Posts by Uffish

First successful Hyperloop test module hits 100mph in four seconds

Re: designed

... 'evolved' works just as well in his argument.

Re: queues on the loop

I think the cause of the queues on the loop would be the limited capacity compared to the train, road and air infrastructures.

Big Pharma wrote EU anti-vaping diktat, claims Tory ex-MEP

Re: downwind

@I.P. & S.R. (and smokers/vapers in general).

I totally agree with Orlowski's article and your comments, this is a truly terrible piece of legislation and it is terrible both in its misguided intentions and in the reasons for its coming into being.

I would be happy to help man the barricades with you - just don't expect me to agree with smoking / vaping in public spaces (or whatever the legal term is).

Re: downwind

The second hand gaseous product of eating a lot of beans is also biologically insignificant but nevertheless very annoying. I expect that strangers will not be completely oblivious of their effect on others.

For fuck's sake just stop smoking in any form you bunch of self centred, neurotic, poseurs.

Not anonymous, just totally unimpressed by smokers.

Supernova bubble clocked at 19,000,000 km/h

A long time ago and far, far away...

The phrases "went bang in spectacular fashion back in 1572." and "at a distance of some 10,000 light years" should not be used together. Not for a long while anyway.

Finance bods SWIFT to update after Bangladesh hack

The fat lady isn't singing yet

Seems like they have been rootling around the coffers of a bank in Belgium.

Archaeologists find oldest ever ground-edge stone axe

Re: Interesting, but...

I've got two stone age cutting implements (both found by chance at the edges of ploughed fields), one is a knapped but not ground knife the other is half of a beautifully smooth, ground axehead. Both are still sharp. They may not cut wood as well as a £17.99 B&Q axe but they sure have lasted longer.

Experian Audience Engine knows almost as much about you as Google

Re: Former Experian developer here

So far they haven't been able to force me to buy anything though and, tedious though it is, there are reasonably effective remedies for unwanted advertising.

(Sorry El Reg - can you tell me how to accept your adverts anonymously - no cookies, no tracking, no targeting - otherwise the annoyance outweighs the benefits).

Official: Microsoft's 'Get Windows 10' nagware to vanish from PCs in July

Re: Serious question

Serious answer - it doesn't matter, the problem is that Microsoft has consistently used Windows as a revenue generator, putting out new versions whenever they needed a fresh dollop of unimaginable wealth, not when they thought they needed to upgrade the platform for technical reasons.

Their intentions for Win 10 are still purely financial, the technical aspects are, for them, irrelevant. For a user, on the other hand, it is only the technical (functional) characteristics of an OS that matter leading to a very uneasy relationship with the Vendor, which has now snapped in my (insignificantly small) case.

Germans stick traffic lights in pavements for addicts who can't take their eyes off phones

Re: Cost

May I suggest a lower cost solution. It's what I thought the article's title meant when I first read it.

In future put all traffic lights, street lights, litter bins, park benches in the middle of the pavement (USA etc - sidewalk). That will at least educate a lot of the ipodestrians.

Let’s re-invent small phones! Small screens! And rubber buttons!

Re: damning with faint praise

@ Philip Lewis

So, you're saying that Trump speaks nonsense equally as well as other idiots. You may well say that, I couldn't possibly comment..

ExoMars probe narrowly avoids death, still in peril after rocket snafu

so whats wrong if ...

Fast forward a few (thousand) generations and:

"across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.”

Snowden WAS the Feds' quarry in Lavabit case, redaction blunder reveals

Re: Non-Death Penalty

You misread it, it means the they will be turned into zombies.

Drip, drip, drip...

The FBI is getting a different sort of publicity lately.

Get lost, Windows 10 and Phone fans: No maps HERE on Microsoft's OS

Re: Car entertainment units

Are you saying that the car entertainment unit is for entertaining the car - or for entertaining the people in the car?

NASA's mighty SLS to burn 1.215 Olympic-sized pools

Re: Carbon emissions?

