Posts by Spazturtle

Brit space sector struggles to compete with £90K graduate banking salaries

And the difference is even bigger when you factor in the average total tax burden (combining all taxes, income tax, VAT, council tax, fuel tax, etc). For the UK it is ~40% for the US (specifically California) it is ~20%.

Firefox is dead to me – and I'm not the only one who is fed up

Re: They keep removing features. When was the last time they added one?

SFTP is not FTP, SFPT is SSH and is the replacement for SCP.

FTP with TLS is FTPS.

What non Blink alternatives are there though? Safari?

Firefox stopped caring about the quality of their software the moment they forced out Brendan Eich. But there is no real alternative that doesn't give full control of web standards over to Google.

Tug reaches flaming ship carrying electric cars off Alaska coast

Re: 'Noticing' smoke

An electron moves from the anode to the cathode, that is a redox reaction.

The Wikipedia article even calls it a redox reaction:

"Cathode

Transition metal oxides (TMOs) are widely used as cathode materials in lithium-ion batteries as the variable oxidation state of transition metal cations allows oxides of these metals to reversibly host lithium ions (Li⁺) and undergo efficient redox (reduction-oxidation) reactions."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Cathode

Re: ships or decks never catch fire

No, lithium batteries need a minimum of 2.4V charge otherwise they stop working and need to be recycled into new batteries to work again, the battery has the initial charge when it is made.

Blocking stolen phones from the cloud can be done, should be done, won't be done

You can spoof what it shown to apps but not what the tower see as that is on the modem side. But if you have RCS enabled then it is moot since that gives Google and Apple access to the mobile network side so they can see the real IMEI.

Elon Musk pukes over pork-filled budget bill with Tesla subsidies on the line

Re: Musk thinks the bill isn't cruel enough

Also university is free in the US under the GI bill.

Ex-NASA Admin pick blames Musk ties for pulled nomination

You can cancel sample return missions, you can't cancel bringing your astronauts back. Sounds like Isaccman understands perfectly how to get things done when dealing with DC politicians.

FAA gives SpaceX the nod for Starship Flight 9 but doubles the danger zone

Re: Compensation?

Airlines fly through the hazard zone at their own risk, that is the point of the zone. The FAA is saying that this area of airspace might need to be closed with no notice on a given date, and that airlines take the risk of needing to divert if they fly though it and it gets activated.

The alternative is for the FAA to just close the airspace.

Grandpa-conning crook jailed over sugar-coated drug scam

I fully support just hanging people like this, their 'contribution' to society is unwanted.

'Close to impossible' for Europe to escape clutches of US hyperscalers

It's the same argument people have been making against nuclear for 40 years. We would have achieved net zero by the early 2000's if climate activists had stopped complaining about nuclear being too slow to solve the problem.

Apple to add fresh accessibility features for 2025

Re: "smashed his right arm into enough fragments it needed 36 plates and screws to reassemble it"

The orthopods are the butt of many jokes in hospitals, but they do work wonders with their fancy meccano kits.

Backblaze denies 'sham accounting' claims as short sellers circle

Re: :(

All of the information in this report was already out in the open, they just put it together into a single report.

It's only insider trading if you use information that would not be accessible to others.

Trump’s 145% tariffs could KO tabletop game makers, other small biz, lawsuit claims

Re: Isn't it telling?

"One of the richest countries on earth"

Because a small handful of people have vast quantities of wealth. Most rural Americans live like 3rd world peasants.

Trump thinks we can make iPhones in the US just like China. Yeah, right

Re: Shut that door?

Not since China's ally Russia started a war in Ukraine depriving the world of huge amounts of grain.

Re: Shut that door?

Then the US would do the same, and given that China depends on US food to feed it's population that is a battle China would lose since you can go longer without a new iPhone than you can without food.

SpaceX scores $5.9B lion's share of Space Force launch contracts

Re: Funny that

DOGE or the United States DOGE Service (USDS), formerly United States Digital Service is a US government agency created in 2014 that falls under the executive branch.

Appeals court revives lawsuit alleging IBM bilked pensioners

Re: Incredible

They already do that, it is called a performance improvement plan, where they bully people into poor health by keeping them permanently stressed out.

