Posts by imanidiot

Life with Amazon's fitness band: Upload your half-naked pics to see how fat you'll look without exercise. You now sound stressed – relax!

Yeah right...

"For those of you concerned about your privacy, Amazon said the body scans are generated in the cloud – which means sending snaps of you half naked to its computers for processing. "Your body scan images are automatically deleted from the cloud after processing,"

And then a few months or years down the line it turns out there was some sort of debugging/developer feature or a bug is found and it turns out that it DID retain lots and lots of pictures. Oops...

"are generated in the cloud" -> Read: Are sent to somebody (could be anybody really) else's computer. Doesn't sound so friendly and non-threatening all of a sudden.

Re: Seems ideal

" bright lights and rubber hoses"

Psah, is that what goes for premium nowadays? I would expect the car battery and jumper cables added in AT LEAST.

Funny, that: Handy script for wiping directories is capable of wreaking havoc beyond a miscreant's wildest dreams

Philosophical questions

If data is deleted, but no one is around to notice, was anything lost?

I've sort of nearly done the same thing once, but only because someone was using a script they shouldn't have nor use.

Eagle-on-EGLE* violence: American icon sends govt-flown drone hurtling into the waters of Lake Michigan

Re: Its not unknown.....

Same thing pretty much for the full size version. They can get a bit terrritorial at low altitudes but usually they put in a few mock attacks, then go off to sulk. Definitely a full size plane isn't going to take much damage from a hawk or falcon.

I've encountered peregrine falcons at 2500 meters AGL.

Also fun are storks. They pretty much behave like living miniature sailplanes. Prefer to fly "opposite" or equally divided in a thermal, and seem to get annoyed if you don't join a thermal properly like you would any other sailplane. Since the glide speed of a sailplane is usually much better and thus we cover more ground oftentimes it seems like we become the thermal indicator for storks.

Aviation regulator outlines fixes that will get the 737 MAX flying again

Uhhhmmm, how about no?

From the article: "Changes to horizontal stabilizer trim wire routing installations are also required, to give pilots better control."

yeah, no, not so much. Unless you count not losing electrical systems as "giving pilots better control"

From the FAA's preliminary report on the return to flight of the 737 MAX:

"6.6 Electrical Wiring Interconnection System (EWIS)

Requirements(§ 25.1707)As part of the FAA’s review of these design changes, the agency re-reviewed the entirety of the 737 MAX horizontal stabilizer control system. This review revealed that the physical separation of the horizontal stabilizer trim arm wiring and the horizontal stabilizer trim control wiring does not meet the criteria specified in 14 CFR 25.1707. This design standard was promulgated in 2007 and therefore is part of the certification basis of the 737 MAX but not of previous Boeing Model 737 airplanes. Certain wiring installations must have enough physical separation so that a wiring failure cannot create a hazard. (See 14 CFR 25.1707)."

"The stabilizer trim arm wiring has since been rerouted in 12 areas of the airplane’s Electrical Equipment bay and Section 48 to prevent a potential simultaneous short circuit between the stabilizer arm and control wiring and another 28VDC wire. "

Trump bans Feds from contracting H-1B workers and makes telehealth the new normal

Re: This idiot gets it, how come the others don’t

If no H-1B visas companies will just outsource to some other country entirely, the average Joe loses regardless.

In the market for a second-hand phone? Check it's still supported by the vendor – almost a third sold are not

What's the point?

You check it's supported today, tomorrow the manufacturer announced it drops support effective immediately (and the last update they pushed was 9 months ago)

Intel couldn't shrink to 7nm on time – but it was able to reduce one thing: Its chief engineer's employment

Node sizes are arbitrary

There is no industry standard to denote node size and the Intel 10nm node is about the same overall feature size as the TSMC 7nm node afaik.

Intel seems to have bet the boat on EUV litho but it wasn't ready for 10 nm and seems to be having problems getting it to work for 7 and 5 nm for it's processes. TSMC is now ahead of the curve by miles.

Re: Ummm...

Intel doesn't build litho systems. They buy them. In Intels case afaik all from ASML.

Don't strain yourself, Zuck, only democracy at stake... Facebook makes half-hearted effort to flag election lies by President Trump

Re: why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US?

a few hundred thousand votes, over a few hundred million... Not exactly pervasive now is it.

