Posts by richardcox13

NASA's six-mile-wide orbital telescope is 1/6th built

Re: Hell of an approximation!

For the purpose of the interferometry does the precise orbital radius matter? The relative position of the satellites is another matter of course.

Dev's code manages to topple Microsoft's mighty SharePoint

Re: It's still going on

It's the same with passwords, eg, I don't have a £ in a password, in case I end up having to try and logon to a machine with a US keyboard layout. (and yes, I have had that problem)

That won't be enough for a Turkish keyboard.... because the I key is the dotless-I... the I key is elsewhere.

(And this forum does not support kbd; :-( )

Teeth marks yield clue to widespread internet outage in Canada

Not really novel

This isn't really novel. Rodents etc. have long been the cause of outages. Whether power or data networking.

To really mess things up you need a contractor with an auger: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-61757877

PS, the above outage was five days, not a mere 8 hours.

Logitech's MX Mechanical keyboard, Master 3S mouse

Lightweight IMHO

> . The MX Mechanical comes in at almost a kilo, weighing in at 828g (1.8lb)

Just checked my keyboard: 1.195kg. Anything less is therefore lightweight.

The weight of a proper keyboard means it is a solid base on which to work, and less likely to flex for easier typing.

When management went nuclear on an innocent software engineer

Re: Next time

See quote above: still not enough. Someone will find their way there.

Logitech Pop: Stylish, portable, but far from the best typing experience

Plenty of mechanical keyboards that use silent switches. Don't have the tactile feedback of clicky/tactile switches. There are also o-rings that will reduce the noise of the latter types.

Seriously, you do not want to make that cable your earth

Re: Bee-sting ?

Definitely they were vampire taps (sucking the data from the network) . However, apparently, today is world bee day. So maybe just for today?

Datacenters in Ireland draw more power than all rural homes put together

Re: Datacenters vs grid power.

< equivalent to the use of a large city eg Kilkenny

According to an unreliable source, in 2016 Kilkenny had a population under 27,000, I think you have a very odd definition of "large".

Unless your basis of a for city sizing is St. David's, which is a village with history.

Debugging source is even harder when you can't stop laughing at it

It does not mean that the stress relief becomes part of the code base (or anything else that will outlive the current state of affairs),

Sorry, can't think of anything funny to say :-(.

Client demo in 30 minutes. Just what could go wrong?

Re: What's in a name?

Except when it is a network cable.

Broken tab, and slipped out just enough for an unreliable connection.

BOFH: All hail the job cuts consultant

Re: "Gerard's going to recommend firing the board."

A trebuchet is always a win.

20 years of .NET: Reflecting on Microsoft's not-Java

Re: The influence of Java on .NET is complex

> But .NET doesn't provide a graphical UI layer on anything other than M$ Windows.

But Web Apps do.

Who wants the distribution hassle of a local app when not needed? (This also applies to mobile: I suspect 90+% of mobile apps could be simpler as a PWA.)

Polly wants a snapper? Parrot swipes GoPro for sweet views of New Zealand's Fiordland

Lake Tekapo?

Yes, beautiful.

(And, a few days previously had a Kea happily sitting on glacial ice for a photo (this was early 2000's, so all on film).

Hardware boffin starts work on simulation of an entire IBM S/360 Model 50 mainframe

Re: TMMM

> I would point new readers to the 1995 anniversary edition.

Yes the additional chapters are definitely worth it. It preserves the original content, and then reviews it.

And then you notice the '95 "20th Anniversary" edition is now about 25 years old...

Behold! The first line of defence for 25% of the US nuclear stockpile: Dolphins

Re: It makes sense to use Dolphins as the last line of defence.

It appears, at this point in time, you are missing 36 additional upvotes.

Google says open source software should be more secure

Re: Everybody knows

That's what Free Software is about: each contributor puts in the effort needed for their own purposes and shares the result.

Nice theory. In practice this happens rarefy, and even less for transitive dependencies.

Much easier to raise an issue asking for a fix or extra functionality.

No defence for outdated defenders as consumer AV nears RIP

Re: "prevent, in the consumer space is Auntie Mavis downloading AwesomePictures.exe"

There are no absolutes in security.

Whatever things you put in place, there is always the possibility you will be subject to a novel attack.

Re: "prevent, in the consumer space is Auntie Mavis downloading AwesomePictures.exe"

<blockquote.

