* Posts by martinusher

4119 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Feb 2015

The biggest microcode attack in our history is underway

martinusher Silver badge

Re: What is this article about again ?

I'm definitely not a fan of the current Administration.....but......

The Register's tales of government software written by experts is a bit like a soap opera. In the UK if its not Horizon or the latest NHS debacle its West Sussex finding its got to sell its soul in order to pay rapidly escalating software development costs. Here in the US its likely to be no different so I'd welcome any kind of audit from outsiders who aren't part of the system. I think its a long shot that anything good will come out of it (especially given the characters in the Administration) but anything's better than the status quo. (....and we all should by now know the difference between 'systems' and 'data')

'Key kernel maintainers' still back Rust in the Linux kernel, despite the doubters

martinusher Silver badge

Why not just develop a "LinuxR"?

Instead of trying to graft Rust into existing Linux kernel code why not use Rust to build a functional clone of the kernel? It doesn't have to include all the capabilities of the current kernel, especially the ability to support numerous processor types, but it would demonstrate the viability of Rust and be the spearhead for a changeover project. The current approach seems to risk cherry picking modules that are relatively easy to change so risks turning a coherent piece of code into a bit of a dog's breakfast of competing styles and methodologies.

I'm not opposed to including Rust but at the same time I don't like to see prototype anything included in production code just because its "new and improved". My experience is that the piecemeal approach rarely works out in practice.

I'm a security expert, and I almost fell for a North Korea-style deepfake job applicant …Twice

martinusher Silver badge

Re: A job's a job

I'm a Californian and have worked in 'technology' for all of my working life. Here your colleagues are likely to be a mixed bunch with a lot of Chinese and Iranians, some Indians (not that many in firmware) plus assorted Russians, some Europeans (including Brits) and even the occasional 'merkan. Working with this type of mongrel group gives you quite a wide perspective on people from other backgrounds and. in particular, tends to dispel the Cold War mindset that they're all some kind of menacing hive animal out to get 'us' etc.

This doesn't mean that criminals, opportunists and general bad people don't exist. Its just that you're just as likely to get your corporate IP stolen by an ambitious local as you are by some Chinese person. Malware is now more corporate than ever -- individual franchises might be working out of bedrooms in Rugby (for example) but the creation tends to hide as legitimate businesses, often in jurisdictions that are either noticeably poor at enforcement of 'flexible' on the matter.

So, yes, I'll defend "Chinese" or "Korean" as people, not the PRC government (and the less said about either Korean government the better at the moment). I just can't abide systematic prejudice. After all, its easy to characterize Brits as arrogant know-it-alls who still think they have an Empire (when they're not crashing around blind drunk somewhere) so why would you tar everyone from somewhere else, especially if its just nonsense spurted out by the defunct leadership of a has-been society?

martinusher Silver badge

A job's a job

Ignoring the political reality of everyday life -- a purely artificial construct at the best of times -- what you have is ultimately someone wanting to exchange labor for cash. We're told in this day and age that it doesn't matter if the person is physically present or working remotely, so long as they can do the job and they're cheap enough that's all that's important.

Ultimately the problem is the globalization of the labor pool. All this Cold War nonsense about spying, malware injection and general skulduggery is just nonsense except that people who are trying to squeeze every last cent out of a workforce are unlikely to want to invest the time and money in decent QA -- they want their code or services as cheaply as possible so opening their products to a whole hose of unwanted issues.

You can't fault people for trying it on even if the technology's not quite up to it yet. Supply meets demand -- we want an 'ideal' candidate so the market is responding by providing them.

UK government using AI tools to check up on roadworthy testing centers

martinusher Silver badge

Modifying exhausts or engine maps will get you into big trouble in states like California. "Rolling coal" is not just frowned upon, its illegal and violations can be quite expensive.

martinusher Silver badge

One advantage of living in California is that vehicles don't normally 'rot out'. The rubber goes before the metal.

A win at last: Big blow to AI world in training data copyright scrap

martinusher Silver badge

Re: "The copying of our content was not 'fair use.'"

So you've just argued that its perfectly OK for a lawyer to read legal opinions but its definitely not OK for them to use this knowledge.

Tricky business, law, isn't it?

