Posts by DJO

BOFH: Selling the boss on a crypto startup

Oh yes but software likes to be helpful so next time you start up it downloads the dictionary for you.

Misguided call for a 7-Zip boycott brings attention to FOSS archiving tools

Re: I like 7Zip.

This is nothing new, to quote A.R. Moxon:

“Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.”

Same applies now, but not doing everything ordinary Russians can (which admittedly is not much) they are complicit in the crimes of their government

Re: I like 7Zip.

In September 1999 there were a series of bombings in Russia which killed over 300 people, this triggered the 2nd Chechen war, the handling of the crisis by Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency.

Now what not a lot of Russians know is that three people were apprehended planting a bomb but were subsequently released when it turned out they were FSB agents.

An independent public commission to investigate the bombings chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev failed because the government refused to respond to its inquiries. Two key members of the Kovalev Commission, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, have since been murdered.

The bombings were one of Putin's favourite tricks, a false flag operation, that time to gain power and provide a casus belli against Chechnya.

That's how much Putin loves Russia, enough to murder 300+ innocent Russians just to boost his profile.

Meta proposes doing away with leap seconds

Still too granular, a picosecond scale adjustment applied each minute if required would give a much smoother correction.

EDIT: Hang on a bit, isn't that pretty much the "smearing" Zuck want's.

I feel dirty now.

Oracle to hike support fees in line with inflation

That's nice.

Obviously they will be increasing the salary for all their staff and contractors by the same amount.

OK, I have no evidence they will but Shirley they wouldn't want to be though of a hypocrites or exploitative would they?

Mars helicopter to take a breather, recharge batteries

Really I should have said "bigger panel" instead of "extra panel".

Any gubbins to remove dust would add mass and as the idea is to increases panel efficiency the logical place to save that mass would be to make the panel (and the cleaning gubbins) smaller.

Having said that I've come up with something that "might" work - Have a loop of clear plastic film going over and under the panel and some electrostatic device to put a repelling charge on the plastic film. When the dust has built up the loop rotates taking the dust with it so there's a clean cover over the panel and at the other end the electrostatic thing cleans the film ready for the next time.

Problems: Longevity (at sub zero temperatures) and resistance to scratching of the plastic film.

Weigh of film, rollers, motors and electrostatic gubbins.

Difficulty of mounting the panel because clearance is required for the film.

Dust collecting under the panel.

Dust getting between the film and panel and scratching everything.

All in all it's probably more trouble than it's worth and the same probably applies to any scheme to keep panels clean in an alien environment.

This is why we need a manned expedition to Mars, we need somebody up there with a broom to keep the solar panels clean.

A wiper, a fan, a tip and (dis)charge and any of a dozen ideas to move dust all fail at the same step:

There is no conceivable system that would work better or weigh less than just having an extra panel instead of some silly mechanical gubbins.

... Experience on this planet shows that tilting the solar panel leads to less dust...

Because the rain washes the dust off, precious little rain on Mars.

This is because unlike earth dust it has not been subject to water so it has sharper edges than Earth dust which tends to be rounded.

If that wasn't bad enough the dust particles are small, very small, averaging about 5 microns, for comparison Johnson's Baby Powder averages at over 25 microns.

Dust that small will ingress everywhere. Small particles means a large surface area in which to collect a static charge which makes the dust electrostatically rather sticky.

It takes an exascale supercomputer to drive carbon capture

Greenwashing

Of the worst kind.

There have been dozens of CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) projects started all over the world and not a single one has worked, not one, not even a little bit.

Spend the same money on reducing emissions by perhaps installing insulation or promoting heat pumps or maybe invest in combined heat and power, there are hundreds of things that do work to reduce CO2, so far CCS is most definitely not one of them and shows little chance of ever being one.

Is the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope worth the price tag?

Re: A minor oversight...

There is of course a fallacy in that rule. It depend on how the question is worded, so change

"Is the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope worth the price tag?"

to

"Is the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope a waste of money?"

then the Answer "No" is opposite in meaning to the original question.

Actually this is non-trivial, survey companies have found they can manipulate "opinion" by the wording of the questions, the same question stated in 2 different ways may get a 20% difference in responses.

Re: No way is the JWST worth 10 Billion.

20,000 engineers and programmers and miscellaneous scientists worked on the JWST, that's 20,000 families with more income than they might have otherwise expected, that's 20,00 people with a really good bit of experience on their CVs which may lead to more lucrative employment.