Americans set to pay more on all imports: Trump activates blanket tariffs

Re: Oh dear....

Normally software is sold as a licence and not goods. You buy a licence to use the software and not a copy of the software (which you could re-sell). So if you have a competent legal team your software should not be subject to tariffs.

AI datacenters want to go nuclear. Too bad they needed it yesterday

Re: "The fuel is long since spent."

Oh yeah the fuel will have a lot of spice left in it, submarine reactors also don't burn as cleanly due to the reactor poisons in them so there is a lot more byproduct than with normal reactors.

The basic design in a long tube filled with a mix of fuel and a burnable neutron poison, then at one end you put pure fuel which can go critical, it burns away the neuron poison in the fuel next to it and allows that fuel to go critical. The reactor then burns from one end to the other over a 10-20 year period.

Re: Do not scrap obsolete nuclear submarines anymore...

Nuclear submarines are not traditionally scrapped, they are stored in docks. The UK has 27 sitting in dockyards and only began scrapping it's first one last year. The fuel is long since spent.

Top cybersecurity boffin, wife vanish as FBI raids homes

Re: And so it begins...

He took a job in Singapore, which implies he fled rather than got picked up.

Cashless society could be why fewer kids are eating coins and sticking things up their noses

Re: Yikes

It's not their job to manage equipment, it's their job to see patients (and do the stupid amounts of paper work the NHS requires). And they see the consequences of when kids swallow batteries, so it is only natural for them to be a bit neurotic about them.

Re: Yikes

Yeah the paediatric SLTs at the hospital I work at become incredibly stressed out whenever they see me changing button cell batteries in medical devices and insist on watching to make sure the old batteries are put in the battery bin.

At least with non-removable batteries in phones the number of burns is down since kids can't chew on them anymore.

UK's first permanent facial recognition cameras installed in South London

Re: I oppose this

"On principle, under the valid and absolute decree that an individual is innocent until he/she/it/etc is PROVED guilty."

This was revoked in the UK in 2014.

You only count as being wrongly convicted if:

"For the purposes of subsection (1), there has been a miscarriage of justice in relation to a person convicted of a criminal offence in England and Wales or, in a case where subsection (6H) applies, Northern Ireland, if and only if the new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that the person was innocent of the offence"

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2013-2014/0066/14066.pdf

Part 13, section 161

The onus is on you to prove that you are innocent.

Re: Wrong question

GDPR does not protect you from the government, they are exempt from it's rules.

Newport Wafer Fab rebooted with £250M silicon carbide investment

Re: Hmm

The best option would have been for the Dutch government to force the Chinese owners of Nexperia to sell it on national security grounds.

Palantir suggests 'common operating system' for UK govt data

Re: Why?!

They already provide a lot of services to the government that are not public, I know for a fact that Palantir staff are embedded with the Int guy at Hereford working on operational planning for special forces.

India ditches its 'Google Tax', perhaps to tickle Trump and dodge tariffs

Rachell Reeves is rumored to announce that American companies will be exempt from the UK's digital services tax in the spring budget.

So apparently what Trump is doing works (at least in the short term).

Infosec pro Troy Hunt HasBeenPwned in Mailchimp phish

Because he works at Microsoft and all his regular contacts likely also use Outlook?

AWS sued by product manager who says she was laid off for being an older woman

The layoffs were from the "People Experience Team" aka HR, and Advertising departments. In my experience those departments are often mainly staffed by women, so cutting from them will affect the ratio.

Boeing's Starliner future uncertain as NASA weighs next steps

Yes, they have lost money of he 737 Max, lost money on the 777X, only just broken even on the 787, lost money on Starliner, lost money on the new Air Force One.

France offers US scientists a safe haven from Trump's war on woke

The UK makes and services it own warheads, only the missiles are serviced by the yanks.

The next gen Dreadnaught subs don't have integrated launch tubes, instead they have a big cutout where you insert a module which contains the tubes. So theoretically the UK could develop a module for launching French missiles

More Voyager instruments shut down to eke out power supplies

It's not the plutonium decaying that is causing most of the power issues, the actual thermoelectric generator that has also degraded. With a half-life of 87.7 years the plutonium still have plenty of juice in it.

