots of sense. Attacks against large corporations can go on for months without detection, which is plenty of time to exfiltrate data at even a few bits per hour.

Psst, says Qualcomm... Kid, you wanna see what a 5G antenna looks like?

Re: How big?

It's a US cent coin, about the size of an old 1/2p..

Toshiba and WD indulge in mutual 96-layer flashing: Two partners, two products

Write life?

What is the write life on the QLC drives compared to TLC?

Python creator Guido van Rossum sys.exit()s as language overlord

Re: 'programming styles from different languages are (to a varying extent) supported'

Multi-threading is pretty useless in Python unless you are launching system commands, any real parallelism has to be done using multi-processing (multiple processes), and is far more difficult to get right. It's more akin to writing code for MPP systems in that all data has to be transferred between sub processes using slow mechanisms.

On Linux fork allows the sub processes get any existing data already calculated in the main program (although it can't modify anything not explicitly shared), but on Windows each sub process starts as a clean sheet and all data it needs must be sent to it. Unless you are doing a lot of processing with a small amount of data, there's a big risk that multiprocessing ends up slower than just using a single process.

In non-startling news, EFF says STARTTLS email crypto is mostly done wrong

PlusNet 10 years of FAIL

PlusNet are still refusing to implement STARTTLS a decade after every decent ISP adopted it.

Developer’s code worked, but not in the right century

Re: No standard for epochs - @katrinab

Doctor Syntax wrote:

From then link: "On January 19, 2038 03:14:08 GMT all computers that still use 32 bit Unix Time will overflow."

Well it overflows a signed 32 bit number, which will affect a lot of incorrectly written software, but it will be another 68 years before it overflows an unsigned 32 bit number, and really is at the end of the road.

ICANN pays to push Whois case to European Court of Justice

FIFA

ICANN are stating to make FIFA look good.

NASA makes the James Webb Telescope a looker with a heart of gold

Having seen how much gold foil is used to thermally protect the back of an F1 car, I'm sure no expense is being spared on the telescope.

Arm emits Cortex-A76 – its first 64-bit-only CPU core (in kernel mode)

Re: 32 v 64-bit

A32 will probably carry on as a microcoded emulation on top of core solely optimed for A64 instructions.

Re: A bit sad

The original 26 bit mode ARM ISA with combined PSR & PC, conditionals, and multiple register stacking was a thing of beauty, it actually made you want to write in assembler. The evolution and expansion of A32 has degraded the ease of handwritten use, and I'm afraid A64 is very much leave it to the compiler territory. Sad indeed.

Hold on. Here's an idea. Let's force AI bots to identify themselves as automatons, says Cali

Re: As if it's hard to tell it's a bot.

My not quite eight year old granddaughter can't be fooled by any computer program known to man

My 4 year old son won't watch the old stop motion animated series of Fireman Sam, he only wants the 'real' CGI ones.

NASA’s new exoplanet-spotter survives sling past the Moon

How far?

To get into that orbit, TESS needs a gravity-assist from the Moon, which is why it passed within 8.000km of the lunar surface last week.

Is that 8km accurate to the nearest metre, or has someone got their thousands separator wrong?

Linux Beep bug joke backfires as branded fix falls short

Re: Almost nobody even has beep installed.

Who wants to bet there will be a large spike in downloads of beep now, as people check to see if they have a beep speaker.

Intel flogs off Wind River after it failed to deliver mobile supremacy

Re: Can't say I'm surprised

It's nothing compared to the gaff of selling off their ARM interests to Marvell.

For some reason, you lot love 'em. So here are the many ThinkPads of 2018

Re: Keyboard?

Plus there is the stupid half height up and down cursor keys - two of the most used keys crippled just so the lower edge of the keyboard remains straight - I don't care about that, extend the cursor key area down so the damn things are usable.

Which? leads decrepit email service behind barn, single shot rings out over valley

What other Which

What other consumer magazine can I go to, to complain about Which taking additional subscriptions after cancelling?

We only signed up to get money off something else. I was very unimpressed with the magazine, a combination of blinding obvious consumer advice, almost completely content free reviews, and dumbed down ratings tables that didn't in anyway justify the overall scores given.

Take the dashboard too literally and your brains might end up all over it

Re: Why do Mazda fake the data?

We asked Mazda about the obvious fake oil pressure gauge on the RX-8, and their answer was they do this because a significant number of numskulls would complain the car was broken if the needle ever moved from the centre.

The coolant temperature gauge isn't completely fake, it will show the engine warming up, but it's set up so it only starts rising above normal when the engine is practically melting and damage is being done.

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, off you go: Snout of UK space forcibly removed from EU satellite trough

Re: From the department of bleeding obvious

It's bleeding obvious we should get a full refund of all the cash we've wasted on this EU vanity project.

That long-awaited Mark Zuckerberg response: Everything's fine! Mostly fixed! Facebook's great! All good in the hoodie!

Facebook data use rules

1. Don't get caught

2. There is no 2.

China to offer recoverable satellites-as-a-service

Re: Oak heatshields

I remember a Canadian air force pilot telling me how they used to clean Hercules engines with crushed walnut shells, so they must be pretty resistant to heat.

Whois? More like WHOWAS: Domain database on verge of collapse over EU privacy

Re: An open registry of who owns domains is important

We complain about the US when it tries to impose US law on other country, but here is the EU insisting that the entire world obey it's rules.

If you want GDPR protection use an EU based registrar, if you want a .com or any other domain controlled by registrars outside the EU, you should not expect those registrars to have to pander to the EU.

