Posts by Will's

Tesla's Elon Musk v The New York Times, Round 2

Re: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk arguments are pathetic

>1. Musk says his car failed because it was not fully recharged.

Musk said the car was not recharged to the point where the range indicatior specified that the journey could be completed, in fact, it specified MUCH less range (32 miles for a 61 mile journey)

>2. Musk said his car failed because the journalist attempted to keep the interior temperature more than 42°F warmer than the exterior temperature.

No, the NYT said that the heating needed to be reduced to save power when the journo actually increased it

>3. Musk said his car failed because the journalist drove it faster than 54mph.

No, again, the NYT said that the car had to be driven at low speeds to prevent running out of fuel, the telemetry show that this did not happen, it was a lie.

>4. Musk said the car failed because it was driven in a city.

No, Musk said that the car was taken on a detour which added miles to the journey

>5. Musk said the car failed because the journalist passed by a charging station without stopping.

No, Musk said that the car showed 0 miles range 20 miles of the journey, during this time the journo did not stop at charging stations that were available.

You should learn read better like.

Re: They're both full of $#!T

>who cares if he charged for 47 or 58 minutes?

I used to think the same about my car until i realized that the amount of time the nozzle is in the hole is proportional to the amount of energy that can be crammed into the tank.

Seems that Musk could have been less aggressive - driving in circles for 1/2 mile in an electric at low speeds is going to have next to no effect on at 100+ mile journey at highway speeds. Ditto taking a trip into town should be where the car excels.

If he had just kept to the facts - "if you don't fill it up, the car has less range you dumbass" , and "you didn't slow down when you said you had to" then he would have a more solid story. Now because he embellished it with things which are unprovable, like the 1/2 mile carpark, the NYT will just focus on disproving these and ignore the lies that matter to the review.

New Intel Ultrabooks to spray HOT JUICE into mobes

Laptop on my lap, phone in my pocket

balls at the doctors

Bill Gates, Harry Evans and the smearing of a computer legend

Re: I am thoroughly confused by it all

>The api is the delivery system round the back. It gets the results/feeds in raw materials. It is the simple bit.

Designing a good stable API and underlying data structures is both very difficult to get right, and often restricts the backend coding to a very specific behaviour.

An API shouldn't be "we have some function calls and we made them public", it should be stable, extensible, compatible and decipherable. The sad fact that this is so often overlooked doesn't make it any less important - the same argument is made for documentation.

I think his point is that classic OOP is reduction to absurdity until there is almost nothing left but a bunch of interfaces and some loops - if you could claim that all the function names "were the API" (which is taking things a little far!) then in the OOP world there would be little left but the obvious (which is not patentable because its obvious).

Stuxnet: 'Moral crime' or proportionate response?

Re: " this is a remarkably ignorant comment."

Indeed, and given that the worm wasn't even meant to break containment, simply wear out the active components faster this is even less of an issue....

Except that, this hacker conference isn't about Stuxnet, it is about a class of attack like Stuxnet.

The fact that Stuxnet was effective because of its total stealth doesn't mean that the next attack might be effective because it takes out a whole gas pipeline destroying the infected machines (and the leccy of half of Europe) in the process. Now that the stealth of the concept isn't key, expect to see escalations.

'O2 customers could try switching their phones off and on again'

Unintended consequences

Plod: We have records of you accessing this site known for CP - 1000s of times in an hour

Anon: I was trying to destroy the site, really I don't like CP

Plod: You do realize that is illegal as well

Anon: Oh, bugger

Expert: BA doesn't need permission to google your face

Thats easy, I set up BenTasker.com, fill it with pictures of you and your personal details. I become the number one site for stalking Ben Tasker, and now, every time you fly I get notified by BA.

Human 4G masts assemble roaming hobonet for pennies

Shocking as it might sound

An awful lot of people are good and honest.

Being on the street doesn't change this.

And there are a lot of people reduced to living on the street in a country with little or no safety net.

(Because of the lack of safety net?) US citizens are much more likely to give to the homeless - and getting wireless coverage at a music festival is a perfect opportunity to pay a (small) amount for utility and charity.

World's Raspberry Pi supply jammed in factory blunder

@Liam, Re: @Martin

Rounding errors combined with big-LITTLE notation.

Or Date-endianness issues

Wang charged in inappropriate electricity socket use

a kid with a .22 rifle sinking a battleship!

more like designing a space ship with an unshielded exhaust port that led directly to the core reactor.

GPS jamming rife, could PARALYSE Blighty, say usual suspects

Re: An alternative solution

No way that would work, metal thieves would have them away in no time.

And students, who could resist owning the "corby" trouser press?

Tilera preps many-cored Gx chips for March launch

Single supplier ISA, single supplier complier, single maintainer Linux

I'd not want to bet my company on this, I don't think ARM have much to worry about.

Although, the price point looks enticing I don't think I'd want to be the guinea pig for an unknown compiler and a largely untested Linux port.

ARM have outlived a large number of alternative ISAs, and its not clear that they have always been "better" than those that fell from exhaustion trying to compete.