US senator wants to slap prison term, $1M fine on anyone aiding Chinese AI with ... downloads?

martinusher Silver badge

Sign of weakness

Lots of noise and effort going into "Stopping China" but a lack of a cohesive policy to compete (except for the usual "Throw a bunch of taxpayer money around"). Smaller, more efficient " good enough" models that didn't need their own nuclear power station were bound to happen. Its the story of computing.

DJI loosens flight restrictions, decides to trust operators to follow FAA rules

martinusher Silver badge

Re: We now have mandatory tagging

The flaw with the 450 gram 'toy' exemption is that all of a sudden a lot of drones being sold weigh 449 grams. The bulk of their weight is their battery so users are expected to get a high capacity battery to replace the tiny starter one they ship with.

Like everything in life, if you think your exceptional condition (aka loophole) will never happen then its almost certainly going to. In this case the FAA was thinking 'usable payload' and wasn't thinking about changes in technology.

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Drones

No only of Canadian manufacture but the ones used by LA County are leased from Quebec.

martinusher Silver badge

We now have mandatory tagging

In the US its now required that all UAVs broadcast a unique identification tag, a tag that's registered with the FAA by the manufacturer. The drone ID is broadcast along with the device's position. The technology is imperfect but actually works, sort of. There are exceptions to this rule but they are for small -- less than 450gram weight -- devices and model aircraft flown at a "Federally Recognized Identification Area" (model aircraft flown outside of a FRIA require a tag). Regardless of electronics all UAVs -- models and drones -- need to carry a user FAA ID clearly marked on the frame or fuselage.

In order to get registered as a hobbyist you have to take a short "everyone passes" course. Its not as silly as it looks because its effectively a way of getting you to sign on the dotted line saying that you are aware of the regulations. This is entirely in keeping with the FAA's overall approach to regulation which could be summed up as "light touch / ton of bricks".

DJI don't need to police their drones any more because the FAA is doing it for them. They're also a Chinese company so in today's political environment they're not capable of normal or responsible behavior so I'd guess that they've just given up trying -- just flog the stuff to anyone who wants it and let them all fight over how its used and what constitutes yet another urgent threat to "National Security".

Clock ticking for TikTok as US Supreme Court upholds ban

martinusher Silver badge

Enforcement would be the province of the DoJ, possibly involving the FCC.

Thanks to some recent SCOTUS rulings the President cannot violate the law and with this President in particular you'd have a hard time making a case for impeachment in the current Congress. So, yes, there's a little problem with enforcement. We can go after Google and Apple because they're big, American and so easy to find. Going after a global community -- the US isn't the only user base (and even if it drags along its 'allies' then its still a relatively small part of the global population) so there's no way you're going to shut down the application without doing enormous damage to the Internet (and the business of American global giants like Google, Apple and Meta.....ouch!)

martinusher Silver badge

Re: such a sweeping restriction on Americans' right to free speech

Actually, the bit I object to is the notion of "Foreign Adversary". "Foreign Competitor", of course. But "Adversary" is all in the minds of US legislators and that segment of the public that's swallowed their Kool Aid. We've been treated to "missile gaps", South East Asian Dominos, "WMDs", "Mad Mullahs" and what-have-you for it seems like for ever and history has shown us time and again that its not so much a figment of imagination but a way to keep the public in a state of fear where they can be easily conned into accepting whatever crap's thrown at them. President Eisenhower warned about this in an address towards the end of his tenure and, unfortunately, his warnings have gone unheeded. The problem we have now is that this entire structure has painted itself into a corner -- its not capable of delivering what people need and its increasing appeals to irrational threats, "1984" style, just don't make sense, both internationally and internally. Put simply, "They're on to us".

I don't like social media myself but there's an entire international cultural milieu that does that forms a vibrant community. The reaction to this kind of legislation has been overwhelmingly negative from the users. Obviously, as established 'grown up' media pontificates, they're kids and they're get over it (or use the 'approved' American applications) but I think that's missing the point. The ban may well be ineffective but the reputational damage has been done and is likely to have long term repercussions for politicians. (....and speaking personally as an American, I positively resent the government telling me what to think or do, especially if their reasoning is weak, vague and obviously self-serving.)