(Claims of) Pervasive voter fraud, in that comment, as related to Fascism, is about rigging elections so that the vast majority of votes are false and the outcome of the election is rigged, or claims to that effect. I have made no such claims. I'm also not saying in that hypothetical case those "few hundred thousand" votes are ACTUALLY fraudulent, but that doubt is cast on them. Investigation would be required, it might turn out all of them are valid. But in that situation you don't know. It causes delays that the current US social structure might not handle very well.

Re: why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US?

"The answers are lots more than has happened, and no"

Again, read this article https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/889751095/signed-sealed-undelivered-thousands-of-mail-in-ballots-rejected-for-tardiness?t=1595405926137&t=1595410783748

Or this: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/07/13/mail-in-votes-uncounted-californias-primary/

Or this: https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/06/18/as-states-struggle-with-vote-by-mail-many-thousands-if-not-millions-of-ballots-could-go-uncounted-in-november/

Now scale all those individual state election results up to national level. It USED to be about 1% of ballots were rejected. In the recent elections, in some districts it goes as high as 9 or even 14%. The last few US elections have all been rather close races. Lets say that with no fraud involved but the chaos ensuing from doing mail in votes on such an unprecedented scale, 2% of the votes get rejected. In 2016 that would have made the race too close to call in terms of popular vote and it could have swung the vote in terms of outcome in several states. So is it a good idea? ANY fraud gets added on top of this.

Is mail-in voting really a good idea? Especially considering the short notice with which politicians want to roll it out on such a large scale?

Re: why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US?

Does my background matter in this? I've provided links to support most of my claims. Have you bothered looking at the links I provided already?

Are YOU an expert in US politics? If No, WTF are YOU talking about? (And no, just being from the US doesn't make you an expert in US politics.)

Re: why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US?

Uhhhmmm, so anyone that doesn't push the same narrative as the mainstream media is by definition far right? Have you bothered reading the links I provided? Sure limited amount of cases, usually small scale, but it proves the basis to be able to do it is there and that mail in voting is susceptible to it.

As to your other list:

Law and Order (sure, in a controlled and well defined way, but that's just a political right wing thing, not extreme right).

Pervasive voter fraud, I never claimed PERVASIVE now did I? I claimed that it's there! And how much voter fraud is acceptable? 0.1%, 1%, 10%? I claim we should aim for as little as possible and mail in voting doesn't mesh well with that. Changing to mail in voting at the last minute without years to prepare for it's deployment on a massive scale is just asking for trouble. Even if it's not downright fraud and honest mistakes, it's problematic.

National security, again, just right wing, not just extreme right wing. Certainly not just fascist

Xenophobia, not even involved

nationalism, I'm not even FROM the US, and nothing wrong with a limited amount of nationalism. Again, right wing thing, not just fascist

exaggerated patriotism, again, I'm not from the US. Certainly doesn't follow from my posting here.

And lastly. ALL those things need to apply, only the voting fraud problem is under discussion, and nothing I've said points to my thinking it's pervasive or rigged.

So again, please point me to any statement that shows I'm a demagogue or fascist. Just because I happen to agree to some degree with Trump doesn't mean I agree with everything he says or does. Just because I agree to some degree with ANYTHING doesn't mean I'm fully aligned with that group. Just because I think mail in voting is a bad idea if applied on a large scale and that there is evidence the system is open to abuse in the US doesn't mean I'm a fascist!

Re: why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US?

Can you point me to any statement that comes even close to being extreme right? It goes against the common narrative, that does not make me a fascist.

Re: why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US?

uhuh, we'll talk again after the elections, and see who was right. I honestly hope the US manages to get it's shit together, but I doubt it.

I know the truth is somewhere in the middle, but there's a reason most of the world tries to limit mai-in voting to a minimum.

You disappoint me El-Reg

What is a piece of political bias doing on this website? You're better than this.

"with the Democratic Party and the Democratic presidential candidates, Joe Biden, being the main beneficiaries"

Unproven: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/vote-by-mail-coronavirus.html

"It shouldn’t really matter but the answer is because the Republican Party, of which Trump is currently a member, has undertaken a concerted, focused and long-running campaign to make it harder for groups that overwhelmingly vote for the rival Democratic Party to take part in America's elections. Most of the most successful efforts revolve around people physically turning up at polling stations – and either not having the required identification or paperwork, or having to wait in line for hours on end. "

Look at the amount of gerrymandering going on and other efforts put forward and you'll find that these campaigns of voting manipulation are not just limited to the GOP, the democrats are just as guilty. They're just usually more sneaky about it and the media are usually talking about it less. Gee, I wonder why?

