Posts by bombastic bob

What the @#$%&!? Microsoft bans nudity, swearing in Skype, emails, Office 365 docs

Re: Fuck translates to Fick, Bolle, and what more

"We are fast approaching a point where ordering a sandwich at a deli will land you in prison"

a SAUSAGE sandwich with MAYO, please...

Re: WTF!

I'm offended by Micro-shaft's policies. they should ban themselves now.

Re: That's Yorkshire fucked then

"we had to talk about how many different ways there are to conjugate "fuck" as a verb, adjective, noun or adverb"

if you see Kaye, tell her I said hi.

Re: It's a feature

wait until it auto-bans you based on poor swear-bot behavior, like "shitake mushrooms" where IRC swear-bots will occasionally kick/ban you because of something like that

Re: No Cussing Allowed?

keep in mind that "offensive" might include anything that disagrees with POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

Micro-shaft can take their *PROFANITY* *PROFANITY* services and *PROFANITY* *PROFANITY* *PROFANITY* !!!

How do you make those darn code monkeys do what you want? Just give 'em a little nudge

Re: You will get desert.....

how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

Re: Ring the bell

"Document in the positive."

things that document 'in the negative' were probably written by lawyers trying to cover their own asses...

Re: Beware of the leopard

well, a positive example of this 'make it easy' etc. principle is how the city of San Diego handles its recycling program, which effectively pays for itself (as I understand it) with items tossed in the blue cans.

All they did was give EVERYONE a blue trash can to put out every other week with recyclable materials.

Now I find I'm filling the blue can, and rarely put out the black one [normal trash] by comparison.

So recycling gets done on a massive scale, it benefits the city, trash doesn't fill up the landfills so much any more, and it is SO easy to do as a citizen, because you just toss the recyclable thing into the blue can instead of the black one. [they also give you a pretty long list of things you can recycle, and a trash calendar indicating which weeks to put the blue can out on the curb].

Anyway, I think this is a good example of the principles discussed in the article being applied. OK it's not IT, thus icon, but I thought it was worth "sharing". heh.

Parents blame brats' slipping school grades on crap internet speeds

"a poor connection can waste an awful lot of time."

poor connections work fine for PLAIN TEXT and 3 or 4 pages of search engine results (it's all done server-side after all). Waiting for CAT (read: pr0n) videos on youtube to buffer, while claiming "I'm studying", not so much.

article: "Surely we're not expecting the little dears to read books instead?"

YES. And it PROBABLY requires going to and knowledge of a library to do THAT. With any luck they WALK to the library, getting some sunshine and exercise. All good!

icon, because I _AM_ thinking of the children. I'm just not a flaming bleeding heart brainless liberal.

When _I_ was a kid, I had to walk to school, uphill, both ways, in the bad weather, carrying a buttload of books so I could do 4 hours of homework every night. Kids these days got it WAY too easy! They need to get their ritalin-filled heads out of their collective asses and stop whining on social media, texting each other instead of talking, and playing video games all the time. Kids these days...

Meet the open sorcerers who have vowed to make Facebook history

Re: another bloody silo that nobody needs

extending IMAP probably isn't the right way to do it, especially if existing private e-mail systems NOT running Dovecot suddenly become "incompatible" because of it.

Any kind of central "real world identity" system is RIPE for abuse. Period.

Spammers and scammers WANT to be able to connect a real-world identity with an online one, especially if you use multiple e-mail addresses, IRC handles, gamer IDs, or "any other presence". If they can't track you CENTRALLY, in order to monitor you for advertising (or other) purposes, they'll do it via the "real world identity" thing.

Don't forget, Micro-shaft NOW has that "Micro-shaft Logon" which was first excreted in the early part of the 21st century as part of their "Dot Not Initiative" - aka "Micro-shaft Passport", which was a TOTAL flop even when compared to the whole "dot bomb" thing.

maybe its time to divorce from the Faecebook way of doing things, and go back to something that doesn't track you or spam you with ads, like USENET and IRC.

Huawei wins patent injunction against Samsung in China

Re: Chinese courts are capable of making reasonable decisions

"how do foreign companies fare in Chinese courts when trying to enforce their IP?"

