Posts by Archivist

Apple's backwards design mistake and the reversed capacitor

Diode polarity

I worked for a TV manufacturer in the 70s, before they were all made in China. The component auto-insertion machines (before SMT) were clever enough to check each diode polarity and rotate by 180 if it was wrong. That's fine until a batch of mis-marked diodes passed through. Of course the TVs worked fine but we'd occasionally get a repair engineer phoning us, wondering if the reversed diode was causing the fault he was chasing. It wasn't, and DON'T REVERSE THE DIODE we'd emphasise.

Ukraine cyber cops collar man who allegedly hooked citizens up to Russian internet

Re: We've come a long way in 100 years

I think the difference between then and now, is that many people now are ant-establishment. To my recollection the trend began in the 60s (in the UK), and it was fashionable to have a contrary view, especially during our formative years. Back in the 40's and 50s, it was almost unheard of, to criticise authority.

SBF's right-hand woman praised for testimony – and jailed for two years

Re: Bankman with a W

It's called Nominative Determinism

UK and US cops band together to tackle Qilin's ransomware shakedowns

Are you sure it's Russian?

Qilin is the name given to a mythical beast by the Chinese.

Actually it was probably a giraffe that got transported across Asia and ended in Japan - cue Kirin, as in beer.

Japanese scientists propose drug to regrow teeth, promise trials won't bite

Yes please!

2030? Damn it's too late - or I'm too early?

What a surprise! Apple found a way to deliver browser engine and app store choice

Re: My phone, my life.

True, but not my choice. Try to do anything now, and and internet communication is necessary, whether by phone or computer.

Banking

Healthcare

Bills

Bookings

Entertainment

Transport

Income

Savings

I think it's more than just my problem.

My phone, my life.

Before my life was controlled by my phone - banking, billing, health etc, I craved for 3rd party apps. Now my phone is more than just a plaything that happens to make calls, security is #1 for me.

I know malware has and will slip through the official store, but less than somewhere unsupervised. I doubt I will use any 3rd party stores.

Volkswagen stuck in neutral after 'IT disruption'

Toyota

They're following the Toyota manufacturing model aren't they?

Freecycle gives users the gift of a security breach notice

Oh no!

The miscreants can find out what I give away!

IBM describes analog AI chip that might displace power-hungry GPUs

Bah, you had it easy

I had to work with 709s and JFETS for high impedances.

Deployed publicly accessible MOVEit Transfer? Oh no. Mass exploitation underway

Stock photo

Looks like a TV station.

Cheapest, oldest, slowest part fixed very modern Mac

It gets worse

Some USB hardware - specifically Apple keyboards suddenly fail to work with the Mac they've been married to for several years.

The solution: add a USB extension cable.

I had been at the end of my tether until that worked out!

Hey Apple, what good is a status page if you only update it after the outage?

The answer is obvious

Look at Down-detector first.

Of course Russia's ex-space boss doubts US set foot on the Moon

Obligatory Clangers mention

Of course the Clangers and Soup Dragon could verify it, but he probably never got to watch it back in the good old USSR.

NHS Highland 'reprimanded' by data watchdog for BCC blunder with HIV patients

Re: Letting the get away with it

Would you prefer that the NHS was stripped of the funds that might improve things?

Europol warns ChatGPT already helping folks commit crimes

Interception

Now wouldn't it be good to intercept such queries and output bogus information...

Boeing Starliner's 1st crewed trip to the ISS delayed again over battery overheating risk

Sunni and Butch

Sounds like a 60's duo.

Alarming: Tesla lawsuit claims collision monitoring system is faulty

Re: VW too

Mercedes too. It was a relief when snow buildup caused the radar to fail. Then I only had a cancellable warning every 10 minutes, instead of a squark.

Microsoft to snatch Visio app away from iOS users this summer

Re: Use Omnigraffle.

Unfortunately you can't buy it. It's subscription.

Boffins concoct interference-busting radios

Selectivity

Looks like we're going back to basics, albeit with a modern approach.

LibreOffice 7.5 update: A great time to jump on this FOSS productivity suite

LO lost me

I moved back to Open Office because of the Mac clipboard bug that causes LO to hang. Now OO does everything I want so I'll stay here until there's a reason to change.

Japan's NTT Docomo uses invisibility cloak tech to fix 5G reception

Depends on the glass

Losses through plain glass are not so great. It's when you start adding reflective materials that it becomes a serious attenuator.

NASA Geotail spacecraft's 30-year mission ends after last data recorder fails

A testament to great engineering

As an engineer myself I have the greatest respect for the engineers who developed and built these systems.

Home Depot sent my email, details of stuff I bought to Meta, customer complains

Re: Annnnnnnd...

Maybe you should give them an email address comprised of the maximum 320 characters. That'll piss 'em off.

Google slays thousands of fake news vids posted by pro-China group Dragonbridge

Censorship

I don't think censorship is a good thing. In a world where people long for free speech, this sounds counter-productive.

Sure their narrative may seem or be false but how much should one believe random Youtube channels anyway?

BOFH and the case of the Zoom call that never was

Re: Far too close to home

Being a "fancy Mac user" myself, I became the go-to every time a visitor needs an adaptor.

The only problem was getting the adaptor back. At one time I was ordering replacements every couple of months.

