Posts by heenow

NASCAR team red-flagged by ransomware attack

No-right-turn racing?

Tune in for tomorrow's Sonoma race at 1900 GMT.

Apple's fruitless rootless security broken by code that fits in a tweet

Access?

Does this attack require physical access to the computer. That's not clear in the article, but it seems like it does. If so, it's a non-issue. Move on...nothing here.

FBI backs down against Apple: Feds may be able to crack killer's iPhone without iGiant's help

Re: Phone in hand.

You're just dead wrong, notwithstanding your grammar challenge. "There" is no difference between cracking this one phone and cracking all of them. The phone is in the FBI's lab, not Apple's, and "their" lab is where they want Apple to send the new firmware. That puts it into the FBI's hands forever to use in any way they want on any phone they want.

ADpocalypse NOW: Three raises the stakes

Stop the movement

If the ad just sits there, like in a magazine or newspaper, fine. I'll be the judge as to whether it interests me. But if it moves or makes noise in any way, or posts cookies or robs my data, I'll use an ad blocker to block all ads. If the publisher doesn't like that and blocks content from me, fine. I'll go somewhere else for the same content.

The solution, however, isn't with the networks or the ad blockers, it's with the out-of-control ad companies themselves.

Boeing just about gives up on the 747

Re: Museums

That SR-71 at Udvar-Hazy is the one that set the world speed record from New York to London in 1974. It was then displayed at Farnbourough, which was the first time an SR-71 was put on display.

That same aircraft then flew from London to LA, setting that speed record.

Finally, that same SR-71 set the world speed record from LA to Washington, DC on its final flight.

Thank goodness it's preserved for us mere mortals.

Re: Twins are the most powerful.

These are good points you have raised.

Massive engines used on twins are rarely if ever used at maximum thrust because they don't need to be. That reduces wear and tear significantly. However, I'm sure they are expensive to overhaul, but not necessarily more expensive than any other engine.

Secondly, I don't know how all of this third-party analysis (i.e. Leeham News) gets around the fact that four-engine airplanes are not selling, regardless of manufacturer. The carriers do cost analysis to the penny, and they make the call.

Re: Twins are the most powerful.

No questions are stupid, and you bring up good points.

When an engine is lost on any modern airliner or cargo plane, you end up with asymmetric thrust (more on one side than the other), making the aircraft want, as you say, "to go in circles".

The answer is the massive rudder in the tail; specifically the movable part at the very back of the vertical stabilizer.

When you press on that rudder (with your feet) to counter the asymmetric thrust, it can make the airplane want to roll. The "little wing rudders" you mention are called ailerons, and they control roll using the yoke or stick.

Great question!

Twins are the most powerful.

Actually, twin engined aircraft are the most powerful of all. This is because the FAA requires a multi-engine aircraft taking off to become airborne and fly safely after the loss of one engine. Doing the simple math, with 100% used as the amount of thrust required to achieve liftoff and fly safely (use any percentage you want), it works out as follows:

2-engines; each engine needs 100%.

3-engines; each engine needs 50%.

4-engines; each engine needs 33.3%.

Thus a twin normally takes off with twice the thrust required, the rest far behind. For fuel savings, they rarely take off with both engines at max thrust, however. 747s normally take off at or near full thrust, hurting fuel economy. And the 380 is in the same boat...poor sales for the same reason.

Software bug sets free thousands of US prisoners too early

Par for the course...

No surprise here. Instead of IT just crapping on their employer's workers, they took their inherent incompetence to the state level.

Apollo 15 commander's watch clocks up $1.6m at auction

Re: Where is Buzz's?

The instrument panel clocks all had Accutron movements, so this was hardly the first Bulova timepiece on the Moon. It was, however, the first Bulova watch. Interesting stuff.

Ad networks promise to do something about the awful adverts you're all blocking, like, real soon

Do Not Move

My rules are real simple:

If it moves in any way whatsoever, ad-block is engaged.