Megan, AI recruiting agent, is on the job, giving bosses fewer reasons to hire in HR

martinusher Silver badge

Its just the Magic of the Market. Where there's a need a product will arise to fit that need. Obviously you can't churn out experienced engineers but churning out polished CVs and coached candidates to slot into a documented requirement is a bit of a no-brainer.

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Are you sure the Agent is not called M3gan

Kids grow up and eventually need jobs. What better role for a sociopathic automaton than HR?

The bell tolls for TikTok as lifelines to avoid January 19 US ban vanish

martinusher Silver badge

Re: The comments in this journal are going downhill fast

I've noticed this as well. I put it down to the changing nature of IT in the Anglosphere. When ElReg first started out "computers" were dominated by long haired weirdos (actually, ordinary people in need of a haircut) who generally being well educated had a rather broad minded view of the world. Over the years IT has become a 'good job', the sort of relatively well paid job that puts the workforce a cut above the hoi-polloi, with it becoming a lot more conservative (as in "defensive of the status quo") in the process.

This also shows up in the technology where a lot of the fundamentals, the underpinnings of the technology, have been replaced by conformist technologies and their frameworks. So, for example, you'll read about something like "TP-Link routers being a National Security risk" with lots of to and fro about whether they represent a risk or not but not a peep from anyone who understands the technology and is capable of either investigating such claims or doing something about them. (Such people do still exist but, alas, they don't seem to read this site any more.)

martinusher Silver badge

Re: You peeps take yurselves seriously

Actually, it was discovered (see "Voodoo Economics") that low level drug sales pays less than minimum wage.

I'm not into the whole influencer thing myself but a surprising number of businesses and politicians use TikTok.

But then I suppose its traditional to ban anything that young people like as drivel, bad for them etc. These current and future voters are unlikely to forget.

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Therefore, access to a specific social media platform is not a requirement for free speech.

>there are plenty of other ways to exercise your right to free speech.

You've just lost them in the UK because of "on-line safety".

martinusher Silver badge

"National Security" is just a blanket excuse to get around all sorts of legal and Constitutional hurdles to impressing the will of the minority on the majority. We're using the same excuse to ban Chinese vehicles in the US based on the rather flimsy argument that such vehicles could reveal location data to the Chinese (who if they really, really, wanted to know this would buy the data from a data broker just like everyone else does).

Price-fixing-as-a-service: The claim against healthcare cost-cruncher MultiPlan

martinusher Silver badge

Being able to afford the best of everything has its advantages

The "Best of Everything" includes lawyers, PR people and, of course, legislators. I suppose one reason why AI is being brought forward to compose and send out press releases is that it doesn't have anything resembling a conscience (training data won't have included the concept) so it can come out with things like "Lower bills for millions of consumers" and maintain a straight face.

There are very few people in the US that believe this. Insurers have played the percentages for many years, banking on only screwing a relatively small percentage of the population at any one time so the bulk say to themselves "No, surely, it can't happen here". Do it to enough people, though, and word gets about (not helped by the Interweb which is why there's such a desperate attempt to rein it in at the moment). People have started to notice that being in Safe Hands or having a Good Neighbor only extends to the point where you start costing the insurers real money.

UK readers shouldn't get too smug, though. Although you've been spared the worst of medical insurance -- so far -- its lurking just under the surface. I have a niece in the UK who has both a mortgage and breast cancer. The mortgage requires both life insurance (normal) and "Critical Care Cover" (WTF?). The breast cancer gets starts to look expensive so the insurance company's working the "pre-existing condition" trick. To us Americans this is familiar territory -- SOP for an insurance company ("Delay, Deny, Depose") and an incredible waste of time and energy for her family, her mother (my sister), nobody's who's really got the energy or resources to fight with an insurance company. (Somehow it seems a lot easier to just express oneself with a handgun....have we really come to this?)

It's not just Big Tech: The UK's Online Safety Act applies across the board

martinusher Silver badge

How about a ban on spray paint?

Spray paint cans have legitimate uses but by far their most common use is for spray painting graffiti, something that's mostly offensive to the eye, the devil to get rid of and is completely uncensored.