PayPal says crooks poked around 35,000 accounts in credential stuffing attack

Re: 2FA

Paypal 2FA is used on occasions. It trusts my main browser but if I try a transaction from one of the many other browsers I use, it sends a text.

Next-gen Qi2 wireless charging spec seeded by Apple

I would buy one

A phone without ports could be much more water resistant. For me, ports are just holes to get clogged by pocket lint.

London cops break into gallery to rescue lifelike art installation

Re: Life is a minestrone

Was humming that only this morning.

Square Kilometre Array Observatory construction commences

What, no technical data?

All I've learned is the antennae are like Xmas trees.

Just 22% of techies in UK aged 50 or older, says Chartered Institute for IT

Re: hmmmm

72 here and still getting excitement working at the coal face. A background in RF and broadcast fills some of the gaps in knowledge my colleagues have. I didn't apply for this job, I just slid into a vacuum that was created by new technologies.

Working keeps me physically and mentally healthy. My peers who retired earlier have aged must faster than me.

Will I retire? Maybe in 3 years or as long as I'm useful.

CT scanning tech could put an end to 100ml liquid limit on flights by 2024

Japan

4-years ago in Japan there were "bottle analysers" of some sort in the airports. I was able to take my own water on both internal and international flights.

Time Lords decree an end to leap seconds before risky attempt to reverse time

Re: Didn't someone previously propose

面白い です

France says non to Office 365 and Google Workspace in school

Gateway drugs

That they are.

Evernote's fall from grace is complete, with sale to Italian app maker

Re: Joplin

Seconded, and I can use whatever cloud service I want for sync.

It's so good that I worry that it can't stay free for ever - I did give a small donation.

Go ahead, be rude. You don't know it now, but it will cost you $350,000

Re: In the last century

Yes, those are the ones.

In the last century

We bought a lot of identical spec workstations from a medium size manufacturer (yes they existed in those days). As soon as they went into service the HDDs started failing. The drives were all the same IBM model.

Upon contacting the manufacturer they would only advance replacements as and when they failed - we were losing 2 a week at that stage. Almost all did fail eventually but by then we'd bitten the bullet and bought some drives ourselves.

I can't remember the manufacturers name but I do remember smiling to myself when they went bust.

Doctor gave patients the wrong test results due to 'printer problems'

Undeserved downvotes

You must have been downvoted by people with absolutely no knowledge of the UK health system - can't comment on elsewhere.

Parallels increases prices with Desktop version 18

Other options

Crossover Office works well on my Mac M1. I use it daily for a Windows (x86) only PCB app that I have been using for 25 years, so not ready to change.

Taiwanese military reports DDoS in wake of Pelosi visit

Well I for one am glad of this cyber attack. It will allow Taiwan to harden their systems before the main Chinese onslaught.

Whatever hit the Moon in March, it left this weird double crater

Re: My Theory FWIW...

+1 for a Clangers mention.

Apple may have to cough up $1bn to Brits in latest iPhone Batterygate claim

Furthermore

While it may have aided some people by extending the battery life albeit with a slower phone, Apple probably had to replace fewer batteries under warranty. Thus the accountants win again.

US to help Japan make leading-edge 2nm chips, possibly by 2025

Re: So, we're now at 2nm

Well you only have to point it out once to me, and I'm grateful for the knowledge.

I look forward to a future of picometre skyscrapers!

World’s smallest remote-controlled robots are smaller than a flea

Boffin?

I stopped reading when this word appeared as presumably the story was borrowed from a tabloid newspaper.

Voyager 1 space probe producing ‘anomalous telemetry data’

Re: "expected life span"

I think he meant record.

BOFH: On Wednesdays, we wear gloves

Re: Truly excellent

I have a notch at 10.125KHz and a tinnitus tone each side of it, from 405 line TV days when the workshop would have dozen of them on soak test. At my age I'm surprised I can hear above 10K.

Nothing's working, and I've checked everything, so it must be YOUR fault

Humble

Over the years I've usually been the one doing the fixing, but on those occasions I've asked for assistance, I've learned that it pays to be humble and admit up front that it might be something I've done wrong. That way I feel less of an idiot!

The rocky road to better Linux software installation: Containers, containers, containers

Experiences

My experience with Linux snaps has been similar. Because of my job, I have 23 versions of the same app sitting in my Mac Applications folder, all of which were easily installed - with some renaming, any of which I can spring to life with a click.

If only Linux could do that.

Amazon tells folks it will stop accepting UK Visa credit cards via weird empty email

Limited choice

So my credit card is Mastercard and my bank debit card is just about to switch from Visa to Mastercard.

Previously if the Mastercard didn't work for a transaction I would use my Visa card. What would I do now:

Walk away from the petrol station?

Wash up in the restaurant?

Leave my wife as collateral?

Maybe it's time to start carrying a wad of cash again - if anyone will accept it now;)

Magnanimous Apple will allow people to fix their iPhones using parts bought from its Self Service Repair program

I used non-apple parts to repair my family's iPhones* but the quality was often sub-standard.

Now we just take them to the Apples Store and get them to do it. It's a bit more expensive but far less hassle.

Would I bother again, even with genuine parts? No.

* With 12 iPhones in the family there was nearly always one needing attention!