Posts by Metrognome

Musk's first year as Twitter's Dear Leader is nigh

If only...

Twitter may become a total hellscape and it wouldn't matter.

Why? Because apart from politics Twitter (which is indeed beyond dangerous), there are gazillions other niche/sport/hobby Twitters that don't care for the dumpsterfire around them.

As for organisations and brands, it's all the analytics and ads and promotional tweets that makes them be there. Otherwise they wouldn't even bother having a presence.

If you take all journos, politics, current affairs and the like, Twitter may look half sane. And that's the crux. A very chunky majority doesn't care or see what the politics side looks like.

Nvidia: Using cheap GeForce, Titan GPUs in servers? Haha, nope!

Re: How can they stop you?

Exactly!

It's practically uneforceable and they know it.

It is however, enough of a question mark to dissuade certain big corporates from trying out this route; which is precisely the goal of this amendment. All a corp counsel needs, is to declare a certain option as legal grey area and the whole plan is killed stone dead.

Re: Unenforceable.

While I commend your maximalist interpretation of the legal situation, I'd advise against such optimistic assessment.

All it takes is for the shadow of legal complications down the line, for purchasing decisions to be swayed one way or the other. You may even be correct in what you write but try preemptively convincing a purchasing guy that "it will all work out in the end" and that "that's nothing to worry about" and see what reaction you get.

All Nvidia cares about is discouraging widespread substitution and cannibalisation of its product lines. This change achieves that with the minimum of fuss or effort. Unless you seriously think they're going to devote funds, time and people chasing the odd researcher.

TL;DR: If you're small fry it doesn't affect you, but if you intended on making a living out of it, then be aware of the possible dangers. And if you're a large corp, don't entertain thoughts of doing things "on the cheap".

Huawei P10 Plus: The bigger brother is the real contender

Re: Korean rival to Samsung and LG

Don't call me Shirley

Ex-employees sued for £15m over data slurpage ordered to pay up just £2

Still, if ti means the two individuals have to pay court costs, it's still quite a steep penalty for them I would have thought.

Security hardened, pah! Expert doubts Kaymera's mighty Google's Pixel

I'd rather go to someone like Crypto (despite its history with NSA tampering etc.) than ever relying on an Israeli outfit to secure my data.

Here's an option: https://crypto.ch/en/products-and-services/products/crypto-mobile-hc-9100

Cost-wise it's orders of magnitude higher but you get what you pay for.

Fitbit picks up Pebble, throws Pebble as far as it can into the sea

Re: Could be an option

surprised I omitted the link: http://www.gearbest.com/smart-watches/pp_281720.html?wid=21

Sorry

Could be an option

Standalone Android 4.4 and BT to a phone as well.

No way you'll get 4 days' worth of juice but the rest should be covered.

It can do TFA for Google, Microsoft and Steam. Not sure which TFA app you're after.

Today the web was broken by countless hacked devices – your 60-second summary

Re: Home Router Traffic @Metrognome

I'm fully with you on that. I operate under the assumption that everything is indeed compromised and then work backwards to see if anything was worth securing or not. But in the case of elderly relatives and associated clueless people, uPNP just works and it's good enough for them and their needs.

As for DDoS'ing some unknown place, they couldn't care less and there's no way they'd start fiddling with any settings outside the default ones for the sake of no one. Hell, they hardly even do this for their own safety and on their own mobile phones, what makes you think they'd start now caring about DDoS-ing?

Re: Home Router Traffic

Sorry, wrong. uPNP and zero conf are godsends in home environments. Most peeps would rather have things work out of the box than worry if their fridge is actively DDoS-ing some far flung and mostly unknown entity that does "something on the internet".

I remember the bad old days when I had to physically call up to my parents' house to re-work whatever mess they found themselves in. Now, uPNP, ports open automatically, things communicate and join each other and to be honest, they have precious little to secure on their devices much like most people.

Also, to all the standards-talkers, persuade China first, discuss afterwards.

Sorry to rain on your parade but some real-world perspective would help a lot of people understand the true limitations of the options they offer.

Re: Maybe..

What unadulterated bollocks.

How do you outlaw the Chinese makers that flood ebay, gearbest, aliexpress and the like?

Do you guys think that some army of standards enforcers will land in China and start shutting factories down?

The Chinese manufacturers neither know nor care about these things; mostly the same stands for their customers.