Make it like a newspaper or magazine, where it simply sits there and may attract my interest through content or creativity.

Don't be so damn lazy.

Is it an iPad? Is it a MacBook Air? No, it's a Surface Pro 3

Re: Just too expensive

Not to mention any Windows program will run on the Mac. I'm not sure where Microsoft wants to go with this thing, but my guess is another write-off and stock price crash.

REVEALED: Reg trails claw along Apple's 'austerity' 21.5-inch iMac

Video Processing

I recently received a Canon 60D HD .mov video of a birthday party that was many, many gigabytes. As an experiment, I processed it on three different Macs, all running Mavericks. For this test, all I did was import the video and save it as an .m4v using iMovie before any additional processing.

Baseline was a mid-2007 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo iMac with 4 GB RAM, and 300 GB HD.

Next up was a late 2013 13" MacBook Pro with 2.4 GHz Core i5, 4 GB RAM, and 128 GB SSD. It was twice as fast as the baseline.

Last was a late 2012 Mac Mini with 2.3 GHz Core i7 (four-cores), 8 GB RAM, and 1.28 GB Fusion drive. It was twice as fast as the MacBook Pro.

Fast is relative in this case, ranging from 12 minutes to 3 minutes.

Re: Mac Mini

This is why Apple won't upgrade the Mac Mini:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/361722

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/362971

Too close in performance to the low-end Mac Pro.

So, what exactly defines a 'boffin'? Speak your brains...

An Outsider Who Won

Less than a hundred years ago, every scientist, professor, textbook, politician, and student believed the universe was made of but one galaxy, the Milky Way. Those things that looked like galaxies in telescopes and photographic images were defined as "galactic nebulae". The universe was also collapsing according to the them. Mind you there was absolutely no disputing this, it was 100% proven, factual, anointed by all the world's scientists, and taught to all students.

Except one, a Louisville schoolteacher who said there were millions of galaxies and proved their existence; and the evidence of an expanding universe with his red-shift observations.

His name was Edwin Hubble. There's a contraption named after him.

He is the epitome of a boffin.

MacBook Air 13-inch: If you squint hard enough, you'll see a lesser-spotted Apple Price Cut

vs. That Surface Thingy

This MBA is the target of the new Microsoft Surface thingy. People are going to compare specs, but they really need to compare what gets done. The MBA can run any Windows program, so erase that speed bump. The MBA has less resolution, but much better Intel graphics. The MBA doesn't require the "laptop" to be wedged into your belly when used on your lap. The MBA isn't a compromise. The MBA costs less.

This article may call it "aged", but it's way ahead of that thing that came out yesterday.

Microsoft Surface 3 Pro: Flip me over, fondle me up

Boot Camp, y'all?

Did WinFans suddenly forget that all of their precious Windows progs run on all MacBooks?

Looking at the prices on the Surface thingy makes me wonder what the size will be of Microsoft's next write-off. I guess that billion-dollar one was just a warm-up.

For crying out loud, their own marketing manager for the brand couldn't demonstrate it well today.

Adobe blames 'maintenance failure' for 27-hour outage

Re: On the other hand...

I have the month-to-month and I got the standard message when I'm not online. This time it said it will continue to work until August 20th., which is one helluvalot longer than 7 days. I'm not sure where you got that, because it's never been 7 days. Not sure where you got the 99 days, either.

Also, how did one poster say he had 22 people unable to work?

Brit IT workers are so stressed that 'TWO-THIRDS' want to quit

Crapola

This is what happens when you make a career decision to work with crap, set yourself up as the Lord of Crap to the innocents in your company, and then wonder what happened when the crap gets flushed.

Google looks to LTE and Wi-Fi to help it lube YouTube tubes

No Video on LTE, Please

LTE data charges are the highest in all the land of delivery services. I don't want a single byte of video ever delivered to my portable device unless it's on WiFi.

