Posts by RobHib

Now we know why UK spooks simply shrugged at SSL encryption

@A.C. - Re: I bluff my encryption

Uh? -ROT or none?

US intelligence: Snowden's latest leaks 'road map' for adversaries

@stuff and nonesense - Re: While the Soviet Bloc was crumbling

It's stuff and perhaps nonesense, but not nonsense.

Would you or anyone please tell me why (a) the British establishment has taken to surveillance like ducks to water, and (b) why the British public puts up with it? It's truly perplexing—perhaps Britain is the best example of an actual authoritarian state that we're not supposed to know about.

Are the British all secret voyeurs or such and they've a secret love affair with surveillance/cameras? Or do the British feel deprived because they've missed out on too many episodes of Candid Camera and now that cameras are a dime—err sorry, sixpence—a dozen, they're making up for lost time?

And why with Britain's remarkable history—of Agincourt, Trafalgar, Waterloo, WWII defiance and all that stuff—haven't the British citizenry actually declared war on all that surveillance nonsense?

Then perhaps it's been a great PR con-job all along and the country is actually packed to the gunnels with loads of complacent wimps whose only joy left is the occasional and lucky Ashes win against Australia.

@Ton Welsh - Re: @Nicho

Right, but you should point out there's a legit freebie copy here (also at Mises):

http://mises.org/books/Our_Enemy_The_State_Nock.pdf

If that doesn't work then Google the many other copies out there.

Mind you, I've had the hard-copy book copy for years, it came from Laissez Faire Books if I recall correctly.

(Isn't it funny how popular Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy the State has become in the past few years. I wonder what that tells us, eh?)

@Doug Bostrom - Re: NSA please look in the mirror

"Secrecy begins and ends in the hands of the secret."

...only if not overruled by a greater imperative.

@raving angry loony - Re: A guide to Hypocrisy

Raving angry loony you may be, but 'tis good to see you in keeping with earlier namesakes.

Remember in King Lear it was the fool who told the truth, not his doddering old master. The parallel's remarkable (or perhaps more commonplace than sense let's us think it is).

@LarsG

"Control is power. / The world has sleep walked into this sh*t but now we are starting to wake up."

You're right about control and power, and I'd hope you're correct about us starting to wake up. However I'm sceptical, history has shown we've but brief and fleeting memories—you know, 'The War to End All Wars' etc. Such phrases are now rhetoric but that the time they were meant and heartfelt, but a generation or so later all bets were off and it was back to the usual killing business, this time with a vengeance.

Moreover, we easily lose sight of the damage governments do to their own citizens. And the 20th C. saw a great deal of that, a point I've laboured on about in a post further on.

.

Re: Americans safe from... What?

"Again, apologies to any who I offended earlier, that was never my intent."

Methinks, you're being too accommodating and accepting. Argument based on simplistic interpretation is all too readily used by those who've a paucity of argument.

Not only does paucity of argument permeate the blogosphere these days but it also dominates the general discourse as well.

@Don Jefe - Re: Americans safe from... What?

"I realize there are other, non-headline events but the totals are still small: ~14,000 non-military, over a 40 year period, and our responses have been totally disproportionate."

Absolutely correct.

Not only is the response totally disproportionate, but also it comes from governments whose predecessors only a short while back in history didn't particularly care about throwing expendable cannon fodder in huge numbers at an enemy. And over the intervening years their successors have also gleaned little about how to deal with threats to society, their responses to terrorism being similarly brainless.

Nevertheless, by comparison with what past British (and other) governments have done to their own citizens, the number of deaths from and those suffering the consequences of the terrorism of recent years pale in significance. Of course, every death from terrorism is truly significant—in fact an utter tragedy—but look to history to get a reasonable perspective.

We should not forget that before the Battle of the Somme the British Government of 1916 was prepared to sacrifice great numbers of the Nation's youthful pride-and-joy, and it did indeed sacrifice them: on the first day alone just shy of 60,000 British soldiers were relegated to the casualty list. This battle was not only a tragic folly—a catastrophe of which the then British Government was largely culpable but also it was an exercise in utter futility that ultimately claimed about a million casualties, not to mention questionably leaving the British militarily in a worse off position.

It's not only in hindsight, but even at the time that 'righteous' warmongering mongrel, Douglas Haig*, with insufficient oversight from Prime Minster Lloyd George et al, allowed this slaughter when other less ruthless options with fewer tragic outcomes were available. Leaving my biases aside, facts speak for themselves: both Haig and George presided over the worst casualty numbers in a single day in the whole of British military history.

(It seems we forget too quickly: I recall once being at Verdun and being overwhelmed by the scale of the War. After seeing a successive half dozen or so crosses with ages of 21 and below on them I looked up only to see many hundreds of thousands more crosses through an arc of 270°. Seemingly, many have forgotten that the Great War and WWII—at least for many of the infantrymen and others who fought in them—were about freedom, defending a way of life, and to live in peace without being dominated by totalitarian governments. That we've now to fight this war again, albeit politically, but this time, tellingly, from within the borders of our own country is profoundly depressing.)

"Nearly every action taken to 'win' the War On Terror has only succeeded in increasing the level of fear in those who are supposed to be being protected."

There's little doubt that what our governments are now doing in response to terrorism is on the road to totalitarianism. Furthermore, they're both manufacturing consent and acceptance for their actions through the propaganda of fear—generating fear in a nation or society has always been an instrument for gaining power and control. Moreover, since 9/11, not only have they done nothing effective to ameliorate the concerns of those who ultimately become terrorists but also they've become impervious to the genuine concerns of their own freedom-loving citizens.

