Posts by imanidiot

US grounds investors in Chinese drone maker DJI over 'Xinjiang human rights abuses'

Re: Those that live in glass houses

Either you are a Chinese shill or you need to pull your head out of your ass.

Re: Those that live in glass houses

You mean that civil war that was a direct result of one side wanting to keep said slavery and the other side wanting to abolish it? The civil war that ended with the side wanting to abolish slavery actually doing so? You'd have had more of a point if you'd pointed at the "Jim Crow" laws and segregation policies that came after. But even then, those aren't comparable to what's happening in China to the Uygur minority.

And the reality is that even though the US is doing far from perfect when it comes to handling the whole skintone issue, it's MILES and MILES ahead of where it was and even further ahead of how China is handling it's minorities (the Uygurs aren't the only ones)

IMHO the question shouldn't be "why is the US the one doing this" but "why isn't everybody else".

Bloke breaking his back on 'commute' from bed to desk deemed a workplace accident

Re: Except the right to work from home...

I think the key words in the article in that regard are that the equipment used by the bloke in question was set up by the company in the home of the employee. Thus the company in this case IS responsible for the setup used in this case (and this is probably what will break some other cases if a person is just opening their company laptop on the kitchen table)

What came first? The chicken, the egg, or the bodge to make everything work?

Re: The Bodge...

"The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from."

Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Re: The Bodge...

Since we're talking German (custom or low scale) manufacture here it's pretty safe to assume it'll have been designed in metric. I've yet to meet a German that'll voluntary use Made-Up units.

Re: The Bodge...

The problem comes in when you have to have a running fit for a bushing or bearing mounted in what is probably no longer the correct bore size (because the original bearing has walked and "embiggened" the hole slightly that has to smoothly fit a now worn axle. If possible the best option is to make a new set of axle and bushings and fit the whole lot to a freshly bored out to size (and if need be relined or properly shimmed) bore. If it's a lightly loaded bearing you might get away with "wet fitting" a (very) slightly undersized bearing bushing in epoxy if you can't get the bore skimmed when too damaged.

I most definitely would at the very least have taken a micrometer to the axle and bore to give them actual measurements of the parts that the bushing needs to have a tight and/or running fit to.

Re: Where are the instructions?

Always has been and still is my tactic in the (nowadays rare) cases I'm involved in customer escalations (semiconductor lithography equipment). If I'm involved it's 99% of the time already an extremely long down (more than 12 hours downtime, measured in 6 figures an hour in lost revenue) It's not rare for things to go "more wrong" before they get better and in my experience it's in these scenarios that people tend to do stupid things that make things go from "minor oops" to "that'll take a few weeks to sort out". So in those cases my usual reaction is to close my laptop, get up and loudly proclaim: "well that's borked, let's go get coffee while the system is rebooting" or words to that effect. And I won't take No for an answer.

Especially when working on stuff that requires effective team work and coordination, that never happens in cases where every feels like "this has to be solved now" when the reality is that taking 30 minutes for a short break (Which is usually spend more casually discussing what just went wrong and formulating an effective plan that everybody agrees on and where everybody knows what to do next) usually actually saves time over the route of people running off to do something without coordinating and losing time all over the place because nobody knows what anybody else is doing.

Ooh, an update. Let's install it. What could possibly go wro-

Re: Netware? Less than 20 years ago? Where was he working - Jurassic Park?

The more I work with modern technology and the seeming clusterf*ck mishmash of disparate stuff mushed together to form a somewhat functional whole that sometimes stops working because apparently Mars is in retrograde and Phobos is transiting or something the more I think the old stuff might not be that bad. Sure it's sometimes a bit obscure but if it breaks you can probably actually trace exactly WHY it brakes because it's simple enough to do so. Instead of layer upon layer upon layer of crud, turds, brainfarts, incompetence and "good enoughs".

More than half of UK workers would consider jumping ship if a hybrid work option were withdrawn by their company

"Companies should recognise that and perhaps fund hot desking space for them."

Downvoted for mentioning hotdesking. F*ck that shit sideways with a hot poker.

If I come into the office I expect to be certain that there is a desk for me, that I can sit there and that I don't have to worry about finding a place, whether or not the right equipment will be there or about whether or not it's still there after a meeting. I also detest having to adjust my desk and chair every single time I sit down in the morning.

In my line of work (engineering) working in the office is sometimes just the faster and easier way to communicate. Teams (or whatever other method for communication used) just isn't as effective sometimes as just being able to get up, walk over to someone to tap them on the shoulder and point to a paper drawing to ask questions. I've done wfh basically full time from roughly december 2019 to September 2020 and I found the lack of social interactions (all my other hobbies that involved seeing other people were also shut down) to be demoralizing and depressing. I'm prone to mental health issues anyway and I find I'm STILL struggling with hitting my stride again after a long period of not having any issues. New lockdowns now or "mandatory" remote work are not helping.