None, but they plan on giving existing trees a good watering every time they launch.

Uncle Sam's boffins stumble upon battery storage holy grail

Electricity

The electricity will come from windmills of course - anything else is unthinkable.

Airbus' Mars plane precursor survives pressure test

Re: Why make it manned...

Per Playmobil ad astra.

GCHQ: Crypto's great, we're your mate, don't be like that and hate

Re: "resist the dragnet."

Fine, resist away and you will be tagged as someone hiding something. I don't suppose that would cause you any problems and I don't suppose the security people would do anything unless you managed to accumulate some other tags, US no-fly list, regularly seen parking outside the Ruritanian embassy or whatever criteria they have for being suspicious.

The point is that the security services keep saying that they are looking for the "unknown unknowns" hence the dragnet and hence their craving for full access to everything. If they can't have that (and I sincerely hope they don't) then they will have to make do with the next best thing, which seems to be looking at everything anyway in the hope that they will be able to get at least something from it.

How to crack unbreakable crypto.

If I understood correctly the extracts of Hannigan's speech he is asking for crypto software which falls over if you don't follow a strict procedure, or some such 'human" cause of failure. So you can have your secure crypto but if you ever forget to put in a new password for each message it can be cracked. That way your average crim can have the best crypto but GCHQ can read the plaintext..

On another note, after analysing Hannington's comments I can see why a Classics background might be useful in his job - it must require great linguistic skills to appear to say X in such simple english but actually mean Y.

Big Brother has an overwhelming need to continue watching you, and you, and you ...

Amazon douses flames, vows to restore Fire OS fondleslab encryption

Re: "Twisted"

The phrase you are quoting is "feeling like they are genuinely free" which needs an awful lot of twisting to extract "feeling like they are in America", so back off a bit.

And while you are at it - where is your example of the best freedom to be had on the planet. For myself, I would suggest Monaco - but only if you are very, very rich.

Norman Conquest, King Edward, cyber pathogen and illegal gambling all emerge in Apple v FBI

Re: Nobody complained before ...

This 'Post Office' mind game has gone too far.

Before cheap, powerful computers and storage were invented it was uneconomical to spy on everyone unless the authorities had good reason to mistrust everyone. Now it is affordable and any bureaucracy will adopt useful equipment and practices if it fits into the budget. The problem is not the bureaucracies it is the law.

The FBI needs to know where the law stands. We need to have the laws that suit us.

How the FBI will lose its iPhone fight, thanks to 'West Coast Law'

Re: It's an actual cliff...

Certainly it's a big cliff but it is by no means sure that the FBI is actually pushing us over the cliff - see the article for good reasons for that idea.

Of all the three letter agencies involved in the encryption problem the FBI is the one best suited to taking the problem to court. I can't imagine that the CIA, NSA etc would be stopped by a court ruling if National Security was at stake, but the FBI, (I imagine), would feel bound by a final court ruling. And this problem does need a definitive legal response because how else can you convince a Congressman (or worse, a New Jersey property developer) what is allowed and what is not allowed in the US.

Google robo-car backs into bendy-bus in California

Re: Driverless Cars?

Stop, then reverse to get room to move into another lane, and with traffic coming up behind. That is not driverless, that is brainless.

Re: Right of way

Those that believe that the movement of vehicles on the road is solely governed by the Road Transport Act will end up very annoyed.

NSA boss reveals top 3 security nightmares that keep him awake at night

Re: Is

None has been singular or plural since at least the ninth century. I'm not a grammar boffin so I am not qualified to say that you are wrong but I will say that you are not exclusively right.

Wakey wakey, app developers. Mobile ad blocking will kill you all

Re: Tricky problem.

There is an solution to the payment problem, Google (or whatever it calls itself now) runs Google pay, Apple runs Apple pay and MS runs Windows pay - if these organisations made a commitment to providing a non-data slurping, secure service, and stood by it, they ought to be able to make it work.