Maplin shutdown sale prices still HIGHER than rivals

Re: Closing down sales

Prices will come down closer to the doors closing for the last time. It's then everything will be brought up by dodgy market traders to be flogged from a stall on a windy airfield on bank holiday Monday, following the tradition of tat from Woolworths, Focus DIY, BHS, etc.

Mum? Dad? Can I have a 3D XPoint disk for my birthday?

Plenty

Given the small capacities, The Register imagines the 800P will hardly ever be used alone

58GB is plenty if you aren't either running Windows, or storing endless amounts of video.

10 PRINT "ZX81 at 37" 20 GOTO 10

Re: "Syntax error in line ..."

Magazine producers initially didn't have a clue how to reproduce listings on a page, they would use fonts where 1 & l and O and 0 were indistinguishable, add random line breaks, and often miss the end off a listing completely if it didn't fit the page layout. Fixing such issues after typing it all in was good experience for a career in sofrtware though.

Organic battery tech could work better than a woolly hat in the cold

Re: "Parky Prius?"

I jump started one for the mother-in-law which had been out of use for a while, took it out for a good spin, then parked it up for lunch. On trying to start it again, it appeared to be flat again, not a peep out of the engine - until it just started moving, thenI realised it was in full electric mode - DOH!

Sheer luck helped prevent mid-air drone glider prang in Blighty

Re: It would have been...

The risks are not just from a collision or distraction, but also from attempting to avoid the drone. When an aircraft is turning finals, it's airspeed and altitude are low, attempting any sudden maneuver risks a stall with very little possibility of a recovery.

IPv6 and 5G will make life hell for spooks and cops say Australia's spooks and cops

Interception

The problem here is interception: if a session spends some of its time on the 5G network and some of its time on WiFi, what the spooks will snoop might be incomplete.

Android can already do this with WiFi and 3/4G.

Cali cops' Clue caper: Apple technicans, in an iPhone repair lab, with the 1,600 silent 911 calls

My old Nokia once called the emergency services from a pocket dial of 08, two buttons in a row which are very easy to press in turn accidentally. It wasn't a number I was aware of being used for this, and no other phone has done it, it but apparently it is an emergency number somewhere.

Europe's Unified Patent Court fate in the balance amid German probing (yes, Brexit is in the mix)

Re: this has made me wonder

This surely means that it's legal for an EPO employee to provide lethal feedback to the management team?

Well someone did try fiddling with the brakes on his bike...

RIP, Swype: Thanks for all the sor--speec--speedy texting

At least it wont get any worse

I've been using Swype since day one on my first Galaxy S(1), and loved it. However, I found each release has got slightly worse at picking the right word, which is very frustrating. It's still better than standard keyboards, and at least it wont get any worse.

*Wakes up in Chrome's post-adblockalyptic landscape* Wow, hardly anything's changed!

Re: Alternate COIN Offering .... and AI Safe Space Haven for CryptoCurrencies

When is someone going to create amanfromMars1BlockPlus?

Can't wait to get to Mars on a SpaceX ship? It's a cold, dead rock – boffins

how about we move mars closer to the Sun....It would be warmer, and a shorter trip from earth.

Mars might not be great, but it's hell of a lot nicer than Venus.

So if you are moving Mars closer, move Venus a bit further away. Watchout for the earth in the middle though!

MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF CARS: SpaceX parks a Tesla in orbit (just don't mention the barge)

Re: That simultaneous landing

It was a pure Thunderbirds moment.

US broadband is scarce, slow and expensive. 'Great!' says the FCC

FOI?

Where is the freedom of information request for the missing paragraphs in the report? Surely this is something El Reg should be persuing?

Who can save us? It's 2018 and some email is still sent as cleartext

Plus - NOT!

Please tell this to PlusNet, 9 years and counting we've been asking for any sort on encryption on email.

Scammers become the scammed: Ransomware payments diverted with Tor proxy trickery

ObfustiNOT

The attempts to obfuscate the Bit-coin address reminds me of the attempts to stop spammers harvesting email addresses from web pages back in the 90's. Didn't work then, won't work now.

Firefox to emit ‘occasional sponsored story’ in ads test

Bye Bye

The first ad I see built in to the browser will trigger an instant uninstall.

Fancy coughing up for a £2,000 'nanodegree' in flying car design?

Moller Waller

The IET illustrated the story with a picture of the Moller flying car, and we know how well that worked out.

Ever wondered why tech products fail so frequently? No, me neither

Re: What raises my eyebrow is when...

Or 5000 reviews of a phone battery.

75% 5* "Looks like a battery" or just "Works"

25% 1* "Fake battery, exploded / caught fire"

Laggard Cisco stumbles over, puffing: 'HyperFlex now supports Hyper-V'

Question the regurgitation

Instead of just regurgitating the press release, why not ask some questions, such as; why the 100km limit for data centres?

Pope wants journalism like the Catholic church wants child sex abuse probes: Slow, aimless...

Re: Be careful Pontiff

There is no such thing as harmless disinformation; trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences.

Religion in a nutshell.

Maverick internet cop Chrome 64 breaks rules to thwart malvert scum

Be a bot

The goal of fingerprinting is to separate potential victims from security researchers and bots and other automated systems trying to detect malicious activity.

Why don't we make all browsers look like malicious activity detectors?

Software that predicts whether crims will break the law again is no better than you or me

Re: OASys

Now not happening.

Mozilla edict: 'Web-accessible' features need 'secure contexts'

How about they are disabled by default, and the browser prompts you when a site wants to fsck with your Bluetooth?