I think the idea would be that the mill would contain lots of small spaces and semi-private desks, such that those living in the village could all just walk in and work for their respective companies there. Similar "work from close to home" spaces would be set up in other nearby villages.

So the idea isn't to get all employees from one company out into this remote little village deep in the pennines, but to create the space for the people in the village to do work remotely for whatever company they work for without having to commute.

Hubble Space Telescope restored to service: No repeat of those missing messages, but here's a software patch anyway

Re: HOORAY!

JWST is going to L2, so HST would be pointing AWAY from the sun

I'm not sure if Hubble could track and focus JWST though, it may still be too close.

Intel updates mysterious 'software-defined silicon' code in the Linux kernel

Re: Some things never change

"The only difference now is that we have the Internet, so they have to protect this code with cryptography, to prevent it leaking."

more like delay the leaking a few days in reality.

It's primed and full of fuel, the James Webb Space Telescope is ready to be packed up prior to launch

Pucker factor rising.

I suspect some people will be crapping diamonds when it's in space and unfolded

What a bunch of bricks: Crooks knock hole in toyshop wall, flee with €35k Lego haul

Probably they stole much more expensive sets. 100 Euros is on the lower end of the scale nowadays.

With the bigger, aimed at adults Lego sets costing north of 200 euros, it's not hard to rack up a good score. And with certain highly useful but rare bricks, the individual brick on trading sites can be quite valuable. I've never understood why Lego doesn't just sell individual bricks as a service. There's still relatively high demand for tiny little bricks (that are easily lost) that Lego no longer sell in any of their official sets. If the tooling is still there, doing an official run of 10k bricks will likely satiate the demand at a few dollars/euros per brick while diminishing the scalper market.

Amazon Appstore melts over Android 12 'Snow Cone'

Re: Testing? Amazon hasn't heard of it

Or they tested extensively on beta releases and found no problems and then Google changed something in the final release. Because Google usually does.

Leaked footage shows British F-35B falling off HMS Queen Elizabeth and pilot's death-defying ejection

Re: RATO Typhoon

Typhoon/Eurofighter can't handle carrier ops (airframe and landing gear isn't nearly strong enough for the repeated pounding into carrier decks). Nor could QE class carriers handle Typhoons even if they WERE carrier rated

Nozzle control error

After reviewing the footage, I think it's either the pilot operating a control incorrectly or the computer doing so. From what I've seen of short takeoffs off the ramp of the F-35B, the engine exhaust nozzle should start pointing straight back to provide maximum forward thrust, then rotate to point about 45 degrees down to provide lift at roughly the bottom of the ramp. In the video it looks like the nozzle starts out pointing downwards, then rotates to pointing straight back mid-roll, the back to straight down. Maybe the pilot noticed something was off and tried to fly it out instead of hitting the brakes?

Re: Would suspect the

Kinda looks like the pilot pulled the throttle back as he wasn't getting sufficient power. I don't really see any big flame or smoke from the exhaust or lift fan so it probably wasn't a FOD ingestion.

Big challenge with hardware subscriptions? Getting what we need, not what someone else wants us to have

"Clearly, I ended up paying more for the laptop and phone than if I had bought them outright."

Which is exactly why (especially for relatively low dollar/euro/pound items like laptops or phones) you should just save a bit and buy them outright. If there really, absolutely, positively is no way to take the time to save and buy, I might consider a payment plan, but even then I think in the end you'd often be cheaper off long term going to your bank for a personal loan than taking a payment plan on a phone or laptop).

And learn to budget, make a balans/household sheet (yes, also for your personal life) and practice some prudent financial management to reserve enough money to buy the new shiny when the old shiny can be expected to be roughly end of life. I have reserved amounts of saving that I will not touch for other purposes (barring extreme emergencies ofcourse) for: Car (paying into this every month so that I save up for a more decent 2nd hand than I currently have in roughly 6 years from now), home repairs, home applicances like fridge/freezer or washer/dryer, bicycle (I live in the Netherlands so yes, that's a separate line item ;)

I'd also argue the VAST majority of people don't need the latest €1200 Apple or Samsung phones and are perfectly fine with a much lower priced phone that they are more likely to be able to afford.

