Posts by Doctor Syntax

Quantum computing to grow by 50 per cent per year until 2027, when revenue will still be chump change

There seems to be a misplaced B in the subheading.

Hubble space 'scope brings its Cosmic Origins Spectrograph back online

Surely any end-of-life is going to be unplanned. Didn't the planned end-of-life pass long ago?

Kudos to all who are keeping it running.

AI-enhanced frog stem cells start to replicate in entirely new ways

Re: To paraphrase Arthur Dent:

They are clumps of cells and not cell fragments. The stem cells, if left to their own devices in a suspension, clump into spheroids of epidermis with the outer cells producing cilia by which they swim. As far as I can make out what they've done is work out Conway-like rules about how they associate in clumps and from that have worked out a shape - something along the lines of the glider gun - which will assemble smaller similar shaped clumps from loose cells. They then carve up the self-assembled spheroids into this shape. The reconfigured clumps work as predicted.

Each generation, however, is smaller. As they don't actually grow the limit is reached with a generation that's too small to assemble another one. They don't acquire energy from external sources so even the unmolested spheroids will eventually fall apart. The system is not self-sustaining.

It looks as if it depends on some mechanism for interaction between cells which must be related to the mechanisms for growth, embryogenesis, repair and differentiation in the whole organism but which lacks the structure of the whole organism to direct it. It may offer some insight into how collections of single cellular organisms could come together to form simple invertebrates with more advanced behaviours.

Want to buy your own piece of the Pi? No 'urgency' says Upton of the listing rumours

It's called retiring.

China plans to swipe a bunch of data soon so quantum computers can decrypt it later

Re: Quantum computing and decryption

"A bit too complicated to describe here"

The margins aren't big enough.

Re: Quantum computing and decryption

It's a little gem.

One aspect of this is that each time it's read it's different so it must be very actively maintained material and hence of even more interest.

Rather than actually generate and store, just simulate a file system and generate the random stuff when an intruder "reads" it. The cost of storage then falls entirely on the intruder. For bonus points simulate an entire network. Let them keep "discovering" another server full of stuff.

Nextcloud and cloud chums fire off competition complaint to the EU over Microsoft bundling OneDrive with Windows

Re: No problem with Android and Google Drive, and iOS and iCloud?

Apart from deliberate adulteration it was advisable to run a magnet over your ground coffee in case ground off bits of the machinery were in it.

The Co-operative movement was partly in response to adulteration. BTW the Rochdale "pioneers" weren't the first.

Re: No problem with Android and Google Drive, and iOS and iCloud?

"Nobody wants that for modern CEOs."

Citation needed.

Sweden asks EU to ban Bitcoin mining because while hydroelectric power is cheap, they need it for other stuff

Re: What's next?

The article fails to mention that by the end of the C19th physics was widely considered to be more or less complete. A great deal of recent technology is built on top of the discoveries made after that.

Re: Run a cloud company

There were reports of this being done a few years ago. I haven't heard much about it since. It probably failed when the householders switched off in a heat wave.

Re: Heatpump noise?

I doubt HMG is going to be mandating that level of local storage, just the heat pump that makes the electricity supply a single point of failure. I also doubt many town dwellers, let alone city dwellers, have a 4.5ha country estate.

Re: Heatpump noise?

The Beeb reports some areas still without power after 4 days.

But I think you miss the main point. HMG is trying to replace gas-fired central heating with heat pumps. Those are going to draw more than 150 watts. If gas is phased out that leaves you with no heating at all in the event of a power cut. It also leaves you without the ability to make hot drinks (if you already have an all-electric kitchen you lose that anyway in the event of a power-cut). Your electricity supply becomes a single point of failure.

Re: Let's make crypocurrency healthy

Anti-vax conspiracy theories are working quite well.

Re: Heatpump noise?

Enjoy your next winter power cut. Your gas central heating wouldn't have worked, of course, but your gas fires would.

Re: Or...

On Saturday morning we had a power cut of about 8 hours and snow outside, all thanks to storm Arwen. It's just less than a year since we had a 17 hour power cut due to an underground cable fault.

If, during those outages, our sole source of heat had been electricity, via heat pump or more conventional means we'd have had none for the duration. In fact we'd have been knocked back to a situation worse than when I was a kid in a house that was off-grid for electricity but had coal fires and gas. I'm very sceptical of the notion of going all-electric. It lacks resilience.

When civilisation ends, a Xenix box will be running a long-forgotten job somewhere

Re: "temporary"

The strategic fix would be the same fix with the objective being to give time for the fixer to find a job elsewhere.

Re: At Grace, re: temp solutions...

There's also selection at work. The ones that survive haven't been subject to "You know that....Could you just....". The ones that were and could have kept on running are gone.

They're going to have to do something about it in the next decade or so. I doubt Xenix will be Y2038 compliant.

Smart things are so dumb because they take after their makers. Let's fix that

If Server error 500 is a catch-all for errors that should have been caught and maybe automaticelly recovered some way back along the chain it won't help you very much.

Australia will force social networks to identify trolls, so they can be sued for defamation

Re: Down with anonymous cowards!

"I'm the original AC that posted this TLP in the first place"

So you say...

BOFH: What if International Bad Actors designed the vaccine to make us watch more Steven Seagal movies?

Re: I can disprove that

Well played, sir.

Re: Loonies are reading this

It's not empty. If you can't see anything your browser must be blocking the word

Has anyone else come to the conclusion that Unicode is the green ink of the internet?

Re: I can disprove that

"I've had both my vaccinations early and my phone data is still slow as fuck!"