Probably the built-in Windows AV is enough in such case without the need to install a third party solution.

</blockquote.

Even more if said aunt is a normal user, not an admin.

Microsoft rang in the new year with a cutesy tweet in C#. Just one problem: The code sucked

Re: Fixed it for you

Mine.

Not the TZ of the person running the code!

Re: Fixed it for you

Code review failed:

1. dependent on user's time zone!

2. doing system call to get current time twice

New year, new OS: OneDrive support axed for old versions of Windows from 1 Jan 2022

Re: Arbitrary dropping of support

The article gets the dates wrong.

The actual message is from start of next year in line with the support of the OS: only Win8 loses support in Jan 2022 (as Win 8 iwent EoL Jan 2016);. Win7 & 8.1 continue until 2023-01-23.

That will have been a decade for Windows 7: how much support to you expect to get without further payment?

Re: OneDrive

s/OneDrive/Google Drive/

works just as well...

Logitech MX Keys Mini: Svelte keyboard takes cues from Apple in more ways than one

"Svelte keyboard"

Definitions move forward.... so many keys! Hardly a svelte keyboard by current standards.

Who needs more than three keys?

GitHub merges 'useless garbage' says Linus Torvalds as new NTFS support added to Linux kernel 5.15

Re-trunk would imply there is a special trunk branch. but there isn't. In git all branches are equal. (Processes for humans might define some to be more special, but that is not part of git itself.)

I learnt git by just using git from the command line for a project I was starting, and just took the learning time. Having rather different terminology overall helped, because it reminded me the underlying conceptual model is different.

Also, spending time understanding that model really helped. a D-VCS is very different to a centralised one, trying to use git as if it were a centralised VCS is doomed to repeatedly being caught out by the differences.

PS. Barons Court (applying Mont's bypass, and you're in Nidd).

Brit says sorry after waving around nonce patent and leaning on sites to cough up

Not over

https://twitter.com/Scott_Helme/status/1432694034481532928

They're throwing DCMA takedowns around now,,,

Git 2.33 released with new optional merge process likely to become the default: It's 'over 9,000' times faster

Re: Find git hard?...

Yes. And it is a RPITA when I have to go back to that project.

One of these days (real soon now(rm)) I'kll get to complete the changes needed (large XML files don't work with merges) to transition to git, and make everyone's life easier.

git's model is complex, but it is a tool for developers who work with complex tools all the time.

Internet Explorer 3.0 turns 25. One of its devs recalls how it ended marriages – and launched amazing careers

Re: Sadly, there were divorces and broken families and bad things

Peer pressure can make it very hard to say no: both managers asking, and comparing the effort the "young guys" are putting in.

And then the Stockholm Syndrome kicks in...

> This wasn’t a toxic pressure cooker of working against one’s will.

Sounds like the author was so happy with the success t hat followed, they forgot that management pressure that lead to such a toxic environment.

Just the frog not noticing the temperature rise does not mean it wasn't rising.

"Only two divorces"... and how many almost divorces?

When you accept this work place culture and accept it because of some success for someone else, makes you part of the problem.

Good news: There's a slightly increased chance of asteroid Bennu hitting Earth. Bad news: It's still really slight

Re: Lucky it's not 1,000,000:1

You like in the in The Long Earth series?

Boots on Moon in 2024? NASA OIG says you better moonwalk away from that date, because suits ain't ready

Re: Duct Tape Space Suits

Did you check where the link in the article goes?

Full Stream ahead: Microsoft will end 'classic' method of recording Teams meetings despite transcription concerns

> they should have just used an existing language

They did: a large part of the syntax comes from VMS's DCL.

Tesla battery fire finally flamed out after four-day conflagration

Re: My maths is bad but

ISTR the 300 was 300MW: the maximum output power, not 300WMh.

We've seen things you people wouldn't believe. An exoplanet building its own moons

Re: Amazing!

Is that two total or per head?

UK's National Museum of Computing asks tunesmiths to recreate bleeps, bloops, and parps of retro game music

Re: fond memories of laboriously typing in lists of SOUND statements ...

BBC Basic was rather more sophisticated with higher level support... and that was a thin wrapper around "OS" level operations, so usable without the Basic interpreter.

Hence various games later on having speech synthesis.

And

> 40th anniversary of the BBC Micro

I deny the reality in which it is that long ago!

