Posts by bombastic bob 10940 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015
You have to wonder if the use of Lithium in so many devices, because it's a lightweight battery material with high electrical density, is in ANY way similar to the use of hydrogen gas in airships, because hydrogen is twice as bouyant as helium...
it might be time to re-investigate aluminum-based electrodes within a battery. It's something I read about in an El Reg article some time ago...
yes, lithium reacts with water to produce hydrogen gas. oh, my!
But once you deplete the Lithium enough, and sufficiently cool everything, it would go out.
Remember, when putting out fires, you use a WATER FOG and not a stream. This has a cooling effect as well as the blocking out of oxygen, breaking 2 legs of the fire triangle. Water fog can do a LOT, even on a class D fire. Just don't spray it on live electrical equipment that's connected to the power grid...
But yeah, 'pissing' on it with a water stream is probably going to make things worse. It's probably why they dragged it outside so that the REAL firemen could do a proper job on it.
2000 batteries in a Tesla?
The number of batteries is less important than the energy density. However, a Tesla is more likely to have human occupants and be involved in an involuntary distortion of the basic structure of the unit [i.e. a car crash], and thereby expose one of the 2000 lithium ion [bombs?] batteries into a potential source for an inadvertent catastrophic disassembly event [read: explosion].
High density batteries would reach a high temperature faster for the obvious reasons of less mass and more energy applied to it.
In any case, it's a fair bet that NASA batteries have the highest possible density since they are intended to be launched into space, and rocket fuel is expensive.
"And this waste of skin can breathe in and out too?"
never underestimate the plans of the criminally minded... who will go FAR out of their way to try and do what this idiot [allegedly] did, but wouldn't lift a finger to get a REAL job...
[I have to wonder whether this guy was ALSO 'on the dole' in addition to the criminal activity]
I still have to wonder as to whether use of REAL name/address etc. actually HELPED him get the initial $100k or so. There might've been some head-scratching over it, but apparently it wasn't scrutinized enough. Was the initial scrutiny something like "is this guy a REAL person? Well, nobody would be THAT stupid..."
the problem with 'rulemaking' is that it's at the WHIM of some gummint official(s) who "feel" instead of think. And that's the problem with a tin-horn dictatorship, in lieu of a society ruled by law. All of those "grey areas" that enrich attorneys, empower gummint control freaks, and make our [the average Joe's] status 'uncertain' and/or 'uneasy'.
clear-cut laws WITHOUT need for this kind of 'interpretation' are more sane. What Con-Grab excreted from their collective rectums is what we have. dammit.
(DMCA should NEVER have been done in the first place - existing copyright laws were sufficient, especially when interpreted in the realm of 'fair use')
those would have been Republo-CRATS (i.e. 'establishment' country-club types) if they're not siding with INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM. Demo-Rats "for freedom" (quotes because they rarely ARE) might be ACLU types, though... in which case they'll PRETEND to side with individuals because it's what the ACLU wants them to do.
Question: did the Republo-Crats vote against it because it DID NOT GO FAR ENOUGH to protect individual rights?
On a related note, 'Tea Party' Republicans are ALL ABOUT individual rights. The 'establishment' Republo-Crats hate them. yeah, the R party is fracturing. let's see what a Trump win will do.
(and NOW I expect the howlers to send me downvote-shytestorm, thank you)
"Instead, it would create a rigid regulatory regime that would limit the use of virtually all data that can be put to economically beneficial uses."
wasn't that the whole point? Because 'economically beneficial' to the ISP or its "partners" means "privacy violation" to end-users. OPT IN if you *WANT* that. Makes sense to ME.
I had to renew my MSDN today. I did it as 'guest' so I don't have to be tracked by "the store". There was a pre-checked checkbox to "receive other offers" which I _DELIBERATELY_ un-checked.