Good God, we've found a Google thing we like – the Pixel iPhone killer

My thoughts exactly!

Isn't he confusing the obligatory fingerprint sensor hole to what would need to be a second hole, way further down the back to reveal the logo?

Still, there's only so much you can observe in 5 minutes which, frankly, is a pathetic amount of time given to journos.

EFF dinks HP Inc finks in rinky-dink ink stink

EFF Misnomer?

Isn't EFF the Electronic *frontier* (as opposed to freedom) foundation?

Height of stupidity: Heathrow airliner buzzed by drone at 7,000ft

On a technical point....

Commercial airliners are not at all likely to be holding at 300kts. This kind of speed would make the holding pattern extend way out and interfere with other airways. Furthermore, unless explicit authorisation is granted the blanket rule worldwide is 250kts or below at 10k feet and under.

The most likely speed for holding is a healthy, economical, no flaps 220. Anything from 190-230 actually is the most common speed for holding.

Irritable Cisco kicks Nutanix out of partner program

Re: Other HCI Still in program - not competitors?

Well, I work in purchasing and married to lawyer who works on precisely those issues (as well as transfer pricing malarkey but that's for another day).

The short of it is that it's legit because it's their "program" so their rules. A bit like AOSP and Google. If you go AOSP do as you please but if you want to bundle Google apps on the phone who have to play by their rules.

And of course, regarding the other members of the program, it may be clear that they are not competitors to Cisco today but there's no re-assurance that Cisco won't ever decide to branch out hence rendering members in direct competition beyond their will. Very far fetched but as a re-seller you may want to consider it.

Unlimited mobile data in America – where's the catch? There's always a catch

All you can eat

You write: " And not one, anywhere, has lasted very long." I beg to differ. Swisscom in Switzerland has been offering these all-you-can-eat/doownload packages since at least 2010 and they're still going strong.

Mind you, they have priced them accordingly.

Enjoy: https://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/mobile/subscription-tariffs/natel-infinity2-xl.html#handy=ja

We bet your firm doesn't stick to half of these 10 top IT admin tips

ISO and associated malarkey

"...ISO adjudicator to take away the certification...."

I have been working with ISO QA systems since the early 2000's and I have yet to find a case where non-conformities result in a certification lapse, with the exception of bankrupt companies on the brink of calling the administrators in.

Microsoft gobbles Chipzilla's Havok 3D physics unit in cloud gaming play

Re: Microsoft play well with others?

Company that plays well:

Sun Microsystems?

Bah humbug. It's Andrew's Phones of the Year

Choice of front-runner

What's the point in awarding first place to a device that's hard to come by?

BlackBerry Priv: Enterprise Android in a snazzy but functional package

Re: This, might replace my Bold 9700, finally.

There still people who use these???

More BlackBerry layoffs: 200 Venice devs binned amid Android shift

About 5 years too late.

I still remember everyone's cries for a decent keyboard (and NO, the HTC ChaCha is not a decent keyboard) on an Android device and how if BB could pull it we'd all migrate to their handsets.

Still, we'll see if better late than never still holds.

Intel's 6th gen processors rock – but won't revive PC markets

Re: Metrognome

OK, where do I start? Cores (4 to 8), PCI lanes (16 to 40) or Cache (8 to 20)?

Just on the PCI 3.0 Lanes, if you want to do SLi/Crossfire or simply slap on a PCI SSD, you're out of luck.

Same with future expansion options.

1151 are definitive false economies.

The 2011v3 replaced one of the early i7's from late 2008 so having a 5-6 year stint on each CPU, while in meantime allowing for whatever new gizmo comes along from SSD's to the (then-new) USB3 is good economics. The 2001v3 has another 5-6 years (if not more) of good gaming life ahead of it barring some unforeseen revolution that would make us all upgrade.

Can we once and for all put to bed the notion that anything LGA 1151 can be associated with serious gaming of any kind?

Unless and until we have a replacement for the LGA 2011v3 beasts, nothing can persuade me to upgrade.

All the 1151's are like also-rans in a losing race.

Re: Gamers always benefit from refreshed hardware?

Fully agree. Besides, naming anything LGA 1151 as gaming or enthusiast is a travesty.

LGA 2011 - X99 still reign supreme. Octacore @3.5 GHz with 20MB cache? Thank you very much :)

As McAfee runs for US President – we ask a crucial question: Will Reg readers back him?