This is just a typical example of ineffective government overreach, the sort of "Brazil" like mindset that makes the place really naff for ordinary people to live in. Its ineffective because it won't stop the material its ostensibly supposed to stop, won't protect the people that its its supposed to protect but will provide endless employment for what used to be called in the old days "Little Hitlers" who can harass and suppress at will. (....and I'd guess its a lot easier than confronting the problem of 'grooming gangs', apparently a very real issue rather than something cooked up by tabloids to boost circulation)

So I suppose the London Fixed Wheel mob need to open their site for London, Ohio or London, Ontario riders (wink....wink.....)

Nvidia snaps back at Biden's 'innovation-killing' AI chip export restrictions

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Maybe Nvidia need to make the pilgramage to Mar-a-Lardon

Bureaucracies have significant inertia so once regulations are formed they're almost impossible to scrap. The reason for this obvious -- the primary rule is "nobody's going to work themselves out of a job" which implies that growth of regulation and accompanying complexity is inexorable.

Remember the #1 lesson from "Yes, Minister" -- politicians come and go but civil servants endure.

Chinese cyber-spies peek over shoulder of officials probing real-estate deals near American military bases

martinusher Silver badge

The basic story was that a consortium was buying farmland in California next to -- sort of next to, really -- an air force base. That story broke months ago when politicians started mouthing off about the "Chinese danger". Since then the concept has gained momentum and now we're not just seeing Reds Under the Beds but just about everywhere.

The problem is that the Chinese get everywhere. They've been opening businesses, investing and generally carrying on like good capitalists for 150 years or more and, furthermore, they keep doing so despite laws and purges designed to keep them in their place. Personally, I don't think they as a society care one way or another, all that matters is if they can make money out of whatever they're doing. (They do have a rather sly sense of humor, though, so I wouldn't put it past individuals to tweak the (paper) tiger's tail just for the fun of it.)

Trump China tariffs to 'overshadow' the 'progress' of AI PCs

martinusher Silver badge

Re: The year of the Raspberry Pi

Its not really "Made in the UK". Maybe assembled in the UK but the parts its assembled from are imported and, as you may have noticed, we (the US) have claimed some kind of overall control over ARM processors because we 'own' the process that they're built by, licensed or whatever.

What will really shake things free is a RPi like device that's a RISC-V. They actually exist at the moment but the RISC-V ecosystem isn't as well developed as the ARM. Yet. The appearance of a viable, US-proof, alternative ecosystem will likely crumble control over the ARM ecosystem. I can see how this will go together, it doesn't require any great insight or clairvoyance, just an understanding of typical industry development timescales, something that (unfortunately) our government officials and politicians seem to be clueless about.

Remember what happened with encryption. We 'owned' it and proceeded to require everyone to dance to our tune (and that even got down to the level of WPA encryption -- you used to have to get an export license for WiFi access points until we stopped making them because everyone + dog was doing it cheaper). The result is obvious -- its an algorithm so it just migrated to "Anywhere but America". This is the writing on the wall -- for those who want to read it.

martinusher Silver badge

There are other countries in the world....

One of the big blind spots of the Trumps of this world is that they can't get their heads around the fact that there are a lot of other countries in the world. We're likely the biggest single market but we're not the only market, in fact we're only a relatively small part of the total global market. So depriving us of something isn't going to hurt 'them' anything like as much as it would hurt us.

If you follow economic and political news closely you'd notice that the real reason for tariffs is revenue. There's a push to make the 2017 temporary tax cuts permanent (they'll expire this year) and a revenue source is needed to offset the cost of these tax cuts. (Most of us aren't really aware of those tax cuts because they overwhelmingly favored corporations and the well off.) Tariffs are effectively a form of Federal sales tax but its couched in terms like 'saving American jobs' and stuff like that to make it sound as if the advocates are doing us all a favor.

Is it really the plan to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal? It's been a weird week

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Distraction tactics—that's all

Actually, as a wealth manager will tell you, the economy tends to do better under a Democratic administration. Obviously the ruthless tax cutting that characterizes Republican administrations does benefit the better off but increasingly the loot's going mostly to the rather wealthy (less than 1% of the population) but for general economic performance the Dems have it.