(I almost didn't renew MSDN. I had to REALLY justify in my mind why I actually NEED to continue to feed Micro-shaft $799 per year for something that's difficult to use effectively with my intarweb connection, and that THEY BROKE 2 years ago, and *REFUSED* to fix properly last year, though they DID fix their server to comply with the RFCs, so that I can hack it with 'wget' to get files bigger than 1G...).
Anyway - FCC gets "at least some of it" correct. A step in the right direction. 'Wait and see' mode for what comes next. I don't trust gummint to do ANYTHING except "gum things up" and pay off political favors in exchange for money.
"The market for selling PC kit might be slowing down, but market usage of PC's is not."
And the choir said, *AMEN*!!!
/me has been saying that for a while.
The PC market is a DERIVATIVE, not an INTEGRAL, of PC usage.
Looking at new PC sales to represent "the PC market" is like falling from a building and reaching terminal velocity, and THEN saying "Oh, we're not FALLING any more" because your velocity is not increasing.
Unfortunately, Micro-shaft derives their REVENUE from NEW SALES, which is why they panic and release things like Windows "Ape" and Win-10-nic, and virtually ABANDON 7 and earlier. It doesn't make THEM money. What they fail to realize is that THEIR OWN ACTIONS help to KILL the 'new PC' sales.
"You sound a little unhinged to be honest, and a bit of a grumpy old fart."
'grumpy old fart' - sounds like a snot-nosed MILLENIAL said that.
Sorry, I don't want to remove my hand from the keyboard to use the MOUSE, half the time, let alone stretch over to the screen and put it between my EYEBALLS and the display surface, at least PARTIALLY blocking what I'm trying to look at. A Wacom pad does just fine for the 'fine resolution' (pun intended) kinds of things you might need to do. why do you need a HOCKY PUCK directly on the screen? A pen on the screen makes more sense, but THAT was available in the 1970's!!
So the 'hockey puck' input device is YET ANOTHER "patent encumberance" attempt, to lock us all into something Micro-shaft can control and dominate for 20 years... [except it's FAIL]
I said this about Win-10-nic in general, Micro-shaft leveraging the OS to attempt [at some point] to use PATENTS to weed out the competition, putting themselves into a TRUE monopoly position, but thankfully Win-10-nic's interface isn't being universally accepted, just tolerated by the FRACTION of computer users who are willing to PUT UP WITH IT.
"Apart from a few settings screens looking slightly different, Win 10 is cosmetically the same as Win 7."
*NO*, not even close - there's the 2D FLUGLY for starters, and anything "the metro" or UWP, and of course the "start thing" and its alphabetized 'you cannot shut that off' "all [cr]apps list" where most everything you look for either starts with 'm' or 'w' meaning 'scroll to the bottom to find it, every! stinking! time!'. and so on. yeah, don't get me started, I could write a NOVEL on what's wrong with Win-10-nic and why it's WAY different than 7...
nuclear rockets are an _AWESOME_ idea, until the protesters and enviro-wackos show up and sue you into oblivion...
(stupid anti-technology protesters and enviro-wackos - they need a CLUE BAT)
seriously, though, the ideal propellant would be super-heated steam made from ocean water, heated with some kind of nuclear reaction. A nuclear rocket could make that happen. Great for deep space, too.
many science fiction authors have written about viable artificial gravity solutions. Perhaps the more obvious one could be the 'gemini tether' someone else mentioned.
OK here's the idea: Extend two "gravity modules" 10 to 20 meters, using very strong cables [like the ones used for elevators on Earth]. Provide an inflatable tunnel between them, made of the same stuff you might find on a typical work site, going down a manhole or something. It all collapses nicely for launch, acceleration, and deceleration. For the bulk of the trip, it's extended. Careful use of thrusters cold provide the spin, and get rid of it when it's time to decelerate. And sliding weights (computer controlled) could be used for balance, something you might find in an industrial washing machine for the spin cycle [if they're not just using water for the same purpose].
you don't need a full 1G, either. 1/4G or 1/2G would be better than 0G. And you can just minimize the disorientation that fast-spin might cause, rather than trying to eliminate it entirely. [many engineering choices are compromises between multiple ideals, like rounding off at 'enough' digits instead of calculating to ridiculous precision...]