Thanks. here ya go! Have a beer!

NASA fungus problem puts theory of 'Martian mushrooms' on toast

Re: Sounds like

"I mean how can you not have fun cleaning?"

when it involves being on your hands+knees and lots of bending over? that's not very fun...

"Come on guys, lets get our mops, our buckets and our sponges and have some fun cleaning! It's party time!"

how about high pressure washers and compressed air instead? That's even MORE fun!

when I was in the Navy they used to joke that a 1st class petty officer does "Field day" (ship cleanup) while standing up. And the CPOs all do their proficiency watches during that time so that the rest of the crew can clean. heh.

Re: Um, nope

"but some species capable of producing amino acids that are usually considered to be extra-terrestrial when found in meteorites."

you sure that these fungususes and shrooms aren't of ALIEN ORIGIN???

icon because obvious

India: Yeah, we would like to 3D-print igloos on the Moon

Re: What to use as a binder?

"How does this 3D house printing compare with an inflatable structure which can be used as a former for polyurethane foam?"

sounds good to me. and it could be made RE-USABLE to make MORE structures after the concrete cures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunarcrete

ok - you'd start with a thin enough layer so that the inflated structure doesn't collapse under the weight. But then, you remove the inflatable part, then build on top of the existing layer. I'd also assume some kind of support structure underneath it as well, not just air pressure. Lunar titanium. But it would begin with the inflatable structure that you mentioned. It's a good idea. I like it.

Re: See what l did here....

"....and a country like the UK can spaff money on things like Trident and brexit when they don't have affordable housing for most of the population, feed school children, etc. et"

you know, MOST of that could be fixed with pure capitalism. You have to assume that the reason people have no housing is that it's not being built fast enough, the reason they have no food is because it's not being produced in farms fast enough, and the reason people lack money is because they don't have jobs.

So what's the solution? pay out tax dollars to people who claim they don't have enough money to get housing/food/etc.? I think NOT (think of where it has to come from, and how UNsustainable THAT would be). Instead, you ENcourage private enterprise to do what it's good at, create jobs, produce stuff people want, and tell GUMMINT to just STAY OUT OF THE WAY as much as possible. [yeah here come the exploitation arguments, yotta yotta - *yawn*]

Just stating "the obvious" ya know?

So, where are all of those "straw man" xenophobics anyway? Maybe there's a handfull of wackos, but that's it, right? Do YOU know any xenophobics? I mean REAL xenophobics, not "accused of it" because "political correctness" or something, the way the P.C. fascists throw around 'word of the day'-phobia accusations right/left/up/down/wherever all the time. And if you do not know anyone that's a xenophobic [likely], then ARE there any in significant numbers? And that's my point. People just want to live their lives in private and not be disturbed or coerced by anyone/thing, because THAT is human nature. I think most people are really like that. And I know a LOT of people 'like that'.

And nuke weapons helped prevented the world from falling to fascism and communism. I think _that_ is pretty useful, don't you?

Re: igloo

there are better materials than ICE, and could be made from moon dust which is basically 'regolith', not unlike concrete in many ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunarcrete

additionally, there have been several proposal with respect to ice as a construction material, one which was proposed back in WW2...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete

this example uses wood pulp plus ice, but there are other potential materials as well, that would help prevent the ice from subliming away in the vacuum on the moon.

Another good alternative would be GLASS. Yes, GLASS. And the lunar surface contains a lot of Titanium, which would be really good for support.

So now you get building materials that are local to the moon, and require very little (if any) water to make:

a) sulfur-based or other 'dry' concrete

b) titanium mined on the moon

c) glass made from silicates on the moon

d) solar and nuclear energy to power it all (2 weeks of night every month, so you'd need something to power stuff when it's dark, and nuclear makes the most sense).

Anyway, an igloo is kind of odd and impractical. But using LUNAR MATERIALS is definitely the way to go.