The paradox is that Democrats tend to be more laissez faire than Republicans in that they prefer to leave people alone (which is why you get all the noise about gender and other stuff -- noise it is, too, because most of us just ignore it). They like to regulate corporations more but that's because the kinds of abuses that occur in R. times tend to be increasingly threatening to the overall economy of the country.

martinusher Silver badge

Its gloing to be a long four years

The inauguration has yet to happen and our incoming President is already detached from reality. I'd like to just ignore him and roll with it, in fact I don't have much choice but to do just that, but his (and his acolytes') blathering about our fires is just too much. "Clueless" doesn't even begin to describe our Federal government, its now just a blunt instrument to use against anyone who they don't like.

A typical example of rampant ignorance is a Republican congressman (from Ohio, I believe) who is calling for withholding disaster aid from California until we've revised our 'forestry policy'. I haven't a clue what he's talking about and I suspect he doesn't either. (Then there's innumerable people who don't know the difference between Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County, much less where anything is.)

...and don't get me started about China. We can't compete so we just blather and posture. The only weapon we've got is to punish the US consumer -- taxpayer -- by denying them any technology that might be superior to the crap that's increasingly being foisted on us.

(I'd contemplate returning to the UK but the weather's crap, the economy's crap and your government's worse than ours -- and thanks to Brexit there's nowhere else to go (its not even worth renewing my UK passport any more --- thanks a bunch, everyone).)

Tongue-zapping spoons, tea-cooling catbots, lazy vacuums and more from CES

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Fire, retrain, redeploy

But what truly is 'inefficiency'? If you're really objective about a lot of modern work, looking at it from the perspective of what's actually useful compared to what just makes money, then a lot of modern economic activity is purely parasitic.

I'd contend that the real purpose of work is to keep people usefully occupied. There really is no need for much of the frantic activity that characterizes modern productivity (and when AI has put us all out of a job who's going to pay its electricity bill?).

The ultimate Pi 5 arrives carrying 16GB ... and a price to match

martinusher Silver badge

Needs active cooling

This is a drawback with the Pi4 as well. Usually when you're messing around with Pis then you're not really interested in it as a computer but as the brains of something else.

Is that a bird’s nest, a wireless broadband base station, or both?

martinusher Silver badge

Re: I can't believe you've all missed it!

When I visited Australia (years ago) I was told that koalas are nasty, aggressive, things with sharp claws. They only appear docile because they're stoned on the eucalyptus leaves that are their primary food. I've met one face to face in the wild, it had a distinctly "You and who's army?" attitude, like a proper bear its the sort of thing you back off from slowly and quietly.

I don't think there's any wildlife in Australia that could be called 'cuddly'. Most of their wildlife seems intent on killing you using a creative brew of neurotoxins.

Short-lived bling, dumb smart things, and more: The worst in show from CES 2025

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Setting the time

Mdbus works fine over a network.

The problem we've got these days is that 'network' has come to mean 'HTTP9s) over TCP', usually from a central server. It carries huge processing, network and security overheads. Keeps a lot of people in a job who would otherwise be pounding the pavement, I suppose.

Biden said to weigh global limits on AI exports in 11th-hour trade war blitz

martinusher Silver badge

>uk residing register journo's prefer living there!

Not just 'register journos'. The reason why its OK to live here is that, like Space, "Its a big place, a really big place" which unlike other really, really, big places it has a quite reasonable climate and the locals mostly speak understandable English. Like anywhere else there are drawbacks but if you keep your head down and make an attempt to get on with the neighbors it's just fine.

The only snag from a 'Register' perspective is that its not the center of the technological universe that it used to be. This article, like a lot we see these days, is all about 'countering China' or, more accurately, 'countering competition'. Like with anything else if you're Top Dog then this position isn't guaranteed in perpetuity, you're just the team to beat. After all, its only an accident of history that means we're not reading "Das Register" -- up to the 1930s the primary language of science and technology was German (and if we don't sort ourselves out its going to be 登记册 ).

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Amusing.

Per the Constitution Mr. Musk cannot become President, he's not a "natural born citizen" of the US. But not to worry, he can't become President but he and his ilk can certainly buy one.