Am I the only one that finds his voice really attractive in a kind of feature film promo trailer kind of way?

Sorry, Californians, you can't have this: Asus to build WATER COOLED notebook

Sneer all you like; ASUS gear is usually both top notch and pretty good value for money.

All aboard the Skylake: How Intel stopped worrying and learned to love overclocking

Feel free to downvote but I still maintain that LGA 1151 is a halfway house for moderate setups.

True enthusiast boards are LGA 2011 exclusively.

Just look:

PCI lanes on offer: 1151 - 16, 2011 - 40!

SATA 3 (6 Gbps): 1151 - 6, 2011 - 10!

Cores: 1151 - Max 4, 2011 - Max 8

L3 Cache: 1151 - Max 8MB, 2011 Max 20MB

So, unless I misread something, the LGA 1151 is what I'd call sporty city car and not exactly grand tourer. In other words, the 6700K is hardly a flagship, more of a capable middling.

Techies! Shadow IT means you need to up your game

Re: It is possible to eliminate shadow IT

Yo, Mr. Lock-It-All-Down, don't be so smug. Look around and you'll find that all your lock down twattery has resulted no so much in shadow IT but in a shadow working environment.

I'm willing to bet you that your poor users have resorted to way more ingenious and far fetched to override your control-freakery than you are complacent to realize.

Speaking as a proud member of the shadow IT brigade, I see this as a never-ending saga.

The same article could have been written 10 years ago and most probably would apply 10 years from now.

The reason at the end of the day is that authorised, properly secured apps tend to be cumbersome whereas unauthorised ones trade in the security for ease of use.

One tiny example: file sharing with external partners. Our corporate app works on a rather difficult to type URL, requires registration by the outsiders, only accepts *.zip files that contain the company name in the filename otherwise summarily deletes them and has a 50 MB limit.

Compare with box/drive/onedrive/whatever and you get a shareable URL, 15 GB size limit, 2FA for added safety and you can re-designate a file as no longer being shared after the external has taken it.

I may accept and respect our policies but my external party doesn't have time to faff on with mindless registrations just to get their hands on a single file, not to mention the amount of times externals have sent me their drawings in a zip folder only to be spaffed by the system.

Patching a fragmented, Stagefrightened Android isn't easy

Re: Android is the new Windows

I disagree with part of your premise.

If Google went down the road you describe then Android couldn't/wouldn't be able to boast Andy Rubin (in)famous tweet about what being open meant: https://twitter.com/Arubin/status/27808662429

Then, as you know, there are two flavours of Android. The Google vetted and approved Android with the various forks that exist. Why should Google be responsible for patching the forks?

X-wings, pirates and a generic Lara: Gamescom 2015

Re: "The homogenisation of triple-A games continues apace"

Thanks for the proposals 9/5 but I'm afraid we are after different things.

With the exception of Satellite Reign the others had horrible graphics that make my early police quest and camelot games look positively recent.

Those graphics are painful to look at. It's like playing the original wolfenstein all over again.

How about something more aesthetically pleasing? I mean with graphics like that, no wonder Indie games get only the very dedicated to play them.

Re: "The homogenisation of triple-A games continues apace"

Thank you both. I intend to check 2-3 fro, that list. Looks interesting.

Re: "The homogenisation of triple-A games continues apace"

Pray tell which are those games of which you speak?

The great unwashed would like to know.

Re: Now i see why

Good luck in the upcoming Pong! championships....

Windows 10: A sysadmin speaks his brains – and says MEH

I'm no MS apologist but, strictly speaking, if you are present at your PC at upgrade time you get a popup that you can select the delay between 10 minute and 4 hours. There's also nothing to stop you postponing for endless number of 4-hour intervals.

It's when you go AFK that the timer starts and then goes on with the restart.

Thinking of adding an SSD for SUPREME speed? Read this

Re: Reliability

A 2009 OCZ Z-Drive v1 is still in active duty :)

[Disclaimer: one of its cousins was RMA'd before the current one got delivered]

Re: Can PCIe drives be used as boot drives?

Yes. They are seen and detected by the BIOS/UEFI just fine.

That was also the case with the very early OCZ Z-Drives all the way back in late 2008. No reason for any of the more modern varieties to go back on that.