Sysadmin wiped two servers, left the country to escape the shame

water, water, everywhere!

decades ago I had an "in between" job as a building maintenance guy, working graveyard shift. One morning I went to turn on the A/C unit, but when I started the cooling tower pump, someone had shut the valve on the inlet of the A/C unit [only one guy ever did that]. It broke several 12" diameter PVC pipes running around the building, dumping tons of water into the parking garage. Yeah, the switch for the pumps was on the opposite side of the building from the A/C unit with the valve. I didn't get fired, though. But the A/C was down for several days [fortunately weather wasn't bad, and regular ventilation was sufficient] while the pipes were all re-done. With double-thickness pipe so it wouldn't happen again.

ok NOT related to I.T. hence icon.

SpaceX blasted massive plasma hole in Earth's ionosphere

Re: Yawn

"Disruptions in the ionosphere are to be expected for every rocket launch and are also detected during volcano blasts and solar flares."

And don't forget meteorites. Those that are large enough to hit the ground most likely create the same KINDS of "problems" in the ionosphere.

The *EARTH* is *NOT* *THAT* *FRAGILE*. And _natural_ processes do the SAME THING, and usually to a greater extent than ANYTHING humans can do. I mean, seriously, ONE ROCKET did "all that" ? I have my doubts!

Prez Trump's $60bn China tariff plan to hit tech, communications, aerospace industries

Re: It's almost too late

"Whereas the USA will do anything to pay less"

hopefully THIS means building robotic factories in the USA.

In China (and many other upwardly mobile far east nations, from my experience), their underpaid employees are often "thrown" at solving a manufacturing need. It's a bit like the keystone cops. In the west, people think they're too good to count a million washers, and weigh the bag instead, estimating the number. Over there, they count, and throw an unlimited number of 'bodies' at the problem until it's done.

Yes, out of a million washers they were short a few hundred. [this was Singapore, back in the 90's]

So, back to the 21st century...

Let's say you want a limited production run of circuit boards. A company in China will probably have a big workbench filled with employees working on your device, using the 'tweezer' pick and place method. In the USA, a robot will do it, and a tech will load the parts reels and put the finished circuit boards into the reflow oven. Even visual inspection can be automated. Interestingly, one US company's manufacturing price is actually COMPETITIVE with at least one well known company in China [all things considered].

What China has going at the moment is a lack of "polluting" costs and better 'location proximity' for suppliers. They did this deliberately.

Let's say you have a resistor maker, a capacitor maker, a semiconductor maker, and a board maker, all in proximity to an assembly company. It doesn't take "rocket surgery" to figure out that having all of these NEXT TO EACH OTHER (effectively) will GREATLY improve the process and lower inventory levels [leading to lower costs].

THEN, they have an UNLIMITED SUPPLY of "low wage" employees, which (for now) are cheaper than building robots. And that's who is building our "stuff" at the moment.

Couple that with a LACK of environmentalist wackos (in China) complaining daily about the MERE PRESENCE of hazardous materials, along with the expense of disposing of such industrial waste (they just pump it into the air, etc.), and the frequent sue-balls and H.R. nightmare and "other regulations" and other problems associated with the "sue-ball" shadow economy, and building in China looks pretty damn good by comparison... [from the "can you blame them" depaertment]

I'd like to see a lot of "those things" made HERE instead. With robots. And clean processes. And once our industries stop going "over there" and invest "over here" to get the robotic plants up and running, because the tariffs make it worth while, we'll see a shift in manufacturing. And that's the point.

Prof Stephen Hawking's ashes will be interred alongside Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin

Re: Throw Data and Riker in there

Star Trek TNG poker game. Hmm...

thinking about it, everyone from that game who was a HOLODECK character (in the STNG universe) is now in one place.

OK I'll grab my coat, too.

As I recall, Prof. Hawking won the hand.

"Prove me wrong"

science is based on the scientific method; that is:

a) theory

b) observation

c) hypothesis

d) experimentation

e) analysis (proof or disproof of hypothesis)

The experimental part needs to be repeatable by others in order to be considered 'science'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Prof Hawking worked on the 'theory' and 'hypothesis' parts, for sure, and the math may be part of 'experimentation' and 'analysis'. Others will experiment, no doubt, to prove or disprove his theories.