It was said of the US years ago that "We've got the best democracy money can buy".

Court docs allege Meta trained its AI models on contentious trove of maybe-pirated content

martinusher Silver badge

>And don't forget that the purpose of copyright is to enourage creativity.

That's a very naive view of how copyright works in the real world. I'd admit that this is how it should work but in practice it allows gatekeeper corporations to charge rent on information flows, often with little or no (or at best nominal) compensation to the original creators.

So let's be realistic about it. Meta represents 'money' and the major rights holders, the ones with the muscle to make a court case, want as big a piece of the action as they can get their hands on. For us little people there's "Nothing to see here, folks!".

Never mind those Chinese spies: US Air Force picks Verizon for 35 base network upgrades

martinusher Silver badge

If you're that worried about the hardware......

......then write your own firmware. Nobody's suggesting that our DoD is hard up for cash, the amount of money they waste -- sorry, 'spend' -- on a single program is much more than it would take to develop and deploy -- or even just test and certify -- the code used in these communication devices. But I suppose its easier to come up with fancy names for stuff, spray the area with FUD and sit back waiting for lucrative 'rip and replace' contracts to fall into one's lap. (Invariably replacing an openly Chinese made device by a device that's probably largely made in China -- with Chinese components -- but with a different certificate of origin)(with healthy markups all around!).

DEF CON's hacker-in-chief faces fortune in medical bills after paralyzing neck injury

martinusher Silver badge

Re: but the approval from his insurance company never came.

That sounds a bit far fetched. What happens in real life is that a treatment plan is submitted to the insurance company for approval and once its approved by the company then the treatment can proceed. Obviously you can get treated without insurance company pre-approval but they won't pay the provider(s).

Things are a bit different with emergency treatment because emergency treatment is mandated by Federal law regardless of the insurance status of the patient. This is probably what saved him -- routine care would have gone into the "delay / deny" Black Hole but as soon as the situation became critical the providers could class this as an emergency and just provide necessary treatment. (So the fight just moves to rehab....)

For UK readers who may not understand how the system works its actually worse than you can imagine because a hospital run like a hotel that provides nursing and care services. It doesn't employ specialists like surgeons but rather extends privileges to them which allow these providers to use -- effectively, rent -- the hospital facilities. This means that patients and insurers alike are often dealing with many different entities on a treatment plan. You don't notice this unless one or more of the providers is 'out of network' and bills you, the patient, directly. (Usually this happens months later after the bills have been back and forth between providers and insurers.) There's also a neat 'usual and customary' trick which can leave you, the patient, on the hook but this is too difficult to explain here.

There are alternatives to this mess. I'm a member of a HMO which is a lot like how the NHS used to work before it got broken up, PPO style, into numerous "business units". You show up & you get treated. There may be a small bill but they've been doing away with many of these (possibly because the cost of collection exceeds the actual sums collected).

Elon Musk's galactic ego sows chaos in European politics

martinusher Silver badge

Jesters have always said what they think

Musk is merely filling the role of court jester. He tells the truth as he sees it -- which is, note, not necessarily the truth as it actually is -- and in doing so treads on the toes of people and institutions who would prefer that 'their' truth prevail. There's no rule or law that says you actually have to listen to him.

The big fuss about 'election interference' is just a way of shutting down irritating voices who may rock the boat. We, in the US, have a long tradition of serious interference in others' elections using a combination of direct funding from the State Department and indirect funding to NGOs that ostensibly promote democracy but even so the noise about election interference by the bad actors du jour is quite strident these days. This has a definite "Me thinks she doth protest too much**" ring to it.

(**The actual quote from Hamlet is "The lady doth protest too much, methinks".)

Microsoft declares 2025 'the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh'

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Whatever happened

The ground is being prepared to prevent the rise of unwanted competition by producing hardware that can't be manipulated or bypassed by third parties without falling foul of laws like the DMCA. John Deere's agricultural equipment is a notorious example but cars are increasingly being made like iPhones with 'dark' diagnostics and parts tied to encrypted serial numbers. We're pushing back with 'Right to Repair' legislation but this alone can't counter mandated 'would someone think of the children/environment' planned obsolescence.