Finally....

Thank you ElReg for finally considering an article on the subject. I've been asking for something on the topic since late 2008 and the first iteration of the (then) OCZ Z-Drive.

I can't believe that it took 7 years to make such an article a viable topic.

Biologists gasp at lemur's improbably colossal bollocks

Well, it all has to do with the likelihood of being faithful and the amount of rozzering you're likely to encounter. Huge gorillas have testes way smaller than our on account that they stay faithful whereas smaller chimps have massive bollocks on account that they'd pleasure anything that walks past them.

The clincher of the story: Nature intended it for human males to be modestly unfaithful on account of their gonad size. (Not sure it'll stand up in court lads, but don't say I didn't try)

Microsoft picks up shotgun, walks 'Modern apps' behind the shed

Re: Giving the user what he wants...

You're asking the wrong question. MS knew what you knew. Their misplaced gamble was that they could force it down users' throats on account of their ubiquity. Sadly for them, gladly for us, this is not the 1990's.

Pakistan URINE STORM: Google Maps chokes off user editing

Which is why people like me use the CamSam app to precisely report when a camera is no longer there or falsely reported.

Here in Switzerland the coppers have clued up on this and occasionally spam fake reports. Thanks to the crowds though they never last long.

And when they set up a camera, it takes on average 5 minutes till it's reported and shared. I, for one, have reported a fair few while they were still being set up.

Smart grid security WORSE than we thought

One honest question: How do you square your recommendations with the need (more like dictat but let's stay with need) for a meter to last in excess of 10-15 years?

Zuck'ed up: Facebook opens up free internet in India – but bans HTTPS

Re: Worst of both worlds

Wait a minute.

I'm all for the accusations you make but but but, what FB is doing is actually giving away the connection for free. I don't recall AOL giving away internet access packages for free.

So yes, it's abusive and walled garden and all those evil things. But it does give people who would otherwise can't afford internet access somewhat of a window to that world.

If customers become more discerning (as inevitably they will), they'll ditch Zuckernet for the joys of a proper access plan.

This is Sparta? No - it's Microsoft Edge, Son of Internet Explorer

Re: Microsoft Marketing

Yep, count me in on the punch up. I hadn't seen the guy before but upon setting eyes on him the first thing that came to my mind was "tosser".

Uh oh, it's Mobilegeddon! Your site may lose, well, pennies

Not just Google

That gives the Reg's mobile site the green light.

A huge thumbs up from a grateful reader too.

Google’s plan for WORLD DOMINATION takes shape. And it begins with a patent

Re: This shit is patentable?

Help me out here. I think that just describing something on some sci-fi novel or making a movie prop to resemble something performing some (at the time) imaginary things are not sufficient grounds neither to award a patent nor to invalidate another.

Actually building a model and demonstrating its use according to the patent would.

Right?

Intel's cheap and Android's free: Not any more, says TAG Heuer

Excuse the pedantry please but just saying, TAG Heuer has nothing to do with the TAG group for the last 15 or so years. Now it's just one more brand/marque in the growing arsenal of luxury giant LVMH.

German court slaps down Uber's ride-sharing app

Re: Innovation meet .... regulation or why Free enterprise is now a fairytale

I agree with the sentiment; disagree with the premise.

I fully subscribe to your frustration with regulators, regulatory capture and how modern manifestations of capitalism have little to do with its classical definition.

Most large enterprises seek to establish their turf not by virtue of their product/service but by subverting regulators to erect notional and real barriers to entry.

What we experience from Big Corp these days is protectionist's arms race.

But with Uber; I'm afraid you've mixed up the roles. If you think that Uber is this svelte witty underdog fighting the good fight with the behemoths of the taxi profession; think again.

Re: @DropBear - Oh well...

After all, going by the age old joke, that's Germany so anything that's not expressly allowed is forbidden.

(France: Even what is forbidden it's still allowed; Switzerland: anything that's not expressly forbidden is obligatory and Greece: everything is allowed provided you know the right people; and the latest newcomer, Russia: everything is forbidden, even that which is expressly allowed).

'Rowhammer' attack flips bits in memory to root Linux

Re: @Phil-O-Sophical

What you described there, was quite a powerhouse for the time.

Quadro Nvidias, SAS interfaces, 8 GB RAMs and the first Core2Quads and all that circa 2006!