* Posts by BrowserUk

19 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Feb 2012

Samsung reveals buzzword-compliant DRAM ready for 5G, AI, edge, and metaverses

BrowserUk
Paris Hilton

(unINtitled)

If I install some into my Smart, IoT, 5G-enabled, 6G-ready, 64KUHD (64KDCI-compatible), hybrid-cloud centric, ISO-900000003 complient, DevOps-developed, anti-Nazi, anti-Aunty, anti-monarchy, anti-sexist, anti-fatist, Woke-aware, toaster; will it stop it from burning the damn toast?

If so, I'm gonna fit some into my AI-*, cloud-connected, 15th generation, 0.00002 mWales-sized, WiFi (802.11az(13))-submissive, crowd-funded, meta-social, VR-envisioned fridge and see if it can stop the milk from going off!

What you need to know about Microsoft Windows 11: It will run Android apps

BrowserUk

I might upgrade in 2030, if I live that long.

I only stopped using Vista 7 months ago. (Despite all the initial furore, once the UAC had been tamed; the services trimmed and few other annoyances defanged, it was a rock solid OS -- my best uptime was 4 1/2 years, ended by a local power cut. Best of all, no tracking and I controlled the updates.)

The need for new hardware finally prompted me to upgrade; but only after I'd spent a year researching the web for how to take control of Windows 10; the final element was the release of the newer versions of the SledgeHammer.

By about 2030, the new generation of keen, young activists will have worked out how to tame MS's desires in treat their users like sheep, and poke their fingers into every orifice and load up MY PC with a bunch of crap I have no use for and wouldn't use if I did; at that point -- assuming I'm still alive and retain the mental faculties and incentive to find and follow the usually baroque sets of instructions and procedures required to take back control, I might consider installing it -- if I need to.

Otherwise, I guess I'll get a chromebook.

Your internet history on sale to highest bidder: US Congress votes to shred ISP privacy rules

BrowserUk

And the land...of...the...free...

...to get *ucked in the arse by every commercial venture that any elected politician or official can get a backhander from.

And blue collar Americans are worried about foreigners taking their jobs.

Dirty diesel backups will make Hinkley Point C look like a bargain

BrowserUk

Wind power: the most expensive con and second biggest delusion in history

The product of: prematurely over-hyped and dubious science; ill-informed green zealotry; and blind bloody optimism.

Whilst science funding is allocated by politicians on the basis of which ill-informed pressure group shouts loudest, and which "discoveries" create the biggest and most scary headlines in the daily comics, wrongly termed 'tabloid newspapers' -- "GM frankenfoods", "fracking disastrous", "Fukushima Daiichi " anyone -- researchers will continue to prematurely extrapolate small trends into predictions of death, disaster and calamity, in order to politicians to found them on the basis of which groups of the mostly ignorant but vocal masses shout loudest.

Delete Google Maps? Go ahead, says Google, we'll still track you

BrowserUk

Re: eh?

"Stuart Longland" & "I leave mine running..."

Naive they are, the youth of today.

""...without problem."

A premature conclusion that will undoubtedly come back to bite you in the ass.

OK, we've got your data. But we really want to delete it ASAP

BrowserUk

Insightful!

Keep stuff you need to keep; and throw the rest away.

Wow! Cutting edge insights R us.

Gone

BrowserUk

Even the sample data is wrong.

According to the earlier rules:

Bush 400 43.2

should be:

Bush 400m 43.2

Blocking ads? Smaller digital publishers are smacked the hardest

BrowserUk
Holmes

The arguments are logically inverted.

The standard defense of web ads is that in order for we consumers to benefit from the content provided, we must allow the ads to fund the production of that content.

Balderdash!

If the websites I view regularly didn't exist, I'd spend those minutes doing something else. Viewing other websites; reading print media; watching TV; listening to radio; reading a book; picking fluff from my belly button.

If those websites didn't exists; the people they employ would be out of a job.

The onus is on those employed by the websites to find a mechanism to persuade me to spend those minutes with them that doesn't:

- Cost me 10 times as much to download the crap I'm not interested in as it does the stuff I am.

- Doesn't require my entire life to be an open book any and all "trading partners" -- scrupulous and otherwise -- of every company on the web.

- Doesn't force me to make myself vulnerable to every script kiddy and malcontent on the web.

Would I miss some of the sites I use if they folded? Sure; but I'd find other good uses for those minutes I spend on them. Truth be told; I might even be more productive if I was less distracted.

HP starts startup funder

BrowserUk
Holmes

If you're like me and consider "News bytes" a puerile abdication of journalistic endeavour, and have blocked it using my previous css snippet, and you're reading this, then you may have noticed that they've snuck their puerility past my defenses by marking it as a normal story.

This snippet fixes that:

.news_bytes_column { display:none }

Buk. (Biting the hand that bites the hand.)

AWS outgrows its own resource numbering scheme

BrowserUk
Paris Hilton

It isn't 0-9and a-z (36) but rather 0-9a-f (16) Ie. Hexadecimal.