In any case I remember reading books written in the 1950's that seemed to have most of these details worked out. Most likely some bright bulb could come up with a workable solution for a reasonable cost.
but, there's more MONEY in "researching", and the scientists who do the research will get to play with lots of cool toys at (public?) expense...
the 'next internet' would most likely have all of the censorship that China and Saudi Arabia want, built-in. And the tracking the NSA wants. And ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, everywhere, in our faces, click-through and worse. And it would take over a decade to "plan", with an organization bigger than the U.N. and just as worthless.
I prefer the anarchy of what we've got, thanks.
certain aspects of CE, i.e. lead-free, requires that a lab analyze a ground-up device for the presence of certain materials like lead and selenium. FCC regs in the USA are a bit less restrictive, but you still have emissions and interference testing that you have to have done by a lab, for $$$$ [which helps weed out 'the little guy']. Obviously SOME of these regulations are necessary, as we can't have every poorly designed device in existence interfering with wireless reception [from AM radio to wifi], but at the same time it's a stumbling block for legit engineers to overcome.
That being said, there _IS_ some self-certification involved. In the USA the FCC fines can be incredibly expensive, a million dollars a day in at least one case I remember reading about. I'm not sure how you'd collect it on a foreign company, except maybe to confiscate anything they sell at the border.
"How can American laws get Chinese companies to comply when a lot of them are coming through grey markets that are by design nearly impossible to regulate"
Somehow the Feds are managing to enforce copyright law and FCC regs, grey market or not. I figure it could be similar. And having such regulations violated by 'grey market' items is probably MORE likely if the gummint regs are somehow prohibitive for those who MUST obey them...
/me considers something about enforcing borders, U.S. Customs, and a wall
they're too busy justifying themselves with eternal meetings, "harumph harumph harumph" outrage, and the typical things that grind committee-based solutions to a 'monolithic' halt.
they need flames applied to their collective asses, for sure. But I don't think that gummint regulatory bodies are the solution. The only one that makes sense is a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the technology owners and the victims of the DDoS, if some kind of NEGLIGENCE can be proved.
As I mentioned earlier, the *kinds* of exploits that are involved are well known: hard-coded user/passwords or NONE! AT! ALL! listening on insecure ports (like telnet). Convenience for their firmware engineers is NO excuse for ALLOWING that kind of non-security in a modern intarweb-connected society, SPECIFICALLY if the devices were INTENDED to be "exposed to 'teh intarwebs'" in the FIRST place.
"A resonable person" would recognize the possibility that these devices COULD be compromised. I've seen several 'El Reg' articles regarding this [making fun of web connected light bulbs with no security, for example] so it hasn't happened in the shadows. It's been IN THEIR FACES for a while.
So NEGLIGENCE, In My Bombastic Opinion. I'd much rather see the courts fix this than the legislatures. Politicians can cluster-*BLANK* just about anything into 'worse than the problem', given the chance. I don't want to give them that chance.
(re: making compilers and small dev platforms illegal, snark snark)
obviously don't want to go THERE either [snarkiness appreciated]. making it hard for independent developers is like removing guns from the hands of honest citizens: it does NOT stop crime [whereas, it could be shown, that people who CAN write software are perhaps MORE security-conscious about their IoT stuff]. Anyway, typical 'merkin '2nd ammendment' argument may apply here.
But that's kinda what regulations do, right? They make it so you have to be "one of the big boys" to play in the park, forcing you to comply with so many requirements that you can no longer play.