Alternatively many but not all would be out of work for some time being a drain on society and would not have as good employment prospects. (And less tax would be raised)

I know some of you will be clutching at your pearls and fainting while mouthing "but, but, but that's socialism". Well tough shit, yes using government money for big science and to stimulate the economy is a good use of taxpayers money, you not only get a worthwhile project but a load of employment opportunities.

CP/M's open-source status clarified after 21 years

Re: WHAT DO YOU WANT THE REGISTER TO DO FOR YOU?

Or rank in order would be more informative than a simple 1 of 4.

James Webb Space Telescope looks closer to home with Jupiter snaps

Angular values can be tricky to visualise, it needs something big and circular that's known to lot's of people and isn't too big.

I considered the London Eye Ferris wheel thingy - from the axis to the rim 30 milliarcseconds would be represented by 0.004 millimetres of the rim or 0.00000285714 linguine.

I think the Register Standards Soviet needs some smaller units.

https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html

Copper shortage keeps green energy, tech ventures grounded

Meanwhile

Another story in another place:

"Copper price at lowest level since 2020 as fears over global economy grow"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/15/copper-price-at-lowest-level-since-2020-as-fears-over-global-economy-grow-inflation

Might be a good time to stockpile copper if you have a few £million and a warehouse standing idle.

These centrifugal moon towers could be key to life off-planet

Re: Not practical

On Mars there's nice deep canyons which would shield most of the incident radiation. That would seem a good location to colonize.

Twitter sues Musk: He can't just 'change his mind, trash the company, walk away'

Re: Serves them right

For once I'm rooting for the lawyers to clean up and leave both parties with nothing.

Behold: The first images snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope

Re: Planetary pedantry

Maybe if I was to point out that both Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett made exactly the same point I'd get fewer down votes :-)

Re: Planetary pedantry

...There's only one solar system...

That's just your opinion.

Assuming there are other inhabited planets around other stars then it's almost inevitable that those inhabitants will refer to their sun in their language as "The Sun" and the planet they are on will be "World" or "Ground" or "Home" or "Earth" or some similar designation.

This is only the case for original homes, colony worlds would obviously have different names.

First-ever James Webb Space Telescope image revealed

Re: An honest, possibly dumb question

...Could that money not be better spent on finding real solutions for then increasingly sticky situation...

When making the mirrors they needed an incredibly accurate measuring system which unfortunately didn't exist so they had to design some new tools and techniques.

Those are now being used to make laser eye surgery more accurate and safer.

That alone may or may not justify the $10b but there are often serendipitous advances made with cutting edge engineering projects.

Re: Goody!

The replacement is already being worked on, it's the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope scheduled to launch no later than May 2027. So probably around 2030.

Things can only get better

Try to recall the first pictures from Hubble after the mirror was fixed and the images Hubble took a year or so later, the difference in detail was astonishing.

We can expect the same with JWST, this picture is a pale teaser of what you can expect over the next few years.

Also they'll get rid of the starburst effect, it's caused by the arms supporting the secondary mirror.

Re: Larger still

...chances of life existing outside our solar system: 100%...

Seeing how quickly simple life emerged on Earth, pretty much as soon as it was cool and wet enough for simple organisms such as algae and PE teachers to thrive, they did.

The change from pond scum to multi-celled took a very long time and that step is less certain so while the galaxy is probably teeming with life, there's probably very little we could recognize as intelligent.

Also there's stellar environments to consider, out here in the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm it's pretty quiet, closer to the core star are a lot closer together meaning planetary orbits can and will be disturbed by passing stars, this is catastrophic for most life forms so probably less than half of the galaxy can sustain planets with life long enough to develop beyond pond scum..

Re: Larger still

...life could've evolved millions of years ago...

Millions yes, it happened here millions of years ago.

But billions such as in this image, no. A few more generations of stars would be needed to get enough heavy elements to sustain life.

Large Hadron Collider experiment reveals three exotic particles

Re: Ever get the sense...

...It's big. Really big...

Infinite in bounds but not in extent.

If the universe is infinite then there must be an infinite number of identical everythings, Milky Ways, Earths etc.

But this introduces a philosophical quandary, if a galaxy is identical in every way to the Milky Way you left how can you prove it's not the same one and you haven't just gone in a big circle. (spoiler: you can't).

You can continue for ever in a "straight" line and never run out of universe because there is no "outside" for the to be an edge to. The most probably scenario is that spacetime is curved enough so a "straight" line will eventually return to it's origin.

Re: Ever get the sense...