So science doesn't require "a leap of faith". Science requires experimental proof. Or disproof.

US Congress quietly slips cloud-spying powers into page 2,201 of spending mega-bill

provided they get a US judge to approve a subpoena

that would be the 'due process' part in accordance with the 4th ammendment.

Of course, foreign server operators can tell the FBI (or whoever) to pack sand. So the law is actually _MEANINGLESS_ without foreign government cooperation. For a U.S. company, however, it's probably binding (in one form or another).

More L[a]Yers getting enriched. Again.

Five things you need to know about Microsoft's looming Windows 10 Spring Creators Update

Re: Anyone attempted to use ReactOS?

I attempted it long ago. not even in alpha state, unfortunately. maybe now it's better. I don't even know if it supports applications written for Windows 7. Ot was originally intended as an XP clone.

it would be nice if it gets finished into a commercial product, because people WOULD BUY IT

"I moved 7 elderly cousins to 10 (one from Vista-7-10, 2 from 8.1) and for them it 'just works'."

well, LA-DE-FRICKING-DAH! [voice of Chris Farley]

"with ClassicShell and anti-slurps I've made them all look just like XP"

HOW can you POSSIBLY do THAT when it's STILL all "2D FLATSO"? And don't forget "Settings" vs "Control Panel" and lots of _OTHER_ sewage. Sure 'Classic Shell' makes it USABLE, but doesn't fix the REAL problem.

Re: Long File Paths ?!

"If you want your application to use long paths then it needs to have this entry in the manifest"

Yeah, that's *ANOTHER* irritation that Micro-$HAFT has done to change Win32 applications: they added the FORNICATING MANIFEST which you *HAVE* to use for certain things to avoid *NIGHTMARE* scenarios for 'your application', such as being confused for an installer if the name resembles something that *might* be a setup utility [whether it is or not], since Vista.

But I suspect they want to go "UWP-only" at some point, so Win32 may become a thing of the Windows 7 past...

And Micro-$HAFT could have SIMPLY added another API function (20 years ago) to fix their shell, one that respects "longer than 260 character" paths.

related, the article linked to a site that showed the appearance of the latest "new, shiny" and it had a link to a $5 "light media player" - yes you have to BUY it from "the Store". That's a floated 'trial balloon' from Micro-$haft. And the appearance of VLC in the panel above (apparently a UWP version - *shudder*) was an abomination that I pray to the gods of programming *NEVER* *APPEARS* *ON* *ANY* *OTHER* *PLATFORM* {especially Linux or BSD}.

And of course the 2D FLATSO looks JUST as ugly, perhaps even uglier than before.

Leaning tower of NASA receives last big arm

Re: And the passenger in the shuttle ?!

apparently, the previous thought was to have 'some kind of a shuttle' to guide the boosters back to earth? Robot pilot?

This is NASA's chance to make the case for their own launch system in competition with the private sector. Let's see how it works out.

/me thinks that if SpaceX doesn't make a better one that is people-rated, someone else (besides NASA) will. because, as we all know (or should know), it takes a gummint to cost-bloat and delay a project into infinity (unless someone is watching VERY CAREFULLY and lighting a fire under their asses at every opportunity).

Programming languages can be hard to grasp for non-English speakers. Step forward, Bato: A Ruby port for Filipinos

Re: It is NOT English

" but when you are programming you are thinking only of how the function is used and what it does rather than how the word would be used in English."

hence, the occasional utility function named 'semprini'

Re: There's a PhD in that

yeah, let's just all program in '4th'. problem "solved" [everyone equally disadvantaged]

Re: I wonder if you can't be bothered to learn

if you learn martial arts, it's likely you learn the terms in whatever lingo the martial art is associated with...