And, MOST (decent) jobs are created by SMALL businesses here in the USA... [it's what I do, engineering work, for those small businesses]
sadly, "more regulations" won't do ANYTHING except
a) get in the way of new 'little guy' development projects [consider FCC and CE and other things that require expensive certification]. 'small business' killer.
b) complicate the process, ensuring that L[aw]YERS get all the money.
There are ALREADY liability laws in the USA. Perhaps they require a bit of tweeking, but if it can be shown (in a *cough* class-action lawsuit) that the IoT vendors were NEGLIGENT with respect to security and WELL KNOWN types of exploits, we'll get some REAL action.
Sadly again, more L[aw]YERS will be enriched in the process. Dammit.
Simultaneously, it's time to LIGHT A FIRE under the asses of any industry-based organizations [like the ones mentioned in the article] do do something *BESIDES* going "harumph, harumph, our asses are on the line, we gotta look like we're doing something, harumph harumph" "I didn't get a harumph out of you!" "... harumph" "you watch your ass!" [my recollection of the 'harumph' scene involving 'Gov Le Petomaine' (Mel Brooks) in 'Blazing Saddles']
Well, THERE's your PROBLEM!
Seriously, it's kinda known that vulnerabilities are traded on the dark web. It's also likely that the people doing this are NOT 'state sponsored', but may simply be 'anon' type activists. If you want to find them, you'd have better luck hanging out on 4chan or some similar place that 'anonymous' frequents. Pointing fingers at Russia is just Mrs. Clinton's latest distraction, since those leaks make her (and the DNC) look pretty bad...
(not saying that none of the 'anon' actors are NOT inside Russia, which may be true, but that they're probably not sponsored by Putin's gummint)
@MotionCompensation
"A man who seems to have serious communication issues, to point where I'm willing to question his mental stability"
good job with the 'armchair psychoanalysis'. NOT.
Your attitude (my armchair psychoanalysis) reflects a person who is ENVIOUS of "the genius" and seeks to re-define genius as "a disorder" - like AD[H]D, some new flavor of autism, ass-burgers, whatever... something to be "cured" so that NOBODY is 'super' any more.
/me recognizes that in SOME cases, these 'disorders' may be real, but in MOST, I suspect it's simply "curing the genius" for his own good... and lazy teachers drugging johnny so his bored genius mind won't cause him to disrupt the class.
"Isn't this being a bit over hyped?"
yes, and no.
planes rarely crash. when a plane crashes, it's BIG NEWS, and gummint agencies, airlines, plane manufacturers, etc. go to work to prevent such things from happening in the future.
Same here. Linux security problems are RARE. When it happens, it's a big thing. Let's just get if fixed.
On a related note, embedded systems that cannot easily run binary executables will most likely NOT have a true vulnerability. So unless your IoT device or router has a COMMAND SHELL that is directly exposed to the intarwebs, it's not very likely to be exploited. [and if it DOES, the system architect needs to be sufficiently whipped with a Cat-5-O-Nine-Tails]
"Right now his campaign is run just like a lot of misguided small businesses out there -- just enough IT experience to cause problems. They got email up and running and called it a day when it could send & receive."
sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.
Trump is a real estate guy, not an IT guy or an engineer.
(and he needs a BETTER I.T. staff - Micro-shaft servers? ew...)
"Malicious traffic on a residential connection needs to be detected and filtered away by the ISP. The user needs to be warned and, if all else fails, disconnected"
until it's actually 'windows update' and it causes your win-10-nic machine to refuse to boot...
Or, worse, your streaming video from hulu stops playing. 'false hits' seem to be more common than REAL ones, like spam filters by Micro-shaft. They miss the spam, and round-file e-mails from Mom. And you can't "just shut it off"...
Yeah, 'just filter' the malicious content. if it were only THAT easy...
"No the answer is much much bigger"
And, you so wittily point out the core of the problem here: Fusion *RESEARCH* is being paid for. NOT Fusion reactor designs that make electric power and make money for investors.
Just pointing THAT out, too...