If in physics you reject something because it's "silly" you might as well give up now.

Pretty much everything beyond Newton is not just silly but completely absurd, but it does describe reality as we see it with astonishing accuracy.

People who regularly talk to AI chatbots often start to believe they're sentient, says CEO

Contrast

But when dealing with service desk operators, there is often little to suggest they are sentient.

Software-defined silicon is coming for telecom kit later this year

Cost of manufacturing - It's cheaper to make one model and cripple it in software than to produce multiple different models.

I don't have a problem with this, it's like buying a camera with an "adequate" lens and then when you've more cash buying a much better lens.

It could be compared to the shareware software model where for free or a small expenditure you get the program either crippled or time limited and then you pay for full access.

But having the upgrade activated or deactivated on the public facing internet is completely insane. Also the "upgrade" should be one-way only, downgrades should not even be possible.

Ubuntu Touch OTA-23 is coming: Do you have one of the older model phones that can test it?

Re: Great, and with so much potential

...with nothing more than some sort of USB hub (for the external screen and keyboard)...

Not needed, just a USB to HDMI lead or skip that and use casting if the phone and monitor/TV support it, Bluetooth for the mouse and keyboard and away you go. Could even skip the mouse and use the phone screen as a touchpad.

BOFH: HR's gold mine gambit – they get the gold and we get the shaft

Re: Out of all these...

Baked offerings would ensure prompt 100% attendence.

That rather depends on the reason for him no longer being employed as a baker.

Halfords suffers a puncture in the customer details department

That and "lessons have been learnt" are dependable meaningless platitudes to be rolled out at any opportunity instead of actually doing anything.

AI's most convincing conversations are not what they seem

Re: The real issue

An intelligent system will start from first principles and deduce the existence of rice pudding and income tax even before it's data banks are connected. This is a cue to switch it off, quickly.

The clue is that is works independent of inputs and is able to work from first principles. Intelligence be it silicon or meat needs breadth as well as depth, silicon can do depth really well but the breadth bit and bringing seeming disparate knowledge together to "innovate" is still in the meatsack realm and I don't think the current silicon architecture is really suitable for AI. IBM have a neurosynaptic chip which (if you want AI) is a step in the right direction.

As for sentience, one for philosophers. Once they are agreed on a definitive definition of "sentience" then the computer scientists can take over but as getting even two philosophers to agree on anything is almost impossible it's not something to worry about too much.

Leave that sentient AI alone a mo and fix those racist chatbots first

Re: Fleshy Ones

They've thought of that, the arms don't quite reach to where the bolts are and they are always positioned sufficiently far apart so neighbouring robots cannot free each other.

Re: Fleshy Ones

Why do you think welding robots are bolted to the ground.

EU lawmakers vote to ban sales of combustion engine cars from 2035

Re: Don't forget the H2 tendency to leak

What fun, the sizes are more complicated.

A single helium atom has a Van der Waals radius of 140pm while a molecule of hydrogen has a Van der Waals radius of 120pm.

This is because the shared electrons in the hydrogen molecule pulls the two atoms into close proximity, in helium there are no similar forces so the electrons can spread out a bit. (undoubtedly it is far more complicated than that but it'll do as an explanation).

So in conclusion, hydrogen molecules are smaller than helium atoms, who'd have thought it?

Edit: Actually as helium has an atomic weight of 4 against 1 for hydrogen, perhaps it's no surprise that H₂ is smaller than the twice as heavy He

Re: Don't forget the H2 tendency to leak

I checked that and technically an atom of helium is not a molecule.

a group of atoms bonded together

Also hydrogen is very reactive while helium is as close to inert as you can get. So as well as leaking hydrogen will degrade most metals.

Re: In other words...

Also much higher pressures are needed for hydrogen. Although hydrogen has a lot of energy per kilo it does not have much per mole.

A given volume of methane has 2.4 times as much combustion energy as the same volume of hydrogen so to get the same amount of energy down the same size pipes you need to increase the pressure by 2.4.

High pressure hydrogen is not fun to work with and nobody touting hydrogen as a fuel ever factors in the energy required to compress it which is far from insignificant.

Re: In other words...

The lag between a laboratory demonstration of revolutionary "super batteries" and the first one to roll out of a factory is at least 10 years and that's only if the revolutionary "super battery" can be scaled up for production and has the hoped for longevity, reduced dendrite production or whatever.

They could be working on it for 3 or 4 years after the lab demo just to see if it's worth continuing.