English terms are few and easily recognized, don't require characters outside of 7-bit ASCII, and since English is "the language of commerce" it's often taught in non-English speaking countries. As I understand it, English is still #1 when you look at it from "how many people in the world are at least familiar with the basics of the language". English is ALSO spoken universally for air traffic control . It's an "international standard".

if we were to use Spanish as 'the standard language' (also a commonly spoken/understood language), then the 'if' statement would use 'si' (no accent), which is a little ambiguious compared to 'sí' (with an accent) which means 'yes', and also requires me to use the 'charmap' application to grab an accented 'i'. Other languages like French and German have their non-7-bit-ASCII characters, too. German might be able to live without the 'ö' and use 'ss' instead of 'ß', and maybe Spanish can live without the 'ñ', but your average U.S. ASCII keyboard doesn't have those keys on it. Typists would have trouble with it. It would slow down productivity. Seriously.

I remember finding some stuff, in wxWidgets as I recall, that uses 'colour' rather than 'color' and I had no problem with it. You just go with what's there.

Re: Nothing new here

I worked with some engineers from Russia a few years back [they were visiting the US at the time] as part of the company project, which involved a Russian company in St. Petersberg and a U.S. company in San Diego. I mentinoned that debian linux had a Russian version, but he said that in Russia they usually prefer to use the English versions of the software because the Russian translations are often ambiguous or unclear, particularly with UI elements and things like that.

Maybe THAT is why the Russian translation of BASIC wasn't being used...

Addicts of Facebook and pals are easy prey for manipulative scumbags – thanks to tech giants' 'extraordinary reach'

Re: Some Data Protection and other ideas

let's propose something a bit simpler:

a) opt-in only for the data collection; and

b) individuals must be able to view and edit their own info, in a meaningful form, as they see fit [including erasing all of it]

And you _KNOW_ the data miners would NEVER go for it, which would probably mean it's the right way to do it.

Not to mention the EU's "right to be forgotten" which means you should be able to tell every data miner to "forget" everything they've got on you... [and propagate it to every one of their 'partners' too].

so yeah if you accidentally visited a few pr0n sites, just erase that bit of history, and no more ads for penis pills. Well, you'd hope that, anyway.

Re: Regulation is badly needed - Steps: 1-3

oh yeah, more gummint. that'll fix it. **NOT**

No, Stephen Hawking's last paper didn't prove the existence of a multiverse

Re: Awesome

Call it "n-space" instead of 'universe' perhaps?

and what separates the n-spaces... a dimension? So they're really (n-1)-spaces

And what if gravity (or mass) were a dimension, like time? Particles tend to play a "now you see them, now you don't" game, from what I understand, even appearing in more than one place within the same 'time' from what I've read [but that was YEARS ago, science may have explained that one away by now].

So if quantum events create new (if just theoretical) n-spaces, NOT having an atomic decay might have a different 'mass' dimension than 'that other universe' where the atomic decay took place.

so you're back to infinite 'n-spaces' again, even if things did not start out that way at 1.0E-33 seconds.

/me now does a shoutout for 'Noein'

Re: Multiverse Mania

there's still that one OTHER universe where everybody wears cowboy hats... (but only THAT one).

/me goes to the edge, sees cowboy hat Bender waving back

Horn star Sudan, last male northern white rhino, dies aged 45

Re: Extinction

"we destroy natural habitats and hunt down animals for trophies"

not so much any more. but that is the way of nature, isn't it? the apex predator causes extinction.

So we go against our own nature and act a bit more responsibly, instead. You know, like putting out forest fires, rescuing wildlife from natural [or other kinds of] disasters, and saving endangered species. That kind of thing. Only humans do THAT.

Screw luxury fridges, you can now run webOS on your Raspberry Pi

the pic in the article looks kinda "2D FLATSO", so yeah, dunno if I'd want it to do an xbmc-style function even. still if it's open source, that could be fixed and forked

Facebook confirms Cambridge Analytica harvested profile data

Re: Fake News!!

"Who the hell is accurate on social media?"

'Teh intarwebs' where men are men, women are men, children are old perverts that live in their mother's basement, etc.

It's always funny to see men behaving differently in an IRC channel because they think "a girl" is in there, and they hang around "the girl" like a harem, but more likely than not, she isn't someone who's interested in guys anyway... and yet it's SO funny to sit back and watch the posturing, like a bunch of peacocks.

Here is how Google handles Right To Be Forgotten requests

This will be on your permanent record

My kindergarten teacher was *RIGHT*

Oh, and I'm looking forward to the conclusion of this. It oughta be an interesting read.