(you get what you pay for)
The REAL problem here is that hideous 'peer review' system, only something that an IDIOT could have rectally extrapolated from the bowels of hell.
Other than the obvious, that a handful of idiots who use their personal bias in reviewing others are skewing the results enough to make a difference [assuming those hired in management positions are LESS likely to do so AND are in a position of ACCOUNTABILITY if they DO], with no one to blame for the (alleged) bias and result-skewing, the system ITSELF is to blame.
It's kind of like relying on up/down votes to validate your point, rather than FACTS or LOGIC. Too easy for a handful of HOWLER MONKEYS to come along and sling poo (aka downvote en masse) a particular group or opinion, thereby creating an *APPEARANCE* of unpopularity, in an attempt to shame or discredit a perfectly valid opinion or position.
So I'll blame the SYSTEM, that IDIOTIC 'peer review' system that Micro-shaft has been using, a result of the former COO who was CANNED a while back...
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2016/07/08/kevin_turner_and_the_new_microsoft/
It's a fair bet that THIS guy was responsible for a NUMBER of *FAILS* at Micro-shaft over the last decade or so since he's been around, *INCLUDING* GWX!!!
And so, by creating a (literal) *HOSTILE* environment within the company, they got what they asked for: A lawsuit by a couple of women who may *ACTUALLY* have a legit case, due to the HOSTILE 'peer review' system that somehow "downvoted" them OUT of promotions and raises!
The problem with JavaScript in web pages is that there is TOO MUCH of it.
Anyone who understands HTML could, in my view, use frames and/or tables to accomplish what hundreds of kilobytes of downloaded script (written by others) seems to do. If the only thing that your script does is MEASURE THE DISPLAY AREA and then set a few DHTML values, it would probably run FASTER and more CONSISTENTLY than "what's being done now".
This is another reason I use 'NoScript'. If your page requires scripting to display, I probably don't want to view the content. And if it loads "all that" from CDN's, it's probably for TRACKING or SPYING or generally IRRITATING me with ads.
the best explanation (something I google'd for recently) is that the batteries underwent mechanical stresses during assembly that caused the insulation tape to be dislodged, resulting in short circuits.
Or something like that. sorry, don't have source available but it was easy to find.
Then again, an *ANGRY* employee might be seen FORCING the battery into its confined space, afraid to speak up, afraid of losing his job or getting suspended for a period of time that results in economic hardship, yotta yotta. If work environment is THAT hostile, according to what the article says, 'other things' may simply grow out of that...
found: https://www.cnet.com/news/why-is-samsung-galaxy-note-7-exploding-overheating/
"If the police want to know what someone is saying, they can follow them."
as long as the information the cops have is the same information ANY of us can get, why is it a problem? leaving digital footprints is just what it is. As long as evidence-gathering laws and restrictions such as subpoenas and judiciary approval aren't violated, cops should be able to collect whatever they can. It's like the cops observing a meeting in a public place, or a conversation on a public street, whatever. Not the same as tapping your phone or bugging your house or using surveilance cameras through your windows.
So, that being said...
Water the garden on Tuesdays.
Do not consume the muffins.
Percival has new shoes.
Carry the flowers to the grave site.
Janet has a Ming vase.
Bill carries the book.
Untold mysteries await.
No shoes, no shirt, no service.
(that oughta feed the info-gatherers for a while)
"If the job is still getting done 'well enough'; why change the tool(s)?"
exactly, like "my 10 year old PC does just fine, and does *NOT* have Win-10-nic on it!"
Which is a nice segue into the REAL problem: Win-10-nic is a reason NOT to get a 'new' one.
If Micro-shaft simply changed their policies to allow new computers to ship with '7 Home' on them again, sales would get a NICE boost. But ever since that's been "not happening", PC sales have suffered. Blatantly.
Because, 'new, shiny' isn't enough to sell a new computer these days. Especially if it's "wearing Win-10-nic".