Apple iOS and Google Android need to develop simple switches, similar to the "Accept Push Notifications?" or "xyz site wants to use your location...yes/no?" for video. Too many sites are running autoplay video ads now, and that needs to be outlawed.

SpaceX Falcon tests hovercraft tech – despite ISS outage

Re: Soft landing on the ocean

To rendezvous with the ISS, you must launch into its west-to-east orbit, which in the U.S. means from the east coast to avoid launching over people. The launch vehicle will be many miles out to sea at separation, and has to fly back to land, something that has not been thoroughly tested yet. So they'll "soft land" it on the water and then try to recover it. The shuttle's SRBs were lowered by parachute into the ocean, and then recovered and reused for decades.

The goal is to have Falcon's recovery systems reliable and accurate enough to fly back to sparsely populated coastal areas and land softly enough to be reused. This is just the first operational test of that goal.

Audio fans, prepare yourself for the Second Coming ... of Blu-ray

Re: Not Engineering

You are the s̶u̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ customer these snake oil salesmen are looking for.

You really owe it to yourself to study the science recommended already by someone else, but I'll second it here:

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Furious MyCloud users descend on WD website as borkage continues

So this is kind of like "Back To My Mac" for everybody?

ZOMBIE iPAD PERIL? Cyberbadness slinger touts tool for iOS

A Brit?

"this would hint that a Brit is behind the sale"

Nah. A Brit is unlikely to confuse there and their.

Also, is this whole piece just some sort of worst-possible case speculation, like a 10-circle Venn diagram with no common overlap except in the author's imagination?

The utterly minute number of jailbroken iOS devices makes this one helluva niche market for thieves, and those who engage in such jailbreaking are unlikely to be naive victims.

IBM PCjr STRIPPED BARE: We tear down the machine Big Blue would rather you forgot

Had IBM used AMD's Zilog Z80 clone, they would have had a much more capable machine.

Instead, they helped convince the world that the 8088 was the smart choice.

The IBM PC is to this day the scab on society it always was, but its progeny is slowly dying off, thank God.

'Arrogant' Snowden putting lives at risk, says NSA's deputy spyboss

Don't Forget Boss Hogg

What this ignoramus fails to consider is that the local yokel Boss Hoggs of the world can tap into the NSA's database with the thinnest of reasons.

Seattle pops a cap in Uber and Lyft: Rideshare bizs get 150-driver limit

There Is A Document To Consider

Thank God the U.S. of A. has a constitution that prohibits these actions.

Carry on good folks! The local commies are just grasping at straws.

Haunted Empire calls Apple 'a cult built around a dead man.' Tim Cook calls it 'nonsense'

Great Automator Script Available

Note to Myslewski:

You may want to reconsider the term "commentard" when describing El Reg readers.

It's like, well no, it is precisely biting the hand that feeds you.

I'll never read another one of your missives. If you'd like, I'll send you the Automator script that weeds you out.

Another Tramp Stamp

How many times does this woman need to be discredited before fools like The Register stop covering her garbage?

iOS 7's weak random number generator stuns kernel security – claim

Jerktastic (Yeah That's You Mandt)

I guess that the fact this has never been an issue or exploited means you should expose it worldwide. Have any of you ever heard of ethics?

Apparently not.

Crap turnover, sucky margins: TV is a 'terrible business' – Steve Jobs

Calling Out Jerks

Mr. Hamill,

The us of the word "fanbois" says much more about you than it does about them.

Grow up.

Elon Musk slams New Jersey governor over Tesla direct sales ban

In New Jersey, you can go to store.apple.com and order anything they make, and even customize it or add options. Why should Tesla be any different?

Apple iOS 8 'will put end' to crap map app rap flap misery

The sheer stupidity of not bothering to investigate before you publish is reason enough to shut down this author, and possibly the whole site. It's a good thing Cook is laid back.

The runway in question is actually part of the road network in a small Alaska hamlet. Do your bloody homework.