Since it takes 2 hex digits to make a byte, and 17 digits isn't divisible by 2; the odds are that they are simply 64-bit (8-byte) integers, displayed in hex and with a single digit checksum.

And unsigned 64-bit integers gives 2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616; or ~18e18

Which is ten orders of magnitude less than your calculation, but still sufficient that every person on the planet could deploy 2.5 billion of each resource type and still leave change.

(An IT correspondent that doesn't recognise hex? )

What's all this? Welcome to The Register's News Bytes

BrowserUk

Re: Can I switch them off as they mess up the front page layout....?

If you have a site specific local .css file for the register -- an absolute necessity IMO since the changes a year ago or so -- adding the following to it will consign this latest pointless 'innovation' to the bit bucket of invisibility:

#news_bytes div { display: none }

#news_bytes_header { display: none }

On the rare occasions I click the button to disable my local css, I'm always shocked by just how bad this site looks when viewed "as designed".

It took quite a few hours work to work up my CSS that discards all the pointless repetition; reminders for articles I've already read, or deliberately ignored; distracting ads with active content; cutesy-but-pointless oversized pictures completely unrelated to the stories to which they are attached; the oversized and meaningless 'social media' icons littered around like confetti; and a bunch of other crude that makes what is at its heart a targeted, serious news site look like the product of a script-kiddy hackathon in Las Vegas.

Enjoy!

Continuous Lifecycle London: Less than eight weeks to go

BrowserUk
Mushroom

Buzzword, buzzword, buzzword {blah}

If I never had to see another buzzword soup advert -- thinly disguised as a news item -- here, damn it would make me happy.

Continuous Lifecycle this; DevOps that.

And "ONLY" another 8 weeks. Really, Eight more weeks of this crap?

I hope that you guys are earning big from the advertising you're giving whoever is running these SnakeOil pitches; because it better be worth the damage to your "biting the hand that feeds" journalistic reputations.

Rise up against Oracle class stupidity and join the infosec strike

BrowserUk

Your vehement invective is pointless; there is only one fix for this malaise...

The abolition of the 'generic disclaimer'.

You know, that piece of boiler-plate prose you have to dismiss every time you download or install or buy a piece of software that reads something along the lines of:

You agree to use this software at your own risk and indemnify all those who had a hand in creating it against any responsibility whatsoever; regardless of whether it causes:

- the loss of your data;

- the destruction of your business;

- the loss of your identity;

- the emptying of your bank account;

- the raping of your wives, mothers or daughters;

- the enslavement of the free world;

- or the total destruction of life as we know it;

A car manufacturer cannot disclaim responsibility for the deaths caused by it products; even if they are being grossly misused.

An airline will still be held responsible for the deaths of those involved in a crash of one of its fights; even if it was caused by an idiot who packed volatile substances in their checked baggage.

Doctors are held responsible for deaths under their care even when they have striven their utmost to save the charges against impossible odds.

I've programmers, information technology companies and software houses are ever to be consider 'professional organisations'; they have to start taking responsibility for their works.

Yes. That means software will have to start costing again, rather than being given away for free; and it means we will have to start training programmers and analysts again, and ascribing them professional qualifications, and rejecting and discarding those that do not measure up!

Yes, it will be painful; but while it is more lucrative for the 1% of truly gifted programmers to hack then it is for them to work for legitimate enterprise; the black hats will beat teh white hats at every turn.

And the cause? The FSF, and OSS. Whilst Richard Stallman can not just exist; but live a lucrative and privileged lifestyle whilst commanding exorbitant fees on the international after-dinner speaker circuit; 97% of those contributing long hours in their evenings and weekends -- having completed a long and underpaid day job -- to OSS; are burning themselves out to produces the flawed and endlessly forked OSS products that allow Richard Stallman to live the high life.

If you want to understand what happens when creative works are distributed for free; ask a journalist; or a musician.

If you are a programmer; and you've bought in to Richard Stallman's sales pitch; YOU ARE AN IDIOT! And in the process of exhibiting your idiocy; you screwed the rest of us out of a decent living.

Thanks! For nothing!

The Shock of the New: The Register redesign update 4

BrowserUk

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!

Thankyou for forcing your latest set of mind-bogglingly stupid changes down our throats.

Without them I would never have been motivated to set up my own user.css for this place, that has transformed it from:

an amateurish "I just discovered clip-art and big fonts" 1990s, My First Web Page; repetitious, glaring, jarring, repetitious, look-we're hip and down with the kids, repetitious, nauseatingly dumbed-down tabloid, cluttered mess;

into a simple, clear, one-page reverse chronological, see what's new and what I've already seen, unencumbered by: your puerile attempts to ram stuff I've already ignored down my throat; or vacuously unrelated and over-sized pictures that tell me nothing extra and just consume screen and mind-space.

Thankyou for forcing me to sit up straight and do something about it.