Windows 10 to force you to use Edge, even if it isn't default browser

Re: Fucking idiots

from article: "Microsoft’s justification for the change is that Edge is the best, most secure browser on Windows 10."

HA HA HA { while(1) printf("HA "); } HA HA *cough*!

(oh, they're SERIOUS?)

from post: "Microsoft has a history of not listening and shooting themselves in the foot."

and NOW they're shooting themselves in the GROIN.

Facebook suspends account of Cambridge Analytica whistleblower

Re: So do FB look at them as competitors or potential subsidiaries

"FB see CA as customers, and Wylie as a threat to that"

exactly - all of the news discussion on the 'cambridge' guys using the data seems to be in line with FB's rules at the time, *AND* when you consider how 'big slurp' (aka google) has been directly involved with the former president, you just have to say "this is the 21st century" and recognize that election people are gonna collect data using whatever means they have available.

The solution: don't make your data available, if you can manage it. None of what they do is "illegal". It is probably "immoral" and when the laws change they'll be forced to STOP [we hope]. but I still get calls on my phone from "press 1 to talk to a human" robocalls, even though my numbers are on the national do not call list, and robo-calls of a commercial nature are ILLEGAL, and they're obviously doing it ANYWAY.

and politicians exempt THEMSELVES from the rules, because POLITICAL robocalls are NOT illegal, and political calls can DISRESPECT the do-not-call list. yeah, figures, huh?

Konichiw-aaaaargh! Amazon's Japanese HQ raided in antitrust probe

Alibaba needs equal scrutiny

just sayin' [amazon isn't the only outfit in town]

It's hard to be a monopoly when there's obvious competition. [this assumes that no unfair business practices are going on, and I suspect that there aren't any of significance]

FYI: AI tools can unmask anonymous coders from their binary executables

sample set is too small

Seriously, the sample set is too small. If they'd used THOUSANDS of coders [or better still, MILLIONS] and been able to get a 65% accuracy on determining "who wrote this", I'd be impressed.

And in the case of finding out who wrote an "illegal" program, this is what you'd have to be able to do.

No fear necessary.

It's Pi day: Care to stuff a brand new Raspberry one in your wallet?

Re: Fantastic!

I've built a couple of test-bench "bed of nails" devices for a customer using RPi model 2B's from a couple of years ago [with the older BCM CPU on them]. Also have a model 1B and another model 2B that I'm playing around with at the moment [writing necessary kernel drivers for FreeBSD].

I saw that after I bought my Pi 2's (and the ones for the customer devices) the CPU on the RPi 2B v1.2 was updated to a 64-bit device, though from what I have read it also runs the older 32-bit code, which is good, because I do _NOT_ want to be forced into a version of Raspbian that uses systemd... [and so I should be able to continue using FreeBSD and the older Raspbian on it]. Haven't tried Devuan's RPi code yet (Raspuan?).

I'll still have to try the 32-bit OS's on the RPi 3 though. anybody done that? As far as I can tell it should work.

Hubble Space Telescope one of 16 suffering data-scrambling sensor error

Re: ADC device number please.

I suppose you could do a 'parts search' on an electronics supply house like digikey or mouser...

"latest failure of Scientism"

there is no FAILURE in science. There are only "failed experiments", from which we gather data, write up what caused the complete cockup to occur, publish it so everyone can point fingers and laugh and make comments [some of which will actually be helpful/useful], and then MOVE ON and don't screw up that way evar again. And in the process, it's more likely that other scientists won't repeat OUR mistakes.

So, "failures" (failed experiments/designs) are just fine, in science. They're at LEAST as good as success. It's how we increase our knowledge. I'd be just as interested in FAIL results as GOOD results for any experiment or design that I make (as long as I discover the reason for fail and am able to correct it). It's all good science.

Re: Differential input.