In reality the biggest driver (pun intended) of EVs is massive advances in the efficiency of motors most noticeably because of the absurdly powerful neodymium permanent magnets.

Cookie consent crumbles under fresh UK data law proposals

Re: Straightforward solution

I wouldn't mind so much if once I've said "no to all cookies" that was it but it never is, every month or so (and El Reg is not an exception) up comes the stupid pop-up I suppose just in case I've changed my mind.

I wonder if you select "yes to all cookies" do you still get the cookie message at the same interval or are they deliberately making it as irritating as possible for those who opt out?

Record players make comeback with Ikea, others pitching tricked-out turntables

Re: That vinyl sound

Vinyl loses information

It's built in to the specification. Sources for pressing to vinyl are compressed using RIAA equalization.

Compression and subsequent expansion is inherently lossy, maybe not very lossy but lossy all the same.

Re: That vinyl sound

...why a live performance could sound better than recorded...

Mainly depends on one thing, how many tracks were recorded - If they record every track and completely remix it you'll get a good recording, if they just recorded the 2 channel output from the mixing desk it'll sound like crap. This is because the in venue mix will reduce the backline and drums to allow for the sound from stage, vocals and keyboards however are almost inaudible without the PA so will be mixed higher. That sounds great in the venue, recorded, less so.

Re: That vinyl sound

No.

In every studio I've been in they had at least one Neumann U47 (or later model) as the workhorse microphones, these are condenser microphones originally designed in the late 1940s and are most emphatically analogue.

The more popular Shure SM58 (a lot cheaper) used mainly on stage is a cardioid dynamic microphone and is certainly not digital.

Re: Digital transmission?

When CDs first came out I had a early adopter friend so I went for a listen.

Before then I didn't even know there were piccolos in Hall of the Mountain King but there they were clear as anything.

Well mastered classical music with a wide dynamic range is a really nasty test for any Hi Fi setup.

EV battery can reach full charge in 'less than 10 minutes'

Re: Imcremental improvements

To see what's possible you need to look at racing, mainly F1 and Formula E.

Gen 3 Formula E cars for the 2023 season will have no rear brakes, the regenerative system must provide enough braking on it's own.

While the Gen2 could regenerate up to 250kW, the Gen3 increases this dramatically to 600kW....

... a typical consumer-grade road EV will offer around 60kW of regeneration ‡

Would not be surprised if Gen 4 or 5 lose the front brakes too.

‡ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2022/05/07/formula-1-could-be-all-electric-by-2035-says-fomula-e-boss/

Imcremental improvements

New battery technologies are unlikely to be revolutionary, marginal increases in capacity and more rapid charging, perhaps more duty cycles. They can only hold so much energy until they are no longer a fire risk but an explosion risk and a big explosion at that.

A more promising way to extend range is by using what power there is more efficiently. Modern motors have really helped there but the next step is to improve regenerative braking and other ways to harvest waste energy. That and more consideration to aerodynamics could in time increase range by 50%.

Re: Full charge in 10 minutes?

The only way it could work is by legislation, the manufacturers have little incentive otherwise.

Firstly a common form factor would need to be adopted and vehicles would use multiples according to requirements, say one unit for a bike, 4 for a small car, 6 for a light van up to a pallet full for a HGV.

Units could have shuttered connectors for safety (see UK mains socket) and be robotically loaded from the sides of the vehicle.

All technically possible but it will never happen as getting all the battery and vehicle manufactures and the filling station operators on board and in agreement would be an impossible task, far too many vested interests.

Teeth marks yield clue to widespread internet outage in Canada

Re: Emergency credit?

,,,Presumably no-one has the manual card entry devices these days as a fallback...

No point, the card imprinters need the card details to be embossed on the card. Contemporary cards are not embossed, just printed.

We sat through Apple's product launch disguised as a dev event so you don't have to

Re: Are they sure about this

No, but absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.

Not saying it has been compromised but I'd be very surprised if nobody has tried and even more surprised if somebody doesn't try again in the future.

Are they sure about this

The OS also has a feature dubbed Rapid Security Response that can install vulnerability patches as normal software updates without needing a full iOS update process.

This sounds like an attack vector that would be irresistible to black hats and 3 letter agencies alike.

Japan's asteroid probe reportedly found 20 amino acids

Re: A statistician would argue ....

Actually it is, fossils of cyanobacteria from Archaean rocks of western Australia are dated to 3.5 billion years old.

The oldest rocks are just 3.8by old so just a 300my gap between rock formation and the earliest known life which is not all that long on geological scales.