The climate is turning against owning our own compute hardware. Cloud is good for you and your customers

passive agressive bullshit

What the heck is with this passive aggressive writing style? I see it pop up more and more and it just rubs me the wrong way. "It's my way or the highway", "if you disagree, you're just stupid and don't understand"... Uhmm, no. I'm perfectly capable of forming my own mind when given the arguments. I don't need you to tell me exactly what to think.

"If you’re managing your own, the first question to ask yourself is, are you Google, Microsoft, or AWS? If yes, fill yer boots. If not, what are you playing at? You might as well be repeatedly punching your grandchildren in the face."

Why are you assuming that A: people working for Google, Microsoft or AWS are somehow magically more competent and better skilled at managing computer equipment than anybody else (They aren't), B: that ONLY these 3 big players are somehow magically more capable of efficiently utilizing hardware than anyone else, C: That the reader is a booger-brained troglodite incapable of managing his own hardware utilization and cost amortized over the lifetime of said hardware, D: That I have or will ever have grandchilren, or that I possibly have reasons to WANT to punch them repeatedly in the face, E: That there is no way for the company the reader owns or works for is incapable of utilizing hardware to the point where even the added cost of "carbon-credits" is far offset by any risk presented by just giving any and all company data to an external cloud host.

Honestly, this article makes me want to buy a closet full of Pentium 4s and very old GPU's with 2000W power supplies trying to (and failing to) mine bitcoin, just as a figurative repeated punch in the face of the grandchildren of the writer of this article. The "hollier than thou" attitude REALLY doesn't sit well with me.

When civilisation ends, a Xenix box will be running a long-forgotten job somewhere

Re: Digital archeology

"Keyboard not found - Press 'enter' to continue" became the chant of worship for the Neo-technoids, it's meaning long lost and shrouded in mystery.

Digital archeology

It is the year 2087. After the great plague, a team of intrepid whizzkids travels the now empty countryside, searching through abandoned buildings to find the hidden digital treasures within. With their skills in long forgotten codes they intend to find out the function of these strange boxes, hidden in corners and backrooms amongst the detritus of a civilization long gone.

NASA boffins seem to think we're worth saving from fiery asteroid death so they're shooting a spaceship at one

Re: Hollywood Fantasists

The idea isn't to destroy the object or necessarily to move the entire rubble pile in one go. But if we can impact the asteroid early enough, even if it "blows apart" the collective trajectory of the rubble (before or after coalescing again will have moved enough to miss earth. The idea isn't to intercept and deflect an asteroid on a straight line impact course for earth just a few thousand km above our atmosphere, because that's likely beyond the realm of physics. The idea is that we can detect an asteroid that will impact earth one or two orbits later and deflect it before it passes through a "keyhole" where a minimum amount of deflection will already sent it on a widely different orbit.

Re: Hollywood Fantasists

Understanding how to do it on something "small" and "light" (at approximately 160 to 170 meters diameter and a mass of 2170+/-350 kg, I'd prefer it not to land on my house) means we also have much better understanding on how to potentially do it on something much larger, heavier and faster.

I still don't understand why you think this is pointless. Generating understanding and data on this is a useful tool for understanding asteroids, our universe and for pushing the boundaries on what we can do to save our planet in the unhappy case we ever find something hurtling towards us. Yes, it'll have a good chance of blindsiding us like it did the dinosaurs, but I'd prefer if these boffins did their best to come up ways to give us a sliver of a chance. I won't be losing any sleep over the possibility of it happening, but it's good that the efforts are made.

Re: Hollywood Fantasists

We're getting better and better at detecting NEOs and are working on solving a lot of the other ifs. We'd never get anything done if we take into account all the ifs.

Re: Hollywood Fantasists

Why wouldn't it work? F=ma and E=1/2*mv^2 tells us that it does. All other outside influences eliminated hitting something heavy with something much lighter moving at a high relative velocity will change the velocity vector of the heavy thing. What is being demonstrated here is just how efficient such a high velocity impact will be, and that the technology required to find such a target in the vast emptiness of space, rendezvous with it and precisely target the impact works. The math on WHY it works is simple. The technology to actually do so is far from trivial.

Swooping in to claim the glory while the On Call engineer stands baffled

Re: Hands On

"Electro Education"

I prefer Electron Assisted Learning.

Robotaxis freed to charge across 60km² of Beijing

I've never been in a taxi in Mediterranean countries so can't really say anything on that. I have experienced the "driving on the hard shoulder, overtaking trucks, in the dark, with one headlight out, 30km/h over the speedlimit" and similar shenanigans in a few asian countries.

I don't feel the current tech is safe enough for either the taxi occupants or those around it on the streets. While the bar of the average asian taxi driver (I know, broad brush, it's not that bad everywhere, etc) is a pretty darn low standard to meet, I still think all these robot systems are only fine in "everything normal" situations. Throw in some bad road wear, a missing sign, some fog or smog, etc and things suddenly don't work so well anymore.