Hmm - tricky problem.

Donald Trump promises 'such trouble' for Jeff Bezos and Amazon

Re: It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world...

The thing about the USA is that it has a lot of big things, the grand Canyon, Walmart, bombs etc etc. It also does big WTFs. I'd put my money on them avoiding disaster, they are not (in the majority) fools.

In the mean time enjoy the WTF show.

Raspberry Pi 3 to sport Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE – first photos emerge

Re: At the risk of 'banging on' again and again...

"The single core of RPi 1's makes it unsuitable to run as a FAST desktop..." FTFY.

The RPi 1 works fine for me if I'm not in a hurry, but then I can remember preparing a paper tape for an overnight run on a shared computer followed by de-bugging and a wait for the next overnight run. Anything is faster than that.

Re: WiFi?

There is a little white block, top left, between the display connector and the GPIO connector. It's not on my RPi 2. No idea if it's what your looking for though.

Apple fires legal salvo at FBI for using All Writs law in iPhone brouhaha

" rescue neighborhoods from terrorists"

Is this the USA he's talking about? Does it mean yet more refugees if Apple won't unlock that damn iPhone?

Ukraine has a Eurovision pop at Russia

Re: if Brexit....

I've got good news for you - you don't have to watch it, it's not compulsory, your job prospects are not affected if you don't watch it. And it has sod all to do with the EU.

Brit spies can legally hack PCs and phones, say Brit spies' overseers

Re: You are patient..

You can't stop a country from having spooks, they seem to be a necessity. We now have a court ruling that they are allowed to spy on the citizens of this country (nothing new there). It seems that the politically responsible Cabinet Minister is also administratively responsible and has some levers to pull if the spooks get uppity. So, it's the same old system, dusted down, judicially audited and essentially relying on the Code of the Woosters and Jeeves the Civil Servant to save us from anarchy, dictatorship or other extremes.

Re: English

@Doctor Syntax

Downvoted for being an unimaginative reactionary - and for mistaking the English language for Standard Written English. One is extremely expressive and flexible the other is used for writing repair manuals.

Official UN panel findings on embassy-squatter released. Assange: I'm 'vindicated'

Re: Halp!

Yes, it all looks like a storm in a teacup except for one thing - he really did fear being bundled off to America if he went to Sweden. He feared this and he had many good reasons to fear this. That was why Ecuador offered him asylum, that was why he claimed asylum.

Personally I think he wouldn't have been shipped to the States but I have absolutely no idea if that is just optimism; in any case I can't blame him for running into the embassy. Again personally, I don't think his situation will get any better so he should just face the music and get arrested by the nearest constable.

Re: discredit ...

@ LucreLout

I regard Chelsea Manning's actions as honourable - she will get a dishonourable discharge from the army. You can wiggle around in all the pseudo logic you want but America has not treated her as well as she deserves.

Lights out for Space Vehicle Number 23: UK smacked when US sat threw GPS out of whack

@Bill Gray

As you say, GPS receivers work with multiple satellites and it seems, from the "several other satellites affected" report, that GPS satellites talk amongst themselves or to a ground station.

Anyone designing a GPS system (whether the satellite end or the receiver end) would consider the case where data from at least one satellite or ground station was in error. We are talking military on the satellite side, and high precision timing (for one use of GPS) on the receiver side so it is not a slap happy crowd of lazy engineers and programmers that produced these systems.

OK GPS is complex and a truly unforeseen or very low probability event might have just happened but, to me, it looks odd.

WTF

How many functioning GPS satellites are there up there and how long would a non-functioning GPS satellite hang around over the Midlands ?

Methinks either something is very wrong with peoples timekeeping equipment or someone has not explained what exactly happened. There's a story there somewhere.

US rapper slams Earth is Round conspiracy in Twitter marathon

Re: curvature of the horizon

Have you ever seen the curvature of the horizon? I never have been able to convince myself that I had, and ever since the arrival of the fish-eye lens I have seriously doubted the validity of such observations.