Intel demos transparent-lid hybrid PC

It makes sense

/if/ your laptop is powered on while you carry it from meeting room to meeting room,

/or/ your laptop is "instant on"

because there are often things that your can't be bothered with a hinge to read (i.e. email notifications, meeting room locations etc.)

As a concept I think its quite a reasonable one, and the cost of having the back light stay on for those small tasks should be small, and the weight saving from not having two LCD screens can be used for a bigger battery which means better run time

The whole thing is lit up brightly (you can see it thru the shell of the laptop):

He says "yeah, that is the backlight, this is just a prototype..... We choose the wrong colour"

BREAKTHROUGH: Feisty startup slashes chip power by 50%

Interesting - but no mention of clock speed

OK, I get the low power benefits - but they are nothing if this device cannot switch at Ghz (or at least high 100's of Mhz).

Can it?

Just trolling: It's OK to poke fun at Christians, says ASA

Nicely sidestepped the legal team

Not offensive, but we might be sued because of our equal opportunities polocy

Too rude for the road: DVLA hot list of banned numberplates

6 = G

Airline strikes, unions outraged

>In a non-unionised job, you get on with your job, and if you don't like the conditions, leave to find another.

In a monopoly (NHS) or effective monopoly (one mine for the whole town) this argument doesn't hold water

Scotland Yard trackers operate fake mobile base stations

Well, if all you're tracking is phones asking for authentication from their home network, then no, you don't need them to /want/ to connect to you.

If you are intercepting calls then you'll have to pretend to be from the same company as the target phones contact -but that isn't what is being suggested here

Applied Micro leaps ahead in ARM server race

An not All

An ARM licence, Intel has An ARM licence. In the same way as I have an MG, I do not own all versions of MGs - I cannot look under the bonnet of my midget and see the workings of an SV-R.

I'm sure that given enough money Intel /could/ buy an ARM licence of a suitable kind to compete - but in doing that it would verify ARMs claims and trash its high value processor line.

The problem for Intel isn't making chips that go fast, its making large amounts of money per unit - ARM trashes that market.

Rogue toilet takes out Norfolk server

IT cistern No2 design priority

Or if we're going to be honest:

"Really, this is just an excuse for another shitty pun thread"

Apple sued for iPhone, iPad chip 'patent rip-off'

An interesting question. If VIA devices are in android then VIA must have an ARM licence of a reasonably recent core design - but this may be one of their "black box" designs where arm does the work and the company prints the devices.

Apple have an Architecture team (this is how we knew that they were going to use ARM in mobiles way back when) so they /may/ have designed their chips differently to the ones designed by ARM.

I doubt it though.

The more interesting question is this:

Usually when $company1 sues $ARM_licencee for infringement that happens in the ARM design (see the lawsuits following Java bytecode execution in the ARM926EJS) they take over the lawsuit and defend it for the benefit of all licensees. This prevents a medium size company from bulldozing a small one and setting a legal precedent.

This time, both companies are ARM partners so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Arduino to add ARM board this year

1GHz Seriously?

What exactly do you think you'll be running on your embedded micro - SETI?

At a guess

asm ("assembler code"

:"=r3"(b) /* output */

:"r4"(a) /* input */

:"r0, r1" /* clobbered register */

);

As an avid assembler fan I feel qualified to say - but why would you?

Feds probe naked Scarlett Johansson outrage

Had a look at both pictures.

Seems that SJ made a right tit, and a complete arse of herself

Intel promises '20X' power reduction with 'Haswell' chips

>Or tablets, which more resemble overgrown mobiles than slimmed down desktops.

If you don't need to respond to data being pushed in then the extra 5 seconds it takes to attach to a router/base station is greatly outweighed by the extra hours you'd spend tethered to a charger - even if the chips are 20x as good.

Resemble a overgrown mobile they might, but always on just isn't sensible for pull data.

Standby time only an interesting metric in mobile phones

I assume this is nothing to do with ultrabooks, this is the result of taking the fight to mobiles.

There really isn't any reason to be "connected standby" rather then "real standby" unless you are expecting incoming calls.

My Android with a 1GHz Tegra2 is just fast enough to do everything I need (ITV player is slightly choppy, but the others are OK), so I don't see why having more power on tap will help.

This is like comparing compilers based on the size of "hello world", meaningless.

What would be interesting is to see how they compare with ARM on real workloads, not how they compare on full performance or no performance situations

'Find My Car' iPhone app finds anyone’s car

>Those pay and display lots aren't really appropriate for this sort of scheme anyway.

Yup, for these you just need the ticket to say where it was brought from to guide you back close enough with no data on the car needed at all

Does it track the security vehicles?

Stop wining are start winning

More transistors, Moore’s Law, less juice

May I introduce you to virtualization and cloud computing.

Vendors such as Citrix, Vmware an Microsoft are in on it, companies such as Rackspace and Amazon are selling it to end users.

Typo-squatting domains can harvest corporate emails

Slow friday

in other news, I can open letters delivered to my house but not intended for me when sloppy senders use my address rather than some one elses.