"While here, it may be worth quickly looking at why the actual President of the United States would post a knowingly false statement about mail-in ballots."

Really? KNOWINGLY false? So this is all bullshit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/pacei-voterfraudcases.pdf or https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud ? There's absolutely no way anyone could influence mail in voting?

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/889751095/signed-sealed-undelivered-thousands-of-mail-in-ballots-rejected-for-tardiness?t=1595405926137

65.000 ballots not received on time or downright lost in the mail. All accidental? Who knows! Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Should the US be taking that risk?

IMHO, Stay out of politics El-Reg! You don't need to pick sides and your choses focus doesn't involve politics. Just don't do it. And if you do it, try not to have such a massive case of Orange Man BAD syndrome. A little more nuance would help.

Re: why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US?

The risk is tiny if the use of mail in ballots is limited, like it has been in the past. If it becomes widespread and common the risk increases exponentially. Because how hard is it to steal ballots from mailboxes in a certain (predominantly democrat or republican) area, if only one in 100 or less mailboxes contains one, versus stealing them from the mailboxes in an area when EVERY SINGLE MAILBOX will contain those ballots at the same time? In the US system, preventing people from voting for one candidate helps the other. Spoil enough democrat (or GOP) ballots and the other party wins. You don't NEED to get valid votes for your own guy, you just need to make sure your guy gets more votes.

It's not just about people filling in ballots that do belong to them, ballots "accidentally" getting lost in the mail system (before voting or after voting before counting) just long enough for them to arrive after the cut-off date will effectively "spoil" them.

Read this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/nyregion/election-absentee-ballots-primary.html

Then tell me how the chaos the mail-in voting is causing in just New York is NOT conducive to fraud or "influencing" of voting results. Imagine this happening for the full presidential election throughout the US!

Voting fraud is rare and doesn't happen, yet there's cases like this: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-philadelphia-judge-elections-convicted-conspiring-violate-civil-rights-and-bribery

Voting fraud is rare and doesn't happen, yet theres over a 1000 proven cases: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/pacei-voterfraudcases.pdf

A lot of them involving absentee (mail in) ballots.

How much fraud is acceptable? It's easy to understand that mail-in voting is easier to manipulate, spoiling ballots by not delivering them or not counting them, declaring them spoiled when their not, declaring them valid when they should be spoiled, etc. So if mail in voting is easier to corrupt, why should you want it?

The fact the DEMOCRATS are pushing for it so hard should give you pause. Because it's NOT proven (and shame on you el-reg for pushing this) that it benefits the democrats. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/vote-by-mail-coronavirus.html

Even if all cases of fraud get detected imagine this scenario:

The votes are in, and after a tumultuous 3 months a winner finally emerges from the counts. However a fraud case emerges in 2 states, putting a few hundred thousand votes into doubt. The margins were slim, the opponent (whoever that is) questions the results and demands a recount, with all the fraudulent votes removed. Recounting happens, another month later more another fraud case is detected, this time spoiling another few thousand ballots. More lost time, more uncertainty. Meanwhile the protests over the result turn to riots (like certain other ongoing "protests" in the US). Doubt is cast over million of other votes. Some say they are valid, some say they aren't. Riots break out, sides are choses. Either side claims the other side was the most fraudulent. At some point one side (doesn't matter if it's the winner or the loser, doesn't matter if it's the incumbent or the challenger) claims they MUST be the legitimate winner. And the other side disagrees.

What then? What happens? Does a supreme court ruling calm things down? Unlikely at that point. You're looking at civil war at that point!

Mail in voting will cause absolute chaos and will make voting in the US even more of a shitshow than it already is. I'm not sure however if NOT having mail in voting would make it LESS of a shitshow either..

NASA trusted 'traditional' Boeing to program its Starliner without close supervision... It failed to dock due to bugs

Re: So what happened?

F-15? The design closely resembling the Grumman F-14 and based heavily on work done by NASA? Referred to by many as the last good aircraft they designed?

MD500 helicopter. You mean the Hughes 500, initially developed for the army as the OH-6? Only named the MD500 after Hughes was bought by MD?