Microsoft is just another of the crowd. They're going to do what it takes to force you to purchase their stuff (and if you dare to bypass them by purchasing inexpensive imported (i.e. Chinese) systems that run Linux expect them to have enough lobby power that our legislators will all be blathering on about 'security risks').

I think they're actually on a road to nowhere but we're going to have to hang on for a fairly rough ride until enough of them figure it out.

LA deputies dogged by New Year date glitch in patrol car PCs

martinusher Silver badge

Probably forgot that 2024 was a Leap Year

Apparently they're not alone.

It didn't seem to stop the cops in their tracks, though.

Boffins carve up C so code can be converted to Rust

martinusher Silver badge

Still can't figure this out

I don't understand this obsession with memory safety. The rule should be that if you can't design and/or housekeep your code well enough to prevent inappropriate accesses then you shouldn't be writing in 'C' in the first place. The fact that people have written such code in the past and likely continue to do so is nothing to do with the language -- and certainly nothing to do with it being x years old.

From the earliest days of computing people have been trying to develop "programmer proof" languages, ones where common programming and logic errors are just not possible. That's a great idea and should be encouraged. But there's also a need for low level programming which is what a systems language like C is used for (which is -- tada!! -- why operating systems are written in it). There is a case for a system like languages to simplify writing higher level OS code, the sort of thing that might once have been scripted, and this is where a language like RUST should prove useful. But blindly stating that "such and such, being old, has to be replaced" and then using vague terms like "memory safety" just underscores how many people don't really understand how operating systems are structured.

How a good business deal made us underestimate BASIC

martinusher Silver badge

The IBM-PC is really just an Apple ][ built with Intel chips that wasn't as flimsy as most small systems were at the time. Having "IBM" behind it held a promise of standardization and so potential future proofing. From a performance perspective the PC running a 4.7MHz processor with 56KByte of RAM was about the same performance level (at best) as a BBC Micro.

Software -- languages -- have always suffered from a bit of snobbery. It seems that unless you're using 'the latest' in whatever language is fashionable then you're some kind of subhuman, barely worth the time of day let alone be talked to by a person**. I've always had a more pragmatic view of programming -- there are languages I prefer to use, languages that I think are good for teaching but overall I tend to use what's available. Original BASIC was pretty naff, that's true, but by the time it appeared in PCs and the like it was half-decent and only continued to improve. The real problem with it is common to all programming -- a perfect storm of clever people solving problems using tools and techniques not intended for, or up to, the task invariably results in frightful code.

(**Ever tried calling support from a language vendor in the early to mid 80s?)

China's homebrew Bluetooth alternative is on the march as Beijing pushes universal remotes

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Stream lossless stereo audio.

My Roku remove is Bluetooth and can stream audio (you can plug headphones into it).

The problem with Bluetooth is that its proprietary and its use of 'profiles' is not conducive to extend ability. It works, but its far from ideal.

Next-gen Wi-Fi to trade ludicrous speed for the boring art of actually working

martinusher Silver badge

Headline Speeds were always an illusion

WiFi is what happens when marketing drives engineering. The wireless protocol itself is restricted to a relatively small number of frames per second due to the generous guard times needed to make the protocol work. Packing more data onto the frames then collides with common protocols like TCP that plaster communications with numbers of short frames (and our tendency to gobble bandwidth because of the needs of advertisers). This has always left the real world performance well short of what gets printed on the box and developments in the protocol have merely served as a form of "whack a mole" where trying to improve performance in one area invariably leads to problems in another. The solution to this problem has always been "more R/F bandwidth" -- WiFi was always crowded into two small slices of spectrum that were regarded as useless because the frequencies were absorbed by water molecules. So any real solution had to be political.

RISC-V is making moves, but it has work to do if it wants to hit the mainstream

martinusher Silver badge

Its not just cost

The one overriding advantage that RISC-V has is that its unencumbered by political decision making in the US. Our government has looked into restricting the use of the RISC-V ISA by the Chinese but all they would have discovered is that abstractions like ISAs don't respect borders, sanctions, entity lists or tariffs. (We should have learned our lesson from encryption where our monopoly over encryption through the widely used DES algorithm rapidly eroded when we tried to control who could use the algorithm and how they could use it.)