Neil Young touts MP3 player that's no Piece of Crap

So...we've got one of the worst singers of all time trying to hawk a device with no scientific reason for being, and we each end up $400 poorer?

Welcome to the 21st century of nothingness taking over the world. And too many minds.

Apple's Windows XP moment: OS X Snow Leopard left to DIE

Snow Leopard Is Still For Sale

Snow Leopard is still for sale in the Mac App store.

I'd hardly call that abandoned.

The Register copied an article from Computerworld that was bogus to begin with. Snow Leopard did not have the Mavericks security issue, and didn't need an update.

The Register should retract this article with an apology.

Bull

The fact is, Snow Leopard is not affected by the gotofail bug.

That's why there was no update for it on Tuesday.

To read into that "Apple is abandoning Snow Leopard" is the real fail.

IT gear manufacturers trim payrolls in July

Past Time

It's time for everything and everybody with an "IT" in their title to be bulldozed into a pile and a match thrown in.

You really don't know how much you're hated, do you?

Apple dodged all UK corporation tax in 2012

You Don't Get It

Evading taxes is illegal.

Avoiding taxes is not.

Call your MP, not Apple.

Sony Xperia Tablet Z: Our new top Android ten-incher

Idiotic

Yeah 10" is sooo much more than 9.7". Where's my wallet?

Oh wait, I forgot it's Android. Well, fragmented OS, malware, lack of apps be damned. At least it's not Apple!

Pink Floyd blasts Pandora for 'tricking' artists with petition

Re: Music was the Greatest Bubble ever...

ASCAP/BMI are a major problem for local music.

In the U.S., they charge even the tiniest venues a minimum of $1,000 per year in royalty fees. This applies to bars, coffeehouses, pubs, etc. no matter how small. If an aging hippy comes in and hammers out an old Dylan song on his antique Martin, fork over $1,000. If your group plays only originals, but is registered with ASCAP/BMI, the venue hands over $1,000. Jukeboxes are immune, because they are under a different scheme that doesn't include the venue they're in.

This live music killer has been contested in court many, many times, and ASCAP/BMI have always won.

There are big problems with local music, and the very organizations "helping" musicians are the reasons why.

Sneaky new Android Trojan is WORST yet discovered

Re: Couple of questions

The article has a screen shot of how the Trojan gets administrator privilege.

Experts: Network security deteriorating, privacy a lost cause

Re: Bull....Servers shouldn't exist at corporate locations.

They would be located away from you fools who don't have a clue about security.

Why can Apple do it with something as public and seemingly vulnerable as iMessage (feds can't crack it), yet you lot can't do it with a closed (convinced the CEO you could, you lying sacks o'...) network.

That's the BS, sport.

Bull

Try hacking an iMessage. Even the U.S. Feds are on their knees begging Apple to help them.

The IT types are years behind. Why? They want everything to go through their servers, which they are not smart enough to secure properly. And they want to be able to put their grubby paws into your email at their leisure, just like a hacker.

It's time to wipe the slate clean, send IT packing, and start over. Servers shouldn't exist at corporate locations.

Industry execs: Network admins an endangered species

Bring on the Veggies

The comments have generated enough meat for the crock pot, so bring on the rest.

Or just dump the whole thing down the disposal, including the IT types. We don't need them, want them, nor will we continue to tolerate them impeding business.

They just don't get it...they really, really don't. Business and productivity are not in their lexicon. Paycheck is, and that's about to change.

Re: Good

Thanks for making my point.

Good

Finally!

I am sick and tired of some dBase relic sitting in an ivory tower with a VAX in the corner shouting achtung! whenever he wants, and making all of us goose-step to his orders. Foisting the likes of Lotus Notes and other outdated garbage on innocents should be criminal.

IT has a real PR problem with the rest of the employees in their companies, and they are oblivious to it.

It's not we, the masses, who need to change, it is they. Computing is not what it used to be, and the sooner they hit the soup lines the better. They need to wise up before that happens. And it WILL happen.