Tragically, it's easier to spend trillions on surveillance than to tackle the root of the problem, and we citizens are now sufficiently complacent to let governments get away with it. (Frankly, I despair at the general acquiescence of the citizenry. Presumably, the propaganda of fear and the sense that it's all too big and hopeless for an individual to do anything about must be working—and, no doubt, this is just what the power-hungry want and are very glad to hear.)

'Tis wishful thinking but I'd rub the noses of those responsible for the loss of our freedoms on those crosses until they hurt. Then again, it is unlikely those who are taking advantage of the tragedy that's terrorism would have the wit or sensibility to appreciate why some citizens are prepared to die for democracy and freedom.

* I've always loved Scotch but I've never knowingly drunk Haig whiskey on principle.

"Bullrun" - Most disingenuous.

Re "Bullrun". For such a project, only the most disingenuous would use anything resembling this word.

At Bull Run, the first battle of Manassas, many were truly fighting for liberty and freedom.

Reports: NSA has compromised most internet encryption

@ribosome - Re: @Don Jefe - Ah well...

You're very probably correct. Moreover, I'll bet there's many an inventive scheme that we've never contemplated.

It begs questions as to whether or not the NSA et al realized that the professional nasties would eventually skip electronic town to avoid detection when they initially invested the billions in this spying venture. If so, then this vast investment will have been aimed primarily (and knowingly) at the second-tier players. If correct, then the ramifications of this, I'd reckon, are quite horrendous.

If they thought this enormous spying infrastructure (in the absence, say, of Snowden) would never have been exposed and thus the world would never have been spooked [duh, sorry], then such reasoning seems completely fanciful. One only has to look to history for this: when Roosevelt and Churchill met Stalin at Yalta in February 1945, Stalin was already well aware of the primary purpose of the Manhattan Project through his own spies. The fact is, something this big cannot be hidden for very long—anyway, at least the basics of the project and its main purpose cannot.

Again, this leads us back to the original motives for and the rationale behind this enormous investment in spying, the NSA et al must have known that it wouldn't be long before they'd be outed, and that China and Russia etc. would know exactly down to a tee what they were doing. This obviously leads to the next question: given that you can't hide a project of this size from the security agencies of other governments (China etc.), then did the NSA inform them of the fact on the basis that this enormous increase in effort was specifically for and only to catch terrorists [as a worldwide network already existed for such purposes—simply, was China et al informed by the US of its massive expansion in spying?].

Seems to me the world now ought to be told answers to these questions. The very covenant that binds the citizenry to the state—that which holds democracy together depends of such answers. Reckon we're in for a pretty bleak time if citizens lose significantly more trust in their governments (as it seems is happening).

@Don Jefe - Re: Ah well...

This recent exposure has put the truly serious punters on notice, that's if they weren't so already. They won't use electronic communications except to pass very short encrypted cues (action/go messages) whose meanings have already been previously conveyed in person or by other non-electronic means.

For instance, 'How's yuh mother's roses' could mean 'go eliminate xyz at such and such at the prearranged time' etc. and this translation never goes via any electronic network or even telephone. Essentially, this is how the British SOE sent messages into the field during WWII, 'innocuous' cue messages were sent out on the BBC into France etc. Today, even the detection of such cryptic messages (i.e. just finding their existence) could be seriously slowed down by obfuscating schemes such as Tor, especially so if only part of the message went by Tor (and even then using steganography) etc. If or when the message is eventually uncovered it'll be too late to do anything about it. Essentially, the true (and really dangerous) professionals are unlikely to be caught--not by message interception anyway.

However it does seem to me that this vast spying and decrypting effort by the NSA, CGHQ, Oz's Defence Sig. Directorate etc. will have a significant effect on the second-rank players. These include cloud users with encrypted info, encrypted VPNs etc. Such users include corporations both within and outside the US, various governments and their agencies sending all but the most secret info.

Clearly, by now, all these second-rank players will also be aware that their data is very likely compromised. There'll be suspicion that trade treaties have been compromised by the US, UK etc. as commercial-in-confidence info from other countries will be used to the advantage of the US etc., etc.

Basically, the US Government gave us an unfettered internet 20 or so years ago and it's realized its mistake. And over the last decade it has surreptitiously brought it back under its control. It's only now we are beginning to realise this and to the extent to which it has been successful.

I think there's little doubt that this spying has significantly compromised the net, and users will never see it as the place it once was. I think we should have realised this way back in 2001 and when the Patriot Act (and the equiv. laws in the UK, Aust. etc.) were passed. Trouble is the spied-upon will retaliate in kind and this won't be nice.

As I've said many times, effectively the terrorists have won. They've screwed up our lives and that's what they intended.

Australia votes and Vulture South picks the flesh off tech policy

@LaeMing - I've not forgotten.

I've certainly not forgotten. When a junior doing my training, I applied for a job with Weapons Research at Woomera SA. Unfortunately, I didn't get the job, but I followed what happened there with considerable interest.

@RobHib - @david 12

BTW, the bracketed paragraph reads as if I've a case of sour grapes in that I was one of those engineers affected by the government reshuffle. This is not the case, I've never worked for any of these authorities.

@david 12

"I'll take fibre to the home when it comes. I've wanted personal fibre for 20 years now -- back when 128Kbps ISDN was the fastest I could go, fibre was on option"

Let there be no mistake, the reason you DO NOT have fibre to the home already is that both sides of politics miked the sale of Telstra for every damn cent it was worth.

That governments sold Telstra WITH the cableways and rights-of-way is a fucking national disgrace. Not only was the NBN or any equivalent of it going to cost at least twice as much but also it would take at least twice as long to implement. (Government would have to buy back the cableways for an exorbitant price, and that's exactly what's happened. This is outrageous, it ought to be a national scandal—and it would be anywhere else except Australia.)