Facebook wannabe rioters cop large helpings of porridge

indeed

But the reduction of 4 years to 2 years suspended and 100 hours community service will not be as vocally covered by the press, and will be some months after the frenzy has died down.

So message sent to idiots, nothing more to see here and everybody ends up happy

Intel dangles $300m bait in 'ultrabook' partner hunt

Is teh I in Air still intel?

I thought that Apple had suggested the next air was ARM based.

Will any design be subject to embargo by the courts as passing off though?

SuperVisor: One hypervisor to virtualize them all

Supervisor??

A supervisor looks at userspace things

A hypervisor looks at supervisors

Obviously the next step up depends on your space epic or choice

Warp-visor

Ludicrous-visor

E-petitions site: Death wish FAIL

Incresse the speed on motorways

Who gets to chose that the remove speed limit, increase to 90 and increase to 100 petitions are all "the same"?

And why oh why oh why can't we downvote some of the more stupid ones?

If we had up/down votes then the list could be sorted by popularity, not just number of votes, so the system would help gauge the mood better.

Man battles police siege with Facebook

concern for his safety

What so the police had to expend some effort in bringing this to a peaceful conclusion rather than shooting the guy in the head.

Terminator icon for obvious reasons

Facebooking juror gets 8 months

Police

I can quite believe that the police might be stamping on heads, but pulling off a thug at the same time. Unlikely.

Or did I parse that wrong?

Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

Assuming that CC is real...

Who wants to take bets on this 10 year reprieve meaning that governments can get their energy policys into a state where we don't all drown when the spots come back?

Anyone? anyone? Buler?

Personally I think the good money is on "pump as much CO2 into the atmosphere until we run out of resources, then hope that the ensueing wars reduce the world population enough that there is still enough land to farm and live on between those remaining"

Otellini: ARM servers 'ain't gonna work'

and who is going to write compilers.....

I bet the Intel made compiler is used /loads/ in Linux servers. Oh sorry, I remember, they use GCC....

Well, I guess they could funnel money at GCC so it totally rules that compiler that ARM uses for compiling Linux, what was that called again?

Police ordered to disclose ANPR camera sites

What were you doing last tuesday at 6.45pm

Nothing to hide here, move along, move along.

Of course, I doubt they keep all that data and use it to track you moving around.

Really? Not even in the logs?

Yes I know, if I had a mobile phone "they" could track me with that, and if I had a clubcard "they" could track everything I brought and correlate against known patterns of tourists. Guess what I have neither of?

Anyways, I'm off to read what my friends are up to on facebook

Elite coder readies £15 programming gadget for schools

No user serviceable parts

>When you break down you break down, and a salvage truck will have to come;

Possibly, few of us carry toolkits. But that said, a reasonable understanding can help make sure that you don't just keep driving when the temp gauge goes into the red - it isn't that far to work, or that the oil light cam on, but it's ok it comes on 50 miles before you need to put oil in it (both of which I have been personally told)

> there are almost no user-replaceable parts left on modern engines;

> any amateur will need expensive diagnostic kit

Bollocks, although there have been advances the technology of a modern engine is pretty much the same as a 60's 'fix it on sunday' lump, true, the ECU automatically changes some variables but the things that go wrong are usually either 60's tech or the sensors that feed the ECU which are reasonably easy to diagnose if you have some basic understanding of the algorithms.

>to read error codes

a flowchart works just as well

>and tweak injection settings.

OK, you'd need an electronic gadget to do this, but if you need to tweak injection settings then you have done a lot more engine work than just breaking down.

The same mindset is behind "don't touch it, you won't understand it, very complex, give us money" in the IT industry and Automotive, building, plumbing, home electrical.

Fukushima scaremongers becoming increasingly desperate

Learning on the ground

>There have been uncontrolled explosions, makeshift solutions,

>and the possibility, however remote, that something more serious

>could go wrong

I remember when a big oil depot caught fire near that there London - I think you could level the same criticisms there, except that oil polluting the ground and fire is better understood because it happens far more often.

Consider a less lightly disaster.

Deepwater Horizon.

That took months, massive environmental damage.

Experts from all over the world unable to fix the problem as the problem was out of scope.

Wildly varying estimates of oil in the sea.

Food supply destroyed.

Containment on the surface patchy.

So yes, when accidents happen bad things go wrong.

In big uncommon accidents learning happens on the ground, and is written up for others to learn from.

Fukushima on Thursday: Prospects starting to look good

Dam nation

>With the country in ruins and tens of thousands dead, you're all pointing to another

>potential incident and screaming about how appalling it is

Strange how nobody has been shouting about the real loss of life from renewable energy in the region.

Hydroelectric Dam + massive quake = Actual death.

But even the few news reports that feature it rapidly run away to scream about the nuclear disaster unfolding

Fukushima situation as of Wednesday

A single death is a disaster.

Right you are.

When that person dies shall we have our disaster party. Until then perhaps we could hold fire?

No doubt, when this is all over and there are some 100 year lumps of warm concrete we can have this debate again, but with actual facts

Bloke with hammer fixes London's Olympic clock

Bloke with the batteries:

I've got the power

Start, Hammer time

couldn't resist