Posts by Diodelogic

China’s quantum* crypto tech may be unhackable, but it's hardly a secret

Re: How to detect interception

"detecting the state of one of the photons has no influence whatsoever on the other"

This is a common mistake when talking about quantum entanglement. Observing the state of an entangled photon instantly collapses the entanglement--the photons are no longer entangled. Even disturbing one of the photons will almost certainly collapse the entanglement, which is one of many reasons but probably the most important, that quantum computers are so difficult to build. Almost anything will cause quantum entanglement to collapse. Since it is possible to know when photons (or other particles) are entangled, without actually observing the photons themselves, hiding the fact that someone is snooping becomes nearly impossible. Entanglement is a "quantum weirdness" that has no classical counterpart.

Global powers sign AI pact promising to preserve human rights, democracy

And I'll Bet

They did it with a straight face.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bets big on small turbines for datacenters

Re: Hydrogen is typically produced by electrolysis – passing electricity through water.

Most hydrogen today is produced by reacting steam with methane from fossil fuels (grey hydrogen). Very little commercial hydrogen is produced by other methods, including electrolysis.

Never mind room temperature, LK-99 slammed as 'not a superconductor at all'

Re: Which does raise the question...

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

This article includes a picture of pyrolytic carbon levitating above magnets. There are many pictures on the 'net of bismuth levitating as well. This magnetic levitation occurs at room temperature.

Welcome to open source, Elon. Your Twitter code just got a CVE for shadow ban bug

Man, Am I Glad

that I don't use Twitter.

Businesses should dump Windows for the Linux desktop

Slightly Ridiculous

My wife worked for one of the largest banks in the US for over 25 years. The last time I heard about a desktop count, there were over 150,000 people using Windows just in the US and more all over the world. There are development teams working to write proprietary software tools for these desktops and help desk people supporting the desktops.

Now imagine plopping a Linux desktop onto these machines. Suddenly there is no support; the dev teams have to be replaced/retrained because they don't write code for Linux; the help desk workers have to be replaced/retrained because they don't know Linux. The desktop user is confronted with an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar tools and applications, and since the tools they were using are no longer available, they cannot get any work done. An enormous amount of the software being used depends on