McD-D wasn't always a bad company, but the rot set in somewhere in the 70s. By the time of the "merger" (or reverse hostile take-over) McD-D certainly was a hot mess in many aspects. The consequences were predicted by many (see links provided by others above)

'It's really hard to find maintainers...' Linus Torvalds ponders the future of Linux

Re: Just give it to Poettering...

Don't even joke of such atrocities.

Linux Mint 20 isn't exactly bursting with freshness but, hey, there's kernel 5.4 and it's a long-term support release

Re: Linux flavours

Since when has anyone deemed "cool" EVER used a Linux/Unix variant of any sort?

Hey, Boeing. Don't celebrate your first post-grounding 737 Max test flight too hard. You just lost another big contract

Re: Learn from the smaller world...

MAX wasn't unstable by design. It's fully stable even at high AoA at full throttle. It's just that the elevator feedback forces were way too low.

If Boeing had chosen to go with a stickforce feedback actuator it would have been fine.

Re: Learn from the smaller world...

There is mechanically nothing wrong with the Max. It's perfectly flyable and well stable enough even without MCAS. It's just that the elevator forces decrease too much when in high AoA at full throttle to be the same as the 737NG series. If Boeing had chosen to go with a new type rating certificate and simulator training they wouldn't have even needed MCAS. Its only because they wanted a universal 737NG and Max type rating that would allow operators to put their pilots on either aircraft and thus have easier fleet and crew planning.

Two out of three parachutes... is just as planned for Boeing's Starliner this time around

Re: Have they demonstrated all parachutes yet?

They have done a 3 out parachute test too. (https://youtu.be/WWFgfUyqIxU) Their 3-out chute test looked better than the SpaceX parachutes too, less squidding and mutual interference.

Re: Technically

IIRC SpaceX safes (and now permanently disables) the fuel pressurization system of the super dracos once it's in orbit, meaning that it can't do propulsive landings anymore. It definitely can't do a propulsive landing after an abort (because it'll have used most of the available fuel for the abort), which is another reason they went with chutes.

Finally, a wafer-thin server... Only a tiny little thin one. Oh all right. Just the one...

Had a sort of experience like that recently. Loud bang, acrid smoke. In my case it was the wax-paper decoupling cap of an old sewing machine speed regulator pedal going off like a handgrenade. I was glad the thing was contained in a metal housing when it exploded. I could feel it explode under my foot through the metal.

Sorry to drone on and on but have you heard of Ingenuity? NASA's camera-copter is ready to head off to Mars

Re: Hard to test this

They tested it in the very large vacuum chamber at NASA Glenn Research Center to simulate the atmospheric conditions. They used a rope and pulley system to simulate the gravity difference. While this has some impact on the control behaviour of the craft, that difference is easy to predict and compensate

Re: Why

too much very important stuff up there that could get damaged if the takeoff somehow went bad for any reason.

Fasten your seat belts: Brave Reg hack spends a week eating airline food grounded by coronavirus crash

Re: If only...

Those don't really spoil, so likely they can just flog em to other airlines. Looks like these meals were approaching their best-before date and had to be either sold or thrown away. I can understand (and applaud) the decision they made to just flog em off cheap and recoup their money.

You'd think lockdown would be heaven for us layabouts – but half the UK has actually started 'exercising more'

Not wasting time commuting while working from home, the option to run around to the shops in a lunch break instead of only after work, not wasting time with sometimes utterly pointless social obligations, etc, leaves plenty of extra time in a day to actually do this exercise in. I also wouldn't be surprised to see that the extra exercise people get is running up and down the stairs 3 times per day and pales in comparison to what they actually do when working.

Segway to Heaven: Mega-hyped wonder-scooter that was going to remake city transport to cease production

Re: In the UK

I am of the opinion that e-scooters should only be made if they are legally obligated to have a sound system that blares "look at me, I'm a tosser" repeatedly at decent volume, so that I can hear the tossers coming, get out of the way and depending on how I feel point and laugh.

Getting repeatedly run over by the number 9 bus is too good for anyone riding one of those things...

Re: In the UK

Because it should never have NOT gotten a pass in the past? As far as substance abuse goes, marijuana is about as mild and non-dangerous as they come. You really need to go all out on smoking weed to suffer any lasting side effects any worse than smoking and it's unlikely to ever do anything close to the harm even moderate alcohol abuse can cause. The danger in pot use lies mostly in (excessively) combining it with other psycho-active drugs (including alcohol), that can cause far more dangerous problems. Drunks can be troublesome to deal with, those high on pot are usually almost completely harmless. Those high on weed AND smashed on alcohol can be really troublesome.