ESA's Solar Orbiter will swing past Earth this week – sure hope nobody created a big cloud of space junk up there

Re: Maybe switch to Moon flybys in future

You'd still be planning most of your maneuvers about the earth gravity well, but then you also have to plan it in such a way that you can get into the earth gravity well and slingshot around towards the moon at just the right time that you can THEN do a slingshot around the moon. Makes for a REALLY tricky maneuver. And when SO was launched nobody expected someone to do an ASAT test at that altitude (Because it also endangers the ISS and many other useful low earth observation orbits). By the time the ESA team would have known about the ASAT test debris they were already inexorably committed to making this maneuver at that altitude. They've probably got a proverbial window up there of only a few dozen square kilometers that they'll be aiming to fly through.

LoRa to the Moon and back: Messages bounced off lunar surface using off-the-shelf hardware

Re: Off the shelf equipment?

Possibly unique in the world. The dish they're using was originally built for scientific research (and was the largest in the world for a bit). In 2007 it was given to a group of amateur radio astronomers and they've spent a lot of time rebuilding the dish and making the whole thing operational again. Since iirc 2016 the radiotelescope is now available for amateur radioastronomers and other people interested in doing something with large dish like that who can convince the people running it that what they want to do makes sense and won't break the thing (barring apparently some internal kerfuffles within the organisation running the scope and the whole global virus stuff).

See also: www.camras.nl and the wiki page on the Dwingeloo radio telescope

Rust dust-up as entire moderation team resigns. Why? They won't really say

Re: Those who can, code.

Depends entirely on what the purpose of the team is. If the team is there to execute whatever someone else though up, having 1 brain with 12 hands might very well be much more efficient and lead to better outcomes than having 12 different brains with 12 hands.

When it comes to any software, that which has value eventually boils down to the code and how well that code functions within the framework of the software. In that regard the measure of value of someone's output IS in that individuals code.

Re: Sounds like the team

If applied properly WD40 should form a film/coating and keep stuff from rusting (if protected from direct exposure to the elements)

Re: A shame...

I get the suspicion there's actually something going on within the core team that the Mod team feels they should act on, but can't because Core is blocking any such action. And they're avoiding actually mentioning any of that because it's bad enough it'll make all of them look very bad.

Server errors plague app used by Tesla drivers to unlock their MuskMobiles

Tesla QC is horrible even for Dacia Sandero territory. I've seen Austin Princesses put together better than some Tesla's. I've seen a model 3 where I couldn't find a single straight consistent panel gap, the interior had bad gaping, seat stitching coming loose, etc. All basics that other car manufacturers have all figures out for a long time.

And this is why I hate always connected cars

How in the Ruttin' world does an update like this get pas any sort of testing and released to user cars? And why in the world can a software or connectivity glitch prevent something as basic as opening the car or turning it on?

Oh, your dad had a heart-attack, might not have long to live and you need to get to hospital? Or you're just driving the kids to soccer? Well sucks to be you, car says No "500 Server Error"

Makes me more and more inclined to just stick to my good old 2001 Volvo.

Truckload of GPUs stolen on their way out of San Francisco

Re: But how would the buyer know?

That makes the assumption that the product was cheap and the buyer could have known better. But with the current dearth of availability those carts will probably be sold with just as much markup and premium as "gray market"/scalped stock from resellers operating within the law.

Russia's orbital insanity is almost beyond redemption – but there's space for improvement

Re: Can we update Dr Strangelove?

If the Cold War ever turns hot (No, the cold war hasn't ended, it just went even colder for a few dozen years), one of the first things that will happen is both sides either selectively destroying all known opposing nav, ELINT, comms and ground observation satellites by use of ASAT weapons or just an indiscriminant destruction of all such sats by use of a few nuke detonations in space. If either side is going to launch a large scale attack the last thing either wants is the other side having GPS/GLONASS, intelligence or communications. There's a reason most military doctrine is still relying on NOT using space based systems. Those are usually considered a "nice to have" but not a "will definitely be available".

Re: Russia bashing

I have no idea what you're referring to here.

The ideal sat-nav is one that stops the car, winds down the window, and asks directions

Re: The make-up later on compensates like tech never can provide

LEFT! Past that big tree. NOT THAT ONE, THE BIG TREE!