Ships coming and going over the horizon is easy to observe.

Oracle blurts Google's Android secrets in court: You made $22bn using Java, punk

Re: @dajames "A dictionary is descriptive"

The Académie Française is charged with maintaining a dictionary of the French language. This is an authoritative definition of the French language and so must be considered prescriptive. Not even the august members of the Académie Française themselves take the idea very seriously.

How to build a starship - and why we should start thinking about it now

Re: Sad reality

Has anyone done some calculations on how many people would be needed to maintain an acceptable level of civilization so that, for example, clothing* could be replaced, strange infectious diseases could be treated, dropped mobile phones could be repaired/replaced, trans-new-world transport could be built and run, new generations could be educated and scientific /engineering progress maintained etc etc.

It seems to me that the numbers of people required for a successful autonomous colony would be impracticable, and that those left behind on Earth would be a bit reluctant to finance continuous re-supply missions.

*For example, stone age clothing was very low tech, today's clothing requires advanced agriculture, synthetic materials, specialized machinery, efficient transportation and (I think) specialized retail industries.

We need warp drive and replicator technology before even thinking of space colonization.

Cops hate encryption but the NSA loves it when you use PGP

Re: "More data, more data,... "

If even readers of The Register can be thrown by the DC reference what hope does a security service have of being up to date with all the "argot" of a worldwide group of nasties ? How do you monitor a language you don't know ?

My only knowledge of security and police service procedures comes from TV and Cinema, but simply watching the comings and goings at a suspect address seems to be a very common practice. If the suspicions are confirmed then the other means are called in - such as the rooting of suspects' computers etc. It does seem to be a fairly effective data sifting method.

Five reasons why the Google tax deal is imploding

Re: "legally binding fiduciary duty"

@ Lysenko, is "legally binding fiduciary duty to maximise profits" the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ?

If it is, then the law needs changing.

Re: "why not just tax people"

... or why not just tax company profits at source? That way Governments can get the money that they want without getting involved with complicated paperwork with a lot of bemused citizens.

If a government doesn't tax company profits at source the money will vanish and you will find , if you look really really hard, that a lot of it is no longer within the jurisdiction of the government, who will then get the money they want from the bemused citizens.

The "tax the people" system works really well for some and not at all well for a lot of bemused citizens.

Uber driver 'pulls handgun' on passenger

Re: " back up your bullshit with facts"

I'd settle for simple clarity of thought.

Pubs good for the soul: Official

Re: giving head

In the dim and distant past I was involved with patents and trademarks. One of our industrial chemical clients had a range of trademarks for food grade foaming agents, mainly for beer. The stuff is still around, despite Camra's excellent work.

GCHQ spies quashed this phone encryption because it was too good against snoopers

Re: "bits of Orwell or Huxley"

That particular bit of Orwell just seems to be defining terms rather than some sort of rallying cry; a bit like "for a perfectly spherical raindrop" or something. Real life has to deal with real conditions, and in the case of GCHQ 'dictatorship' and 'power' are not in the pure form but more a sort of establishment consensus for getting things done in a reasonably effective way. Hence the very public expressions of surprise at any suggestion of wrongdoing and the unabashed advocacy for more of the same.

The problem lies in the huge discrepancy between the size of the establishment and the size of the population and the very limited power of the law in this area. Democracy it ain't.

Recall: Bring out yer dead and over-heating Microsoft Surface Pro power cords

Re: SW company?

It's the ac power cable that fails, it's the ac power cable that is replaced so it is the ac power cable that is the problem.

How difficult is it to fuck-up the sourcing for an ac power cable? About a 1000 times more difficult than engineering a laptop/tablet.

Aircraft now so automated pilots have forgotten how to fly

Re: "overpaid berks"

Don't forget the catastrophic crash caused by overpaid berks in the City and Canary Wharf, we're still paying for their incompetence.