Dealing with someone suffering from underlying mental health issues, high as a kite AND smashed to the point of slurring his words... Well, let's just say it was a night I'm unlikely to forget in a hurry and police were involved. (note: this person had known underlying health issues and was known to get problematic on just alcohol alone. The only other case of psychotic break I've seen from drugs involved a lot of more dangerous substances like salvia. That person was only ever barely a danger to himself)

When you bork... through a storm: Liverpool do all they can to take advantage of summer transfer, er, Windows

Re: Sounds like a night out in this hack's often less than fair city of Brighton

No we shouldn't. Being polite and pretending not to notice is exactly the whole problem nowadays.

Machine-learning models trained on pre-COVID data are now completely out of whack, says Gartner

Re: AI?

Given that "AI" is just a buzzword given to Machine Learning algo's and pattern matching systems, yes, they're just matching patterns. There ARE no proper AIs. They're all still dumb as bricks most of the time.

Faxing hell: The cops say they would very much like us to stop calling them all the time

Ahh, the good old days when sometimes you picked up the phone and you went deaf from an ear piercing screech as a fax tried obliviously to send you data. Lovely. (Ohh god, I'm getting old. I doubt kids these days would even know what a fax IS, let alone what one sounds like...)

--> I need a few of those, maybe. Now get of my lawn -->

Re: I called the cops

Pretty sure NL is 031/+31

From unmovable boot screens to dead certs, neither are what you want to see in a hospital

"Ignore it. It always does that"

The words "Normalisation of deviation" come to mind. -> Sadly, more than once ->

Whose side you on, Nominet? Registry floods .co.uk owners with begging emails to renew unwanted .uk domains

Who's side is Nominet on?

Whatever side is going to allow it to pay out the biggest bonuses ofcourse. That much should be obvious by now

SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon cleared to hoist real live American astronauts into space

Well, we hope, anyway. Unless they come to take it.

Sound like you are describing the personal rescue enclosure http://www.astronautix.com/r/rescueball.html

Not exactly a high point in space-suit design ;)

Runaway Latvian drone found meditating in tree after shutting down nation's skies

Re: fully fuelled before its test flight and had a potential endurance of three days

yes, fixed wing UAVs can stay up for multiple days.

Like the whole Gatwick debacle wasn't enough proof of that already?

Beardy Branson’s 747-assisted sat-launcher can’t get it up

Re: To be fair

I blame a lack of thrusting

If American tech is used to design or make that chip, you better not ship it to Huawei, warns Uncle Sam

Re: Also Microsoft

The Dems might have had a chance if they had put a believable candidate against Trump. The walking senile corpse Biden isn't going to beat Trump because many voters will choose to go with the evil they know.

Latvian drone wrests control from human overlords and shuts down entire nation's skies

I doubt the Latvians will have anything in their sensor package so advanced the Russians (or the 'mercans) would be even remotely surprised about or interested in it.

UK COVID-19 contact-tracing app data may be kept for 'research' after crisis ends, MPs told

Re: Well that's great confidence from GCHQ

They gave the keys to that nice bloke Tony at the country club and asked him to be "discrete" about it?

Square peg of modem won't fit into round hole of PC? I saw to it, bloke tells horrified mate

ain't no problem in the world that can't be solved with hot-snot

You can get a mechanical keyboard for £45. But should you? We pulled an Aukey KM-G6 out of the bargain bin

Gamers might choose something different if they are full time gamers. Most however use their PC also for other pursuits and might therefore need something suitable for normal applications too.

Sometimes one can go a little too far in search of isolation

A pump inspection involves just making sure that the volume it displays and the total monetary value displayed match the amount of fuel dispensed, and that the internals are leak free. Opening the counter mechanism to remove bugs might not even be possible. They're often built more or less sealed and tamper-proof. Likely the inspector doesn't even have the know how and the tools to do so.

ATLAS flubbed: Comet heading our way takes one look at Earth, self-destructs into house-sized chunks

Re: That's not a comet...

ah, hard liquor it is then. Bring it on ya' scallywags!

There are always two sides to every story – except this one, which is just a big billboard borked in all directions

"an outlet specialising in "true artisan bread" "

Well they're not likely to advertise with the likely more truthful "overpriced mass produced tasteless crap, but you're stuck at an airport, so what are you going to do about it you schmuck" are they?