Re: I could only wish my work lasted that long

"Deep respect to the guys who made them and those still keeping them going."

Those groups are mostly the same people, here is the team after fixing the software last year:

https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/e1-PIA26275-voyager-copy-16.jpg

UK must give more to ESA to get benefits of space industry boom, says Brian Cox

Re: spend more

"to burn up earths O2 to put more junk in space"

There are very few ways of burning O2 and you need chemical like Platinum hexafluoride, none of which are used in rockets. Usually oxygen is used as the oxidiser.

Run DeepSeek R1 on an Apple M3 Ultra Mac Studio? Sure, it'll just cost you $9,499-plus

Re: No upgrade path, no sale

"$10,000 for a Mac Studio?"

For comparison a Nvidia Grace server with the same amount of VRAM costs ~$60,000.

US stocks slip as Trump pulls trigger on Canada, Mexico, China tariffs

Re: Rebuilding

Why would people who have nothing care about that?

Many people who voted Trump don't like him, or what he is planning to do. But they see the status quo as a stable system of rot and decay, and see Trump as an agent of chaos who will destroy it. And after 4 years of chaos there will be opportunities to rebuild the system better.

Mozilla flamed by Firefox fans after promises to not sell their data go up in smoke

Re: "selling data" as most people think about it

"So they do admit they want to share our data with their "partners" for commercial reasons but somehow that is not what most people think about "selling data"?"

Google pay them to be default search, so Google is a partner. When you type a search into the top bar they send that to Google and take you to the results page, so they are sharing data with a partner.

Under Trump 2.0, Europe's dependence on US clouds back under the spotlight

Re: Wake up call!

The UK needs to work more closely with the French on defence, our SSBNs should be able to launch French missiles for example. We should have had a joint carrier program, France can't afford more than 1 and no ship builder is willing to build only a single ship, we had to make design cuts to afford 2.

Odds of city-killer asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth creep upward

Re: Don't Look Up

It will only cause a 8 megaton blast, and we can already predict that if it hits Earth it will hit either africa or india.

Time to make C the COBOL of this century

It's going to happen and I don't know why people are against it.

If you are a C dev then fine, nobody is going to make you learn another language. There will be enough C projects that need maintaining to last for the rest of your career.

BT fiber rollout passes 17 million homes, altnet challenge grows

"Because of course all we need is streaming content into our houses isn't it?"

Notice how terminology has moved from the use of 'customer' to 'consumer'.

Microsoft admits January's Windows Update broke USB Digital to Audio Convertor

Re: Just another reason NOT to upgrade to Win11 then...

Linux updates can't break audio because Linux has never had properly working audio to begin with, you do get to pick your own flavour of pain though which is nice (ALSA, PulseAudio, JACK or PipeWire).

User said he did nothing that explained his dead PC – does a new motherboard count?

Re: Friends & Family are all Tech Illiterate

Open powershell, type "irm https://get.activated.win | iex" press enter, press 1 and a valid windows licence will get added to your MS account.

AI datacenters putting zero emissions promises out of reach

We should not be aiming to reduce energy consumption, we should be aiming to reduce the CO2 produced during energy production. Building nuclear power plants is the clear solution.

It is far easier to replace the 50 ~0.5MW gas power stations in the UK with 8 3.2MW nuclear power stations that it is to insulate, install heat recovery ventilation, damp proof and install new heating in ~20 millions houses.

NATO's newest member comes out swinging following latest Baltic Sea cable attack

Not quite, in that war game they already knew the route of the US carrier group, so they just sat in wait. The main noise from a sub comes from it's propellor.

UK unveils plans to mainline AI into the veins of the nation

Re: Britons: is the detection of potholes the problem, or the fixing of them?

It must be the detection, as when people spray paint a swastika or racial slur over the pot hole they come out and cut the section of road out and replace it next day.

Blue Origin gives up on New Glenn lift-off, 2 hours into launch window

Dragon won't be able to survive re-entry from the moon, at the moment Orion is the only capsule suitable for a moon mission.

Orion fits on New Glenn, it doesn't fit on Falcon 9 or Heavy.