"If the reference is affected by the binary value of the output, it doesn't matter if the input is differential or single sided"

right - this assumes that the 'averaging' method commonly used in A:D conversion isn't the inherent problem. But what I think happened is that they either wired VRef to Vcc for the A:D converter [a common practice, actually] and forgot to put a big fat cap on the VRef pin, OR should have included a series resistor, OR [better yet] a voltage regulator with a VRef circuit that's temperature compensated. So yeah.

Using a differential A:D takes the built-in VRef (possibly tied to Vcc) out of the equation. I'm assuming you'd use a reference voltage circuit of some kind, like an ADR512 [one I've used before], or perhaps something even better.

[I'm also basing this on my work with microcontrollers, some of which have these *kinds* of features]

Re: The tyranny of the quanta

"Working at higher resolutions with, presumably, cryogenics to keep down the noise floor sounds fascinating but very difficult"

there are many ways to mitigate A:D noise, from low impedance (and cooling) to oversampling. I tend to use the latter, since it works and is pretty cheap to implement. Sample 100 times, report the average. Effectively it increases the accuracy by the square root of the sample count, as I recall. It's a statistics thing, yeah.

I imagine cryogenics would help, too, but I'd start with low Z. high Z circuits have lower current, and as such, entropy is a bigger factor. Assuming same type of material and construction, a 1M resistor generates ~10 times the noise of a 10k resistor. And I think temp in deg K is proportional to noise as well (thermal noise anyway).

http://www.daycounter.com/Calculators/Thermal-Noise-Calculator.phtml

Silicon junctions follow a similar rule, as I understand it. less current, or higher temperature, means more noise. [geometry and other factors notwithstanding].

So if you can get away with it, you'd use a bit more current in your 'measured' circuit (and the input amplifier) to cut back on the noise, as well as cooling it as low as you can, solar power and batteries and cryo-cooling hardware notwithstanding. yeah on a satellite this can get 'complicated'.

Re: Expanding Universe

"two different methods of measuring the Hubble Constant give different values"

yes. This suggests an error in measurement in one or both calculations. A very good point. "garbage in, garbage out".

Re: Astro cameras went digital a long time ago

I think I know what's going on with the ref voltage: apparently the ADC (or external circuitry, even) draws different levels of current based on the digital bit pattern, causing changes in voltage on its reference voltage supply. And if the ref voltage is not filtered and/or regulated correctly, you end up with errors based on "how many 1 bits" (as appears to be indicated by the article).

Solution: you put a proper regulator and/or filter on the ref voltage, or [as the article suggested], use differential voltages against a different reference. Or both.

ADCs have been around in discrete form for a very long time, and they nearly always have a reference voltage supply that's separate from the Vcc supply. It's that way on the microcontrollers I've worked with as well. [I've used the 'differential ADC with gain' feature on one particular microcontroller a few times]

Also, you're really NOT supposed to tie Vcc and Vref together unless you filter it really well. You can, but it can result in A:D noise. A 'big fat capacitor' is often sufficient. Lately, I've gone to 'small series resistor plus big fat capacitor'. Yeah, this tech isn't all that complicated.

But ideally your voltage reference is one of those temperature compensated reference voltage chips, which only cost a dollar or two [last I priced them]. And to use one of THOSE you'll need a differential ADC measurement. So there ya go.

but if you SERIOUSLY want accuracy, you'll have something on the reference voltage circuit that actually maintains a relatively constant temperature, because voltage drift due to temperature still exists. In the comms world, crystals have been kept in temperature controlled ovens since decades ago, so that their frequencies are more stable. So similar thing for A:D reference voltages.

And yeah, there's really no need to overengineer it, because too much overengineering results in higher current consumption, larger circuit boards, heavier payloads, yotta yotta. However, a series resistor and fat filter capacitor aren't really that much to add.

FYI: There's a cop tool called GrayKey that force unlocks iPhones. Let's hope it doesn't fall into the wrong hands!

Re: Time to break a passphrase?

"I wonder what happens when you set a passphrase instead of a PIN?"

It would depend on the hash. SHA256 would take a very long time.

iOS apparently limits the total # of failed attempts and/or the retry rate in order to mitigate the less secure PIN method. It's actually OK to do it Apple's way as long as there's no 0-day flaw [which they obviously need to fix, now].