You don't have to be Einstein to realise that (a) there could be no level playing field in the deregulated marketplace with Telstra having a head-start by owning the cableways which it would exploit others to use. And (b) that the Australian consumer was going to pay through-the-nose for other networks to run installations in parallel with Telstra: for instance who paid double for the Optus cable roll-out, why the stupid non-complaining Australian public of course!

One day, someone will write the definitive history on this debacle and it will only further make Australia the laughing stock of the world when it comes to the introduction of technology.

Do your history: In Australia, radio and telecommunications from the very beginning has been a bloody shambles. Australia dithered and screwed up the installation of telegraphy and telephony in the 19th C. When wireless came along (with the Wireless and Telegraphy Act of 1905 which gave govt. control over everything) the government screwed that too, commercial interest gaining the upper hand. Government also screwed up and delayed the introduction of FM broadcasting by proposing it be introduced into a non standard UHF band instead of the international 88-108MHz VHF band, and it even put TV in an international satellite band. No other country in the world could screw up so easily and with so much complacency!

(And the way in which communications and telecommunications policy was white-anted from within borders on corruption: independent authorities, spectrum regulators, Broadcasting Control Board etc. were first integrated into the Broadcast Authority and eventually into the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority). I'm simplifying a complicated story but this is how the engineers who oversaw the regulations were nuked and engineering independence was lost, it was a classic sleight-of-hand move by commercial interests (through lobbying, trade treaties and such) to give away Australia's communications resources to vested interests.)

Absolutely the same level of fucking greed and incompetence happened when Australia deregulated its telecommunications networks. Before it even happened I remember saying to colleagues 'that this will be another almighty fuck-up', and it sure was. Shame I didn't bet on it, I'd have made a fortune.

Let's get the facts right: this is what happens in Australia when carpetbaggers, lawyers, politicians, economists and accountants plan technical infrastructure and the scientists and engineers are nowhere to be seen. If you think I'm wrong then there's plenty of other examples; for instance, the closure of most of Australia's high tech industries over the last 30 or so years, not to mention the ongoing jokes that pass for the various VFT (Very Fast Train) proposals etc., etc.

The NBN is a fucking shambles, not because the idea is wrong—it's an excellent idea, but because, as usual, when it comes to the introduction of technology into Australia, Australia always fucks it up—the history of its short-sightedness is there to prove it.

Remember, Malcolm Turnbull is a lawyer and businessman who had substantial shares in OzEmail—he's not a scientist or engineer with an intrinsic understating of communications networks (and in two days, it's almost certain he'll be in charge of the downgraded NBN rollout)!

After all, you'd expect that a country which couldn't organize itself out of a wet paper bag to fuck up something as big and complicated as the introduction of a digital fibre network, and, as usual, it has delivered right on cue.

Kim Dotcom quits Mega to head new political party, fight extradition

He lives in an Englisn-speaking country...

..and I wish him lots of luck!

If you live in an English-speaking country, then when the New Motherland demands your presence you'll have Hades chance of ever escaping.

Autogyro legend Ken Wallis hangs up wings at 97

Sad

There's too few like him about. Tragically, the modern world conditions us from birth not to be adventurous like that.

After all, who today would be game enough to design something where if you stood up you'd get your head lopped off. I know I wouldn't, because I know that I'd forget that I shouldn't. ;-)

Decks and plugs and rock and roll: Tascam CD-A750 cassette and CD combo

@A J Stiles -- Re: XLR Balanced inputs look the part but are they?

"I'm convinced that balanced lines are now a bigger problem than the problem they were originally intended to solve; which was noise pickup on small signals."

You're of course correct. Balanced lines are best confined for use with dynamic mikes and specialized instrumentation that use sensors which have very low-level outputs. I actively discourage the use balanced circuits; it usually complicates things to no real benefit. (Balanced audio became popular in HiFi as it was hangover from both telephony and the days when valves predominated. Not only were audio circuits balanced but also so were AC valve heater circuits to minimise induced hum (here, a humdinger potentiometer would ground heaters at a minimum hum point). With solid-state, balancing is usually unnecessary as there's less noise pickup: heaters are gone, so is the very high input Z of valves and shielding is easier.)

I also agree with you about the impedance matching. Except for very small noise-limited circuits, RF receiver inputs etc., baseband video over coax and in transmitter-antenna power coupling and such, Z-matching is a waste of time. The once common bridging/terminating switch that chucked a terminating load across the input of audio lines [and which screwed levels up] is, thankfully, mostly gone (as S/N is now normally limited by other factors).

There is, however, one audio application where +4 or +8dBm line levels should be balanced and that's where the lines are long such as in radio and TV stations and concert halls etc. I recall an installation where about 17kms* of audio cable were used and it would not have been possible to run unbalanced line-level audio. Here, only the best shielded balanced cable could be used (Belden Belfoil 8761 albeit now superseded), and the cables terminated in patch panels using gold-plated LEMO connectors where the cable earth looped through the panel rather than to it (for source or destination earthing)—all to stop hum and crosstalk. Through necessity, both microphone and line-level audio (and sometimes unbalanced 75Ω video) would run in the same ducts (unfortunately a common practice, but often unavoidable).

* Of course, each cable was only some hundreds of meters in length.

Maintaining the noise to within a few dB of the theoretical thermal noise for 150/600Ω on the mike lines in such installations is a tall ask and it's essential that not only the terminating equipment's (recorders, audio desks etc.) circuits are well designed but also the lines are well balanced. Thus the quality of the cable construction is of paramount importance, both with respect to overall shielding and the balance (close tolerances on the capacitance between cable and shield etc.)

It's in environments such as this that CD-A750 cassette/CD combo would require properly balanced inputs and outputs. Moreover, I'm strictly of the view that XLR connectors should never be wired as unbalanced. Unbalancing XLRs not only causes confusion but it can introduce crosstalk and noise into an otherwise clean audio network. (Hum loops are a notorious problem when two of the three pins of an XLR connecter are grounded, it's a common problem with breakout boxes).