China sets goal of running single-stack IPv6 network by 2030, orders upgrade blitz

you mixing up MAC address randomisation (which Android and iOS do) with IP afdresses.

Impromptu game of Robot Wars sparks fire in warehouse at UK e-tailer Ocado

"the vast majority of the CFC is in good condition"

Why is a new(ish) facility using chlorofluorocarbons?

My coat? Its the one with the chemistry textbook in the pocket!

Florida Man sues Facebook, Twitter, YouTube for account ban

Re: That three me for a few seconds

> Florida Man-Child in Chief

FTFY.

YouTube's recommendation engine is pretty naff, Mozilla study finds

YouTube's recommendation engine is pretty naff, and in other news

The head of The Universal Church is a member of said church; and ursidae defecate in aboral zones.

USA's efforts to stop relying on Russian-built rocket engines derailed by issues with Blue Origin's BE-4

Re: ULA And Blue Origin

> pacex says it does stuff and does it eventually

FIFY: announced timelines don't match reality. (SpaceX is fat from the only party suffering from this.)

'Set it and forget it' attitude to open-source software has become a major security problem, says Veracode

Re: The Solution is Simple for Those who Mislike Open Source

Do you think commercial components get regularly updated?

Pakistan's Punjab province tells citizens to get jabbed or have their SIM card blocked

Re: Momento mori

> 30% of the delta variant deaths in England last week were fully vaccinated people ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57441677 )

You've miss-read the article.

There are:

- People without any vaccination

- People are partially vaccinated

- People who are fully vaccinated

If almost two thirds of people who... are in the first group, it does not follow the remainder are in the third. It was been widely stated that those in the second group have relatively little protection against delta, so likely most of the third remaining are in that group.

And remember maximum protection occurs 2–3 weeks after the second does.

Linus Torvalds tells kernel list poster to 'SHUT THE HELL UP' for saying COVID-19 vaccines create 'new humanoid race'

A put down that is highly informative! Have an e-one on me!

Six years in the making, Vivaldi Mail arrives alongside version 4.0 of the company's browser

The Vivaldi team was born out of the ashes of the Opera team...

Google to revive RSS support in Chrome for Android

Vivaldi

This would be anything to do with Vivaldi adding support (in preview) over the last few updates?

Beyond video to interactive, personalised content: BBC is experimenting with rebuilding its iPlayer in WebAssembly

Re: This is all rather confusing

> For a start, there's nothing (in principle) you can do with WebAssembly that you can't do with Javascript

True of any Turing complete language: they are all theoretically as capable as each other. However I'll leave wearing a hair-shirt for the masochists. JavaScript is not a good choice where significant numeric processing is needed (eg. decoding a media stream).

Train operator phlunks phishing test by teasing employees with non-existent COVID bonus

Re: But isn't this what (real) criminals would do?

From the article,

> The deliberately inauthentic email first thanked staff[…]

So they did fall for it, and clicked through because their "too good to be true so it isn't" check failed.

Re: But isn't this what (real) criminals would do?

Stock and stock options are a different matter.

As, you found, the benefit can be limited.

And, there are potentially a whole load of tax implications that a cash bonus (given PAYE in the UK) does not imply.

Visual Basic 6 returns: You've been a good developer all year. You have social distanced, you have helped your mom. Here's your reward

VB5 and 6 did keep me busy for several years. By writing C++ to get around VB's very restricted subset of COM and using the much more powerful debugger to debug things that the VB6 debugger couldn't help with.

One of the latter cases was the first bug I used the internet to help solve... using Lynx (no GUI browser for me!) to find the offset of the reference count in VB6 UI components.

And thus work out which set of components were stuck with circular references (app worked fine in the VB6 IDE, but the built version would crash on exit every time).

Microsoft demotes Calibri from default typeface gig, starts fling with five other fonts

> You pick the right typeface for the purpose.

That would mean people knowing the first thing about typography. Which clearly they don't. I suspect that 99% of all documents use whatever is`the default in the application used to initially create the document.

And this applies to every spreadsheet, presentation, etc. as well.

Re: Skeena is the least worst?

> 'e' in Bierstadt

And now cannot un-see... they're all compromised in one way or another so not an easy call to have only one.

I need to fine a long doc I need to read, and try different paragraphs in different options to check out readability at smaller sizes. As the default we'll end up see a lot of text top read in whatever the choice is.