No probs, you just need the booster. Does what it says on the tin.

Re: Fight fire with fire

the "esoteric medicine" slot

Few things are limitless but the capacity of such slots is one of them.

Government-favoured child safety app warned it could violate the UK's Investigatory Powers Act with message-scanning tech

I've seen the occasional case that was too ridiculous to end up in court ending up in court. In any case my point still stands: without a ruling there's no way of knowing whether the interpretation is valid.

It may be ridiculous but we don't actually know if it's invalid until it's been tested in court. Do we know if it has?

The Home Office is particularly effective at house training new Home Secs. Sir Humphrey wasn't in the same league.

That might apply to outbound messages but TFA says specifically that the sender's permission is required, not the receiver's. On this interpretation it makes it illegal for inbound messages.

But wait...what are the consequences for ordinary email spam filtering?

You forced me to use this fancypants app and now you're asking for a printout?

Re: Holidays

"That consultant had a strange career progression"

Very strange. You don't usually find traffic planners with such a thorough training.

Re: Like 2 decades ago

"Welcome to France, where the view from the top and from the field has absolutely no connection."

It sounds just like everywhere else but in French.

Re: I guess I’m just lucky

Thanks, folks. A nice list of suggestions to work my way through.

Re: I guess I’m just lucky

"Cetirizine will make me fall asleep whilst talking in the middle of a meeting."

You'd need to do a controlled trial to (a) separate the effect of the Cetirizine from the effect of the meeting and (b) check for synergy between the effects.

Re: A modern-day Adventure.

Or, if you believe the conspiracy theories, all alike.

I like to remind pedants in Britainland that the word "holiday" was traditionally used on the right-hand side of the Atlantic right into the 20th century to mean any time off from work, not just full-on seasonal vacations.

Pedants will remind you that "holiday" is just a mis-spelling/pronunciation of "holy day" and that Christmas meets that definition. If you don't want to recognise it as such get back to work.

Swooping in to claim the glory while the On Call engineer stands baffled

Re: Sleep

I think it's the fact that you have the more or less full picture of what you're working on in your head but if you're staring at a small amount of code on the screen you focus on that but it's not where the problem is. Once that block is removed a part of your brain is free to look at the whole picture. I've had a problem solved that way whilst just walking out of the door and across the car park but driving, and hence having something else to claim focus, was particularly effective.

I can understand removing the engine to refill the screen wash, but why the headlight bulb?

As I remember it it was the windscreen washer blocking access to the back of the headlight.

Re: Hey Rob!

We once had one in the Botany department as a loaner at the start of Autumn term. Several of us were taking Archaeology freshers out round some of the local sites (my branch of botany was closely related to archaeology). The lead car was a Spitfire, I was in the middle, trying to keep it in sight and at the same time let the minibus behind keep me in site. The road holding was fine but we did end the day with not much left on the brake pads.

Re: Hands On

Back in that sort of time-frame our lab was next to the workshop & I got on well with one of the technicians who had previously worked at Shorts (aircraft). He told me of some job he'd had specified which required a hole to be drilled in timber and then opened out to square. He waited until the boffin had left the room and then got a square section steel rod and a hammer...

If it fits the other way up the second time it's still in the wrong type of socket.

Some of this was allegedly based on one of his medical school tutors. What the allegation doesn't include is any indication of what percentage of the deductions were right.

Re: At Gene Cash, re: wrong error message.

And the headlight bulb.

Reviving a classic: ThinkPad modder rattles tin to fund new motherboard for 2008's T60 and T61 series of laptops

Re: X330 FTW!

"Portability and durability are my most important parameters."

At present.

Whether 4x3 meets your needs better depends on those needs. Working on 2 A4 documents side by side needs a lot of pixels across the screen. In order for those pixels to be useful they need to be big enough. That determines the width. Yes, a lot of screen height would also be handy to allow more of each page to be seen at a glance but that compromises portability.

OTOH I've been reworking the slides for a lecture next year because I realised that 4x3 was going to project better on the screen the hall we use.

Re: X330 FTW!

"I will have use a laptop made in 2012 for the rest of my life"

As your eyes age you might have to revisit that. The size of the screen becomes the most important parameter. 12.5" isn't going to cut it for ever.

UK.gov emits draft IoT and smartphone security law for Parliamentary scrutiny

Re: But why ?

"So if there is no default password, how do you do the initial login to change the password in a semi-secure manner ?"

Not a problem. On boot from out of box or factory reset it presents a password-setting dialog before it will connect to the net. It shouldn't even matter if there is a default password, password-less login or a dialog without a login at this stage as the user-defined password will be in place by the time it connects. If the password's forgotten then a factory reset allows you to enter a new one. My router works this way so it's not a startlingly novel requirement.

Re: until the last device stops working, and how would they know?

It's not phones. It's IoT.

Re: How will it work?

"2) You move the goal posts and say it si the sellers responsibility to ensure the IoT toy complies - How many of these sellers will even be aware of the requirements? How can they in turn force the company to implement proper security at point of manufacture?"

No moving of goalposts required for this. The Bill makes it an offence to import or distribute the product. From the point of an individual country it doesn't matter if the tat-makers keep making tat if it isn't imported. Globally, if enough markets enact such provisions then the tat-makers have the options of dealing with shrinking markets or complying.

The fly in the ointment here is that the likes of Amazon Marletplace & eBay seem to be given an out in that they're neither importers nor distributors - if all else fails section 55(11) seems to excuse them. What's missing is recognition of a role of gatekeeper. If it becomes expensive for them to allow non-compliant devices to be sold via their services then they will no doubt close the gates PDQ.