I think our popular model of 'computing' being a laptop running Windows is doomed. Its why I don't see Dell or anyone like that bringing out RISC-V PCs. They key to the future is in devices like Chromebooks, devices that won't necessarily run Google's Chrome (encumbered by both government and the dead weight of adware) but will serve the vast majority of everyday needs. Put simply, the bottom will just fall out of the market.

Trump's tariff threats could bump PC prices by almost half

martinusher Silver badge

Re: America voted for the Orange Sociopath

>Electing Trump for a second term was an historical act of mass stupidity.

True, but its no worse than the 'leadership' that's been elected in, say, the UK.

What we're seeing is the culmination of 40 plus years of a relentless march to what used to be known as "rentier capitalism" (aka "You will own nothing and be happy"). The whole thing was predicated on some compliant 'rest of the world' paying 'rent' -- i.e. doing the work while we cream off the profits. The problem is that this rest of the world is on to us and wants more equitable trading relations. This has seriously unbalanced our western economies, there really aren't any 'services' that they just have to have any more and they can increasingly provide what they need. Weaponizing our financial systems and the US dollar to force them to behave is accelerating the process. This leaves our governments chronically short of cash so they're going to turn on 'we, the people' to paper over the cracks.

The next few years are going to be interesting.

martinusher Silver badge

As I remarked in an earlier reply, these tariffs are expected to offset some of the long term damage from earlier tax cuts, especially if the temporary ones of 2017 are made permanent.

Its actually an amazing feat of propaganda to convince ordinary people that tariffs are a 'wealth transfer from rich to poor' because they're a tax on luxury goods etc. They're not. The way they're threatened they're going to be on the staples of everyday life -- food, transport etc. I've read a fair bit about this, especially Republican proposals for balancing the budget, and while the rhetoric might be the old "Wast, Fraud, Abuse" mantra the reality is they plan to take it out of the hides of ordinary people. The only snag with this being that unlike the 1980s there really isn't a whole lot left to squeeze. It will be interesting watching this play out (I'm an 'underconsumer' so I'll likely get by but others may not be so fortunate).

martinusher Silver badge

Re: But surely

It will be just like a Federal sales tax.

Tariffs were the way that the fledgling US government raised revenue and they're projected to be an important part of Federal revenue in the coming decade, especially if the 2017 'temporary' tax cuts are made permanent.

Second Jeju Air 737-800 experiences mechanical issues following deadly crash

martinusher Silver badge

Running out of runway doesn't automatically result in a fireball. One of our local airports, Burbank, has the east-west runway -- the one that planes land on -- end abruptly at a road Hollywood Way). There's a blast screen, a wire fence and the sidewalk (pavement). Since this is the runway that's used for landings and all landings come from the west towards this street coming into Burbank is always exciting. To add to the thrills there used to be a gas (petrol) station over the road from the runway but it was removed after a 737 ended up in it.

See:- https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-mar-06-mn-6031-story.html

(Compared to this Gatwich's got plenty of room before the A23 and the railway.)

Jimmy Carter set the solar, space, and environmental pace

martinusher Silver badge

Unfortunately the electorate is a sucker for false promises -- to quote Slarty Bardfast (character from "Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Universe") -- "I'd far rather be happy than right".

Christmas 1984: The last hurrah for 8-bit home computers

martinusher Silver badge

Re: Well......

That's exactly what I did. I had all sorts of useful software for it including real programming languages and the 'office' type programs. I used it for real work, even carrying it around with me (that sucker was still heavy, though -- like carrying a sewing machine). I used it with a Brother daisy-wheel printer, it wasn't as versatile as a dot-matrix but the result looked a lot more professional.

However, by Christmas 1984 it was abandoned, left in the UK to what became an uncertain fate. I was offered a job in California working for one of the numerous PC clone companies so by Christmas I was using PC type machines, both desktop and 'transportable' (the transportable clone that I still have was an XP copy that had a much larger screen than the Osborne). So I missed all those Spectrums and what-have-you -- naff systems all, the only one I thought worth the time of day being the Jupiter "ACE", a FORTH system (and I had FORTH on both the Osborne and the Corona so it was really just a toy).