/* Copyright 2014 Situation Publishing Ltd. http://www.theregister.co.uk/ */

.static { display:none; }

.large_story { display:none; }

.story_list { display:none; }

.dont_miss { display:none; }

.dont_miss_row { display:none; }

.story_grid_img { display:none; }

.article_img { display:none; }

.forums {width:90%; }

.adu { display:none; }

.wptl { display:none; }

#tips_or_corrections { display:none; }

#article_body_btm { display:none; }

#right-col { display: none; }

#boot { display:none; }

#read_more_on { display:none; }

#whitepapers { display:none }

#body .CaptionedImage.Center { float:none; }

#body .CaptionedImage.Float.Right{float:none;margin:0 0 1em 1em}

#top_tease { display:none; }

#hot { display:none; }

#right_col { display:none; }

#spotlight { display:none; }

#sponlinks { display:none; }

#crumb_trail { display:none; }

#RegCCO { display:none; }

#social_btns { display:none; }

#follow_btns_top { display:none; }

#footer { display:none }

#story_rhs_more { display:none; }

#topbar { display:none; }

a:visited { color: green; font-size: 85% }

Perfect!

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

BrowserUk

Re: El Reg Redesign - How to fix it!

This is what they send me: http://imgbin.org/images/21306.jpg

This is what I now see: http://imgbin.org/images/21307.jpg

No huge white left margins; No teasers; no statics; no large_story; no story_list; no DONT MISS; no STORY GRID IMG; no right col; no spotlight; no sponlinks; no crumbtrail; no social btns; no follow btns top; no story rhs more;

And with jscript off; none of those stupid popup menus other have talked of but I've never seen.

Unvisited links in light blue; visited link if faded red.

Ain't perfect yet -- haven't worked out a way to use the full width of my screen yet; but so much better than the crap they pulled. I see everything I want to see -- eg. the stories -- and none of the repetitive crap.

And, cos they forced my had NO ADS!

(If your an Opera user and wanna know how; mail me!)

BrowserUk

You forced my hand; and this is the result.

This is what you send me: http://imgbin.org/images/21306.jpg

And this is what I now see: http://imgbin.org/images/21307.jpg

No teasers; no hot; no large story; no static; no dont miss; no right col; no spotlight; no sponlinks; no crumtrail; no story grid;

S'not perfect yet. I haven't found a way to fill my screen yet; but at least what I do see is stuff I want to see.

Oh. And, because you forced my hand: NO ADS!

(Anyone using Opera and wants a one-click cure to the latest "modern, fresher" design fail; drop me a email.)

Boffins: Dolphins call each other NAMES. Not RUDE ones!

BrowserUk

Christening?

I wonder (who gives them | how they adopt) their name?

Presumably when they are first born they tend to make random vocalisations like any kid.

At some point, their friends or family (probably their mother), and they, must 'agree' on some sequence that becomes their 'name'.

One can speculate 3 possibilities:

1) Over time, they begin to repeat one of their random sequences -- perhaps because it is pleasing to them; or because mother seems to respond to it? -- and thus they effectively name themselves.

But if baby starts copying (and appears to be choosing) one of the sequences already used by another member of the pod; maybe that other member admonishes the baby.

2) Mother constantly repeats a sequence she chooses -- perhaps whilst permitting the baby to suckle -- and so the baby come to recognise that sequence as being him/her and starts responding to it by repeating it. Thus mother chooses the name.

Mother would know the names of the rest of the pod and so could chose (or choose to reinforce) a sequence not (currently) in use.

3) Some combination of the two where either the mother starts repeating (and perhaps extending) one of the babies random sequences; or the baby starts repeating (and perhaps extending) one of the mother's sequences.

It would be interesting to learn if:

a) names get reused within a pod -- mother's mother or father's father etc.

b) if the same names turn up in different pods.

LOHAN ideas..

BrowserUk

snap-free umbilical

Four slivers of magnet (bits of speaker magnet work well; not Neodymium!), two on the body, two on the ends of the wires from the heater.

Test the pull-away forces with small weights. If the pull-away force is too high, either reduce the cross-section of the slivers; or place one or more pieces of aluminium foil between each pair to reduce it.

Use a little Jena (http://www.jenalabs.com/contact-fluid/contact-fluid.html) or similar to ensure good electrical contact.

It is possible to get the pull-away forces down to a few 10s of grams whilst retaining good vibration resistance of the connection.

(Still not sure why the launch rod has to be titanium -- or any metal? A carbon fibre rod would be lighter, stiffer and less prone to icing.)

Researchers propose ‘overclock’ scheme for mobiles

BrowserUk

IN THE SHADOW OF WAR

Perhaps: "Long periods of utter boredom interspersed with short periods of abject terror".

To understand see: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/6252/1/Milman_444468_COMPLETED.pdf

It's a long and difficult read and you will probably regret starting many times before you finish. But if you make it to the end, you'll be -- not glad -- but, you won't regret it.