My go-to for navigation has been Here WeGo for a long time, but it's been getting progressively more shit with each new update imho (like now forcing the use of the Google-y Android voice synth, which sounds like an absolute bitch barking commands at you no matter what voice you choose. I vastly preferred the previously available recorded female voice as she sounded much more friendly, was much more comprehensible and didn't bother reading superfluous information like street names). The one bright shining feature it currently still has is being able to download maps for offline use. Because even though phone companies CLAIM you'll have perfect reception everywhere, any time in northwestern Europe, the reality is that in my experience that isn't the case. Especially when you're "roaming" on a different network in a foreign country and your data connection suddenly makes a 56k dialup modem seem like a FTTH gigabit broadband connection.

Google Maps navigation routing in my experience has a tendency to choose weird routes because they're 100 meters shorter and theoretically faster if you ignore the traffic lights and the tendency for people to be complete idiots. Which means the routes Google Maps chooses are usually slower, more shit and more stressful. It also seems to indicate turns and highway exits either stupidly early (such that you've forgotten them again by the time you get to the actual turnout, or you need to pay attention so that you don't take an exit too early) or stupidly late (such that you can't actually make the turn or take the exit safely).

BOFH: You drive me crazy... and I can't help myself

I think the main idea behind the quicklime is to destroy any external traces. It's fine ne if they can determine someone died by blunt force trauma and that the pattern of bruising seems to match the keyboard of an early model Thinkpad, as long as they can't find DNA traces or other clues as to who was wielding said notebook, the BOFH in in the clear.

Former Broadcom engineer accused of pinching chip tech to share with new Chinese employer

I'd estimate it takes about a minute per machine for both EUV and DUV litho machines to destroy them beyond easy repair without help from ASML. A good smack to the lens column with something heavy will do it for a DUV system, EUV systems have to be kept in vacuum, deliberately breaking that (especially with wafers in the system) will make recovery very time consuming and require replacement of lots of very expensive parts (at the very least the entire optics train). IF the PRC ever invades the Republic of China then I doubt they'll allow TSMC litho equipment to remain operational. Even if they did, keeping litho systems running without the spare parts supplies would be tantamount to being able to build your own systems anyway.

The US and other high-tech players have been practically shoveling their IP into the PRC as fast as they could. Now that they're finally starting to realise their errors, the peoples republic will find other ways to squeeze more data. It's only a matter of time before China develops it's own semicon litho equipment (though it'll probably be a long while) and when they do, they've basically lost all dependence on "the western world". At that point, there will likely be trouble.

Rolls-Royce set for funding fillip to build nuclear power stations based on small modular reactor technology

Re: Nuclear powered shaver.

At roughly 20 tons of CO2 produced per ton of carbon fiber produced that's... not exactly true.

Re: Fusion

"all of them expecting to die from the radioactivity, but so far not one of them (afaik) has"

IIRC one or two workers have in the process of their duties (also before the "disaster", which should primarily be referred to as the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, not the "Fukushima disaster" imho) been exposed to a radiation level above a certain threshold and subsequently developed a form of cancer which entitles them and their families to certain payouts for "workplace injuries". This incidence rate is however not outside the naturally occurring incidence rate so not indicative of much of anything.

They're an obvious solution to the professional nuclear engineers too. It's just that obvious solutions aren't always easy to build. Fusion reactors are also an obvious solution. Doesn't mean we know how to build one.

Thorium reactors have their drawbacks too, they're not the end all of nuclear energy, but they could certainly be another tool in the box of tools of energy supply.

Re: Nuclear powered shaver.

As opposed to the millions of kilograms of fiberglass reinforced polyester/epoxy composite in windturbine blades and the millions of kilograms of bonded silicon and glass solar panels that are all completely un-recyclable and also dangerous and toxic to be around (heavy metals and other toxic compounds) that are currently the paraded "solution" by the greenies that won't actually reliably keep our lights on long term.

If the hippies didn't so heavily oppose nuclear fuel processing and plutonium containing MOX fuels then the environmental impact of nuclear in terms of greenhouse emissions for mining and processing Uranium would be even further reduced and the problem of high radioactive waste would also strongly diminish. But no, we can't have that.

Oregon city courting Google data centers fights to keep their water usage secret

Re: how much?

and a problem we'd never have in proper Reg units. Is that imperial, US gallons, US dry gallons, Winchester or Corn Gallon, Henry VII (Winchester) corn gallon from 1497 onwards, Elizabeth I corn gallon from 1601 onwards, William III corn gallon from 1697 onwards, Old English (Elizabethan) Ale Gallon, Old English (Queen Anne) Wine gallon, London 'Guildhall' gallon (before 1688), Jersey gallon (from 1562 onwards), Guernsey gallon (17th century origins till 1917) or Irish Gallon?

Atleast with olympic size swimming pools we can point to FINA rules.