One of the annoying problems when equipment with electronic rather than transformer balancing is used in such installations is that longitudinal hum and noise often becomes a problem. RF detection (RF noise from mobile phones, radio stations, clicks from electric motor switching etc.) is much more likely to be induced into such circuits than when a transformer is used. Audio operators also exacerbate the problem of crosstalk, hum and noise by using unbalanced breakout boxes and such (which they love and won't part with on threat of death—as sometimes threatened by annoyed techies).

Furthermore, in these complex environments, high-level audio from power amplifier outputs (speaker feeds) are also often balanced to reduce both the crosstalk induced into low level mike circuits and to overcome the I^2 R losses in the long cable runs. Here, the so-called '100V line' feeds are fed by low-to-hi-Z transformers. In installations where hundreds of power amplifiers feed from central control rooms to distant locations, there's little other choice.

@Justin Stringfellow

"I don't understand the current compact cassette nostalgia wave. I hated the damn things,"

Justin, I reckon the nostalgia is simply explained. Even though I still have a Nakamichi 680 ZX, close to the best ever unit ever made, I always treated cassettes as a joke professionally. Even the Naka 680 can't be sensibly compared with a good 1/4" (or their bigger brethren 1/2", 1" multitrack) recorder running a good master tape at 15 ips--that's a no-brainer.

However, there's four things really going for the cassette that clinches it.

1. The cassette's ubiquity and cheapness (everyone had a recorder).

2. Sheer convenience (drop in and push record, 1/4" tape never self-threaded like a good 16mm projector).

3. Portability, you never needed to take the recorder with you as there was one at the destination--even if you went camping you could the one in the car.

4. Early on, even by the late 1960s, the cassette had been adapted from a recorder of voice to HiFi and music (let's correctly call it medium Fi). At its best, the cassette was good enough to provide music entertainment for the masses. Audiophiles like me used both: cassettes for taping something off AM radio (convenience) and reel-to-reel and LPs for music.

Frankly, when the cassette first came out I considered it junk, but it's actually turned out to be a phenomenon. And that's what everyone remembers.

@Neil Barnes - Re: Aye, them days is gone...

Yuh forgot to mention Nagras. Now that's a sin.

Correct about cassettes, they were always considered toys. Nevertheless, there was a time when every recording studio, radio and TV station had at least one 'pro' unit (often many more).

@stu 4 - Re: Cassettes still needed

That's new.

It's a while now, but when my father had difficulty seeing he got one of those cassette players with big chunky buttons for talking books. I always liked it because it was strong and rugged, thus I've always kept an eye out for a combo player like you've described but I've never seen one.

Similarly, I've been on the lookout for a small AM/FM radio, perhaps a bit bigger than handheld, that also had a slot for a USB memory stick, but I've never seen one. Still reckon there's a market for such a device.

@Peter Gathercole - Re: @Justin re:"don't understand..."

Bloody hell, see what El Reg has done with this anniversary. They've made the worms, en mass, crawl out of the woodwork from everywhere. I couldn't help it either--the comment about the XLR connectors and balanced inputs was too much to stand and I've gone to 'print' about it hereunder.

Incidentally, I've a 20 litre drum of iso-propyl alcohol in my shed and I use it for everything except drinking (a hangover from the old days of cleaning both audio and video machines (the 1" and 2" variety). [Duh, sorry about the pun.]

Spirited away, I've still a coupe of bottles of that truly magic cleaner: 3M's iso-propyl alcohol and freon mixture. It's wonderful stuff and the world's worse off without it despite the ozone hole.

;-)

XLR Balanced inputs look the part but are they?

"This model looks the part with its rack mounting ears and a peek around the back reveals XLR connectors for +4dBu professional balanced line level interfacing."

XLR Balanced inputs look the part but are they? Correctly balanced 600/150Ω inputs are great as they balance out the crosstalk through CMR (common mode rejection). Traditionally, very high quality transformers were used for this purpose in HiFi applications. They usually used high B/H (high permeability) steel for the laminations and it was usually sourced from Sweden. (Incidentally, the old POTS (analogue) telephone industry had the balanced transformer design down to a tee, their world revolved around balanced 600/150Ω circuits. The audio industry essentially adopted the telephone standards and improved them for HiFi.)

In recent times, people have taken an irrational dislike to audio transformers and wherever possible they eliminate them, which, in most cases, is a silly decision. Eliminating them for unbalanced circuits is usually OK but it can be quite problematic for balanced circuits (i.e: the XLR/600/150Ω inputs/outputs).

The problem comes from the fact that it's difficult to get a true balance with respect to Earth, that is one side of the balanced circuit has both a different impedance and capacitance to earth than the other side and thus the crosstalk suffers, also hum loops can occur (usually these effects are a non-event with a good mu-metal-shielded audio transformer).

When transformers are eliminated on balanced circuits, special circuits, such as a 'long-tailed pair' (differential amplifier), are employed and fancy impedance matching is used to create a 'virtual' Earth. In essence, the Earth pin on the XLR is often terminated in this virtual earth rather than connected directly to the chassis earth (please electronics guys, I know this is an over-simplification, we don't need a thesis here). Also, by default, such circuits are usually high impedance (>10kΩ) and some fancy work is done to lower the impedance to ~600Ω. All up, a low-noise, properly-balanced, transformer-less input (or even output stage) is quite a complicated and sophisticated design. And more often or not, its design becomes a fudge--a half-baked kludge that's all too often seen, even on quite sophisticated designs such as used in [some] professional audio desks.

It would be interesting to know how the CD-A750 tackles the problem. I'd guess with less than exemplary specifications it'd be a kludge.

Anyone know?

Just checked the specs of my Nakamichi 680 ZX

"For chromium dioxide tapes, the frequency response figures in the manual quote 50Hz~12.5kHz +/- 3dB."

You're correct about the specifications of the CD-A750, and the fact that gear isn't just the same as it once was.

The manual of my Nakamichi 680 ZX reads as follows:

Freq response: 10 - 22,000 Hz +-3dB (@ -20dB rec. level)

S/N ratio: 66dB (IHF - A weighted, ref. 400Hz @ 3% THD with Dolby NR, ZX tape, 70 usec equalization)

Total Harmonic Distortion: 0.8% @ 400Hz, 0dB rec level, on ZX tape (1.0% with SX & EX11 tapes)

Wow & Flutter: 0.08% weighted peak, 0.04% weighted RMS

Erasure: better than 60db @ 1kHz, saturation level.

There's a half speed 15/16" too:

Freq response: 10-15,000Hz +- 3dB ( (@ -20dB rec. level with ZX tape)

(That'll do, the rest of the 15/16" specs are similarly degraded over 1 7/8" but still excellent.)

Funny, but this Naka 680 ZX has better specs at half speed, 15/16", than does the CD-A750.

Australia's anti-smut internet filter blueprint lasts LESS THAN A DAY

Hell, not again!

Oh, here we go again. The moment we put down these bloody moral campaigners, like weeds, they rise again. Kill them off now and next season they'll be back again with a vengeance.

With the NSA et al and now the moral brigade mob, it really is time to brush off Tor. If everyone uses it, it'll get faster and eventually these PIAs might go away.

TDK calls it quits on tape media thanks to 'difficult environment'

One can only hope TDK sells its plant intact.

"That leaves just four manufacturers, with Fujifilm having the leading market share and loss-making Imation effectively reselling TDK cartridges"

This also begs the question when Fujifilm does the same as Kodak and kills off most of its film. A few years ago Kodak killed off Kodachrome then it wasn't long before the company was bankrupt--not that killing Kodachrome was the case, rather it's symptomatic of the changing market.

I can remember how tapes improved over time and much of it was down to TDK using excellent binders, to refining the polishing techniques and increasing the number of polishing stages (if I recall correctly, TDK eventually ended up using a 5-stage process for their good quality tapes).

One can only hope TDK sells its plant, polishers etc., to some enterprising Chinese company that will keep tape manufacturing going a little longer. Even so, I reckon it will be only delaying the inevitable for tape manufacture (eventually it'll end up going the same way as when Technicolor sold its imbibition (dye-transfer) plant to the Chinese. That still-unequaled film process lasted a few more years but the writing was on the wall.)

@a_mu - Re: as a student

You're right, TDK tapes were THE standard, moreover the quality was always consistent (although the Chinese stuff was of a lower grade).

It's sad to see TDK tapes go but I'm not surprised. In fact, TDK has lasted longer than I expected. I guessed it'd would go a few years back when VHS tapes dropped in price to only a few dollars for a pack of three, that was also about the time I bought my last tape. I'm now recycling old tapes, that is whenever I use the VHS, which, these days, is pretty rarely.

Reckon my usage is typical, so it's little wonder it's goodbye time.

Compact Cassette supremo Lou Ottens talks to El Reg

@Paul Kinsler - Re: New Scientist

"NS is exactly the kind of publication which should pitch to a higher level."

Indeed it used to, that's my point. Now there's nothing at that level (and most won't (can't) read Nature or Science etc.)

"I also distinguish between "(news) reporting"

No argument with that. Same again--it's just that the non-scientist science-savvy have no where to go. That's a big question not only for scientists but for everyone. Or it ought to be, as the net effect is a deskilling of society.

The example I like to use is incredibly simple and illustrative of the problem: despite chemistry at school, it seems that in day-to-day life no one [well, very few] knows how to remove stains etc. with common solvents--an observation I made over the years. One sees turpentine ruining plastics regularly when kerosene would save the day. And the way people mix up the solubility of oils in alcohol/metho versus kero and turps is astounding, the average person hasn't a clue despite years of high school science.

When I was a kid, this would have been almost unheard of, just about everyone knew. Moreover, if I had the time I'd provide you with dozens of similar examples from both physics and chemistry.

"I would like to agree. But media & outreach interaction can be a vast time sink."

I understand this problem as much as anyone. I can be obsessive when working in a lab, in fact, it's not unusual for me to spend 48+ hours straight working on a problem totally oblivious to the world at large. At times like this, little annoys me more than distractions, they ruin my train of thought. If you've ever studied HPS then you'll know about the long line of great obsessives throughout history.

That said, who is going to solve the problem:

(a) Who fully understands the problem other than scientists and engineers?

(b) Who knows what the proper solution ought to be other than scientists and engineers?

(c) Who is capable of properly solving the problem other than them?

No one, I suggest (at least not to the degree that's needed in the present crisis). If you or anyone else has a better solution then let's hear about it. Irrespective, scientists need to initiate the discussion and argument, and so far the profession has fallen short on that.

@clanger9 - Re: Ah, cassette tapes...

Your method ought to be an act of desperation only!

The correct procedure is to use a calibrated alignment azimuth tape. If you do not then you're aligning to the cassettes you're using which can be (and often are) out of alignment. Cassettes are often out of alignment because the recorder was also out of alignment, or as is often the case, ill treatment (heat etc.) distorts the cassette case to such an extent that the tape guides do not fully correct the misalignment.

For diehards with considerable patience (it's tedious) then you can make a calibration cassette yourself. Azimuth is the only tape you can make without sophisticated measuring gear. The idea is to record a tone, often 3kHz and 10kHz for fine, onto the best* cassette available. On playback, put a VU meter or multimeter on the output and adjust the level to say a point mid-scale. Now reverse the tape inside the cassette (turn upside down so when in playback mode the recording (physically) runs backwards to the way it was originally recorded), then again note the playback level on the VU meter.

Keep up this iterative process (reversing the tape within the cassette) until you reach a point where the output is at maximum. Don't worry if the i/p and o/p levels are not the same as you're now using the opposite side of the head (opposite channel) and it'll be marginally different (always is). By simple trigonometry, at the point where the level is maximum the recording alignment is at 90 degrees to the tape.

(Clearly, this method is much easier on a normal reel-to-reel recorder than a cassette. It's why I'd recommend a diecast framed cassette--less distortion with repeated openings and closings of the case.)

* If you can get one of the exotic cassettes with the metal (diecast) frame then all the better. The metal will not distort to anywhere the same degree as does plastic.

@Stonehouse - Re: Ah, cassette tapes...

"OK, done. Now, can you grab a bottle of nail polish from your mum's dressing table?"

Amplify the advice: buy a few bottles and put them in the maintenance draw. Maintenance and prototyping people use the stuff all the time. Nail polish isn't quite as good as the pro stuff (such as that once available from Brolite Paints) but it's much easier to get. And if you can't stand the usual pink shades that women love then select your own colour (the Brolite stuff that I'm familiar with used to be bright red).

It should be second nature to lock the AOT (Adjust on Test) tweakables. They include mechanical alignments as here, inductor slugs, trimmer capacitors and potentiometers etc.

@Peter Gathercole - Re: New Scientist

Your views are more common than perhaps you realise. A colleague and friend of mine who works for large government research organisation says whenever he catches me reading New Scientist 'you still reading that junk mag, eh?' or words to the effect (he then asks me for the latest copy of Science and satisfies himself with that). It's common opinion amongst scientists where he works. My only remaining interest in the mag is to catch up on science news.

The trouble is that New Scientist isn't alone, and I believe one of the significant reasons is the gobbling up of small specialist magazines by large publishing corporations that's occurred since the early 1980s. What then happens is the mag is treated as a cost centre and must perform accordingly--that's to say it's profitability is compared with all other mags in the stable. Result: it's dumbed down to the LCD to increase circulation.

There's other reasons too which I didn't cover in my earlier post. These have to do with the significant drop in the status of science amongst the general population over the last 50 or so years. Science no longer has anywhere near the status that it did when I was in high school decades ago (a fact brought home to me when I visited my old high school for a reunion a few years back). What I found was that the three separate labs, Phy, Chem and Bio and their individual prep rooms together with a tiered lecture theatre for each, were closed down completely and all moved to single room in an outhouse extension of the main building. I almost burst into tears, I could hardly believe what I saw, this was sacrilege on a grand scale, and it happened without any outrage or controversy.

This is a cultural problem, and it's especially acute in English-speaking countries. There's a number of reasons and one of them is postmodernism. It seems that that destructive cultural meme, which has little time for absolutes, known experience and defined standards, not only has more of a stranglehold over English speakers but also that it's taken an especially strong hold in education. As I said, there are other reasons too, but these are too long to cover here.

Thus, New Scientist, is only a manifestation of a bigger and broader issue. That's why I said scientists need to come out of their ivory towers, put on the overalls and get themselves dirty educating society. They can't leave it all to the educators as education has been corrupted. This crisis took 40 years to develop and it could take that long to fix, however I truly hope not.

@Paul Kinsler - Re: written by someone who clearly has no idea about science or technology

"well, the great majority of their audience probably does have no useful knowledge at all (i.e. on the specific subject being presented)"

Perhaps, but is this true? And what exactly do you mean by 'useful knowledge'? And then at what level should science reporting be pitched?

These are serious problems for science, especially in this highly technological era. It seems to me that the best answer is to assume that the 'default' reporting level be pitched at those who have graduated high school science. My reasons are that that target is actually a large number of people, and they are of a demographic that matters when it comes to implementing policy: they're voters, educated consumers and some of them eventually go on to be policy makers etc.—and even physicists. (More on this below.)

Of course, targeting those who've lesser knowledge is useful and should be undertaken for all sorts of reasons that I've not time to enter into here, but it should be done as a secondary exercise. What I'm saying is that most science reporting is dumbed down to the point where it is essentially useless. (Or that it is interpreted in misleading or hyped up ways, often deliberately so: reporting on cancer research being the classic example, here both researches and reporters are complicit; reports if not bullshit are often presented in disingenuous and misleading ways to a gullible public). Such trivial reporting often irritates the technically minded and it's questionable whether those who've no interest or little education in science will benefit significantly (please note I'm paraphrasing here, this issue is detailed).

Why high school graduate level in science? Well, someone who graduates science at high school has the basics of five or six years of science—that's chemistry, physics and often biology. Moreover, they know a good deal of basic mathematics: trigonometry, algebra and calculus. Whilst concepts such as e^(pi*i) + 1 = 0 may be somewhat difficult, they'd not be incomprehensible double-Dutch. For instance, they'll know about e, pi and (-1)^1/2, and even if they can't derive Euler's equation from scratch, few would have difficulty in understanding the beauty within just from its structure alone.

With physics, they'll be able to understand and mathematically manipulate basic mechanics, heat/thermodynamics, light (and know about the particle/wave duality), and electrodynamics and even be knowledgeable about the basics of quantum physics. At this point they might not understand the intricacies of cavity resonators or why radiation from a black body is aperiodic (thus understand the ultraviolet catastrophe conundrum of the late 19th C.) but with a little explanation they'll accept and understand the basics when explained to them.

Even more importantly, with good reporting and simple explanations, they'll be able understand why things that depend on such physics occur (for example, with high school science alone, it's not hard to understand the basic reasons for the snow or noise that appears on an analogue TV in the absence of a signal without needing to fully understand the thermal noise equation). Essentially, by the time a high school student graduates, he/she has a reasonable understanding of not only Dalton's Scientific Method and how that impinges on science and technology but also he/she possesses a basic ability to extrapolate and develop upon already-learned scientific knowledge. For those without any working knowledge of science or only popular superficial knowledge thereof, this is hardly possible, as one hasn't developed a working methodology of the subject (and targeting them in the first instance simply isn't as productive).

So what do we get from science reporting in real life? Putting magazines such as Nature, Science, Physics and other peer-review journals aside then what do we have left? Not much, bugger all in fact! Take the next level of science journalism down, New Scientist or Scientific American for example.

Whilst Scientific American isn't as bad, it's obvious that the editorial policy of New Scientist is pitched well below that of a high school science graduate. Frankly, technical explanations are trite in the extreme, pathetically inadequate in fact. And as for a maths or physics equation coming near the magazine, we'd have a better chance of quantum physics randomly reincarnating Margaret Thatcher, methinks. The same problem goes for popular science programs on TV; these are little more than 'ooh ahh—look at that' shows with little or no explanation of the underlying science involved.

The fact is that science reporting is diabolically inadequate. Those with high school science but who are not involved directly with science are never pushed to keep their science education current; as science reporting never pushes them they consequentially lose their 'habit or ethos for science'. Put another way: popular culture is only superficially interested in science, few outside science have an intrinsic and knowledgeable understanding of the subject.

Moreover, and tragically for science, those who despised science at school, usually the lawyers, accountants, economists and politicians, are those who have ended up with control over science policy and science funding. (It's a strange irony that scientists themselves are usually those least able to control science funding.)

In essence, we're left with a society that's pathetically illiterate when it comes to science, it's a society that doesn't think in a scientific way, and nor is it forced to so do. The consequences are that it's a society that's often scared of science—mention the word 'chemical' for instance—and thus it's all too prone to accept junk or pseudo science (for instance, look at the farce that's the climate change debacle: scientists themselves aren't immune from both accepting and doling out sophistry). That we're in a scientific age with a society that collectively doesn't think scientifically is mainly attributable to the failure of science education; there are no ifs and buts about the fact!

Meanwhile, scientists are locked away in their ivory towers—in environments where they only have to relate to and explain things to their peers. No so you say: well, where's the plethora of magazines that fit between the trite science of New Scientist and peer-review journals such as Nature, Science etc? Also, where are the TV programs that actually explain science and engage the viewer at a technical level? Right, there's none—although some 50 years ago there were at least a few. Touché.

It seems to me that the only ones who can correct this crisis are those professionally involved with science. When one becomes a scientist (or an engineer for that matter), one needs to accept that an essential part of the job description is to ensure that society gets dragged along with one. The two aspects of the job are hand in glove.

Ministry of Sound sues Spotify over user playlists

@LinkOfHyrule Silver - Re: Reckon I'll copyright the sound of my farts.

Yuh got it in one. It's a stupid joke (except copyright law isn't a joke, tragically).

Reckon I'll copyright the sound of my farts.

It's time I copyrighted the sound of my farts. Now, as they sound like those of everyone else, I should make a fortune!

This copyright business really is being taken to extreme. The honest person has to walk on eggshells for just about everything he now does on the web--everywhere one turns one is confronted with a copyright block of one kind or another.

It seems to me that if this trend continues with similar precedents then things will slowly grind to a halt, if not then the web will become a greyish bland. Perhaps it's time to call a halt to businesses that find holes in the law which restricts the freedoms of everyone else.

MPs blocked from ogling 'web smut' 300,000 times – while in Parliament

@fajensen - Re: MPs == wankers

Yuck, watching that on TV would be truly gross!

;-)

Paris because I need to reboot my mind.

Twitter just got sh**tier: Natter emitter hit by code critter, fritters web glitter

The folly of continually fiddling.

This fiddling with features and UIs etc. is getting out of hand. If it's not Microsoft with abominations such as the Ribbon and Windows 8 then it's Twitter et al.

Earlier today I used Flickr for the first time in ages and found it too had fucked up the slide show feature, it's now a real pain to use. Frankly, I'm getting pretty pissed of with it nonsense. What makes it worse is the little authoritarian and faceless bureaucrats behind the show who insist on forcing a single UI or set of features onto ALL users. If they have to change things then why not an easy choice?

Seemingly, these monopolies have an overabundance of programmers who'd be out of work if they had nothing to do, thus it's change just for the sake of it. Of course, they're aided and abetted by useless marketing types who can come up with nothing more original than the notion of a single corporate look and feel--the 'image' thingy that marketing types are obsessed with.

Well, it's time they were told that not all consumers are the same.

Before these large internet monopolies took hold, we used to have a notion which we called 'choice'.

Microsoft's $7.1bn Nokia gobble: Why you should expect the unexpected

@A.C. - Re: Microsoft need to change

We know that, and many wish Microsoft would change. But think of it from Microsoft's perspective: the way MS has been doing business over several decades has made shareholders, Gates, Ballmer et al filthy rich. As Sir Humphrey would say, it's a courageous decision to bet the company on a complete change of direction.

As they say, watch this space.

Re: Hum, I wonder.

Afterthought, perhaps too this is Ballmer's parting shot at Google. (Strikes me he's the sort of guy who doesn't get over a grudge easily.)

Hum, I wonder.

Hum, I wonder what this means for Windows. Is Microsoft more than just assuming or betting that phones are/will be the natural evolution of the desktop?

If so, here we could be witnessing the beginning of the decline of Windows--desktop version. In the future, historians may call this date a turning point.

In the short term, I wonder what effect it'll have on the next few desktop versions of Windows.

Microsoft's Nokia plan: WHACK APPLE AND GOOGLE

My collection of old Nokias

Had a collection of old Nokias in a shoe box. I've just junked 'em!

Snowden journo's boyfriend 'had crypto key for thumb-drive files written down' - cops

@Matt Bryant - Re: Re Andy Mc @Thomas 4 -- Does it actually matter?

Correct, but there have been many martyrs throughout history.

The fact remains that the security services are still left without the key. Even torture won't help them (expect to make them feel better of course).

Boffins follow TOR breadcrumbs to identify users

@ZanzibarRastapopulous - Re: OK I am now officially old

Who think they'll never be caught.

Exactly.

Baffled boffins 'closer' to finding origins of extragalactic COSMIC RAYS

@Paul Kinsler - Re: ICE Cube - moon shadow

That's both graphic and impressive.

Do not adjust your eyes: This Kobo ten-incher has a 2560 x 1600 resolution

Re: @Kubla Cant -- 2560 x 1600 - About Time.

Oh, I nearly forgot to say that if you do click on that link then be sure you watch the classy video.

;-)

@Kubla Cant -- Re: 2560 x 1600 - About Time.

You're correct of course, visual hinting always applies to font size. It's the stuff that has to be tweaked because of the limits that pixelation imposes to which I was referring.

You're also correct about the granular phenomenon and the rough paper of the period. Nevertheless, even then paper varied very considerably and some of it was remarkably good--much better than today's paperbacks for instance. Also, printing from that period onto non-paper surfaces such as vellum shows how remarkably good these artisans and craftsmen really were--the fact that we're still using their fonts, Garamond for instance, with little change a half millennium later attests to this.

I've seen some examples of good 15th C. printing firsthand and up close and to say that I was impressed is a large understatement (mind you, as with today, much of it was also rough and ready).

Another aspect of old printing is that it was invariably letterpress, and one remarkable aspect of good letterpress (where inking is carefully controlled etc.) is that the impression caused by the type actually enhances the resolution. This happens when the ink pools at the edges of the type and in its serifs. The pooling has a similar effect to that of overshoot correction on a video transient or of unsharp mask sharpening in photo editing, it causes a considerable degree of apparent/optical sharpening to be achieved.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how remarkably good the quality of 19th C. books actually was, especially those from about 1850s onwards through to about WWI. Sure, there were lots of el-cheapo books too but those that contained drawings and diagrams and which were printed onto high quality paper were remarkably good. Even today, one rarely sees a modern book that has printing that's so acutely sharp not to mention the clarity of the layout style. Back then, printing was a profession of which whose members were obviously and justifiably proud.

BTW, if you're interested in fonts and typography and you're ever in Antwerp then I'd highly recommend a visit to the Plantin-Moretus museum: http://www.museumplantinmoretus.be/Museum_PlantinMoretus_EN/PlantinMoretus_EN.html

Are you for reel? How the Compact Cassette struck a chord for millions

@boltar - Re: The tape is dead,

"Fire up the old radio cassette, stick in a blank and press record."

Precisely!! Unless one wanted concert-hall quality the cassette was remarkably handy and useful for quick recordings. In fact it still is. Not always, but I still find it handy to just hit the button on a cassette recorder for recoding something off the radio. Especially, AM radio where voice predominates.

The only things that I would have wished for back then were small radios that also included a cassette recorder. Mostly, such a combo ended up being the ghetto blaster which was often too big to be truly convenient (i.e: conveniently portable).

@silent_count -- Re: The tape is dead,

Elsewhere in this feedback I've praised the cassette but I have to agree with you about cassettes being used for digital recordings.

Clearly, cassettes for recording computer programs was a cheap means to an end but the problems were that cassettes were never designed for digital and the recorders used for digital recordings were of the cheaper kind. These units could have azimuth alignments, wow and flutter etc. that were all over the place. For me, it was the SOT/AOT principle--find a recorder that works and ensure that you always use it for playback. Mind you, not that was any guarantee.

It was further complicated by the fact that the processing of the 'analog' signal wasn't very efficient. Cheap computers didn't use effective limiting, nor did they use highly efficient data separators.

* Select on Test, Adjust on Test.

@Turtle - Re: @ RobHib

This type of gear classically illustrates the development and end-evolution of a technology. It well demonstrates the extent of the progress made in cassette technology over a 20-year period. Clearly, the cassette wasn't going to evolve much further than this but it was damn good audio medium by the end of the 1970s.

As with much of the hi-fi gear of that period, it was remarkably well built and engineered. Back then, it seemed that Japanese industry generally put its reputation on the line for quality. Not only do I still have the Naka 680 but also Sony, Pioneer, Yamaha and other audio gear from that period. In fact, much of my digital equipment still gets played through this 40-year-old gear into a pair of Tannoy Monitor Gold dual concentrics.

It mightn't be Rolls Royce by today's top-line standards but it's still pretty good. What's truly remarkable is the longevity of the equipment. Most of it has never been serviced and works well, and in the case of recorders, only heads have been replaced and the occasional alignment with a standards tape. Compare this with today's throwaway computer market.

BTW: useless factoid, I actually met Nakamichi himself during a promotional tour and demo of the 680. I suppose it was that that convinced this cassettes-for-hifi skeptic to acquire a 680 several years later.

@A. C. -- Re: >"The video infers stereo is an RCA invention"

Like a trout to a lure, that comment baits.

For the sake of El Reg readers, I'll reply without using words such as 'deductive', 'inductive', 'validity', 'vel' etc., but I'll ask if you've ever spent time with Llull, Frege, Russell and perhaps even Gödel?

Of course, a 'yes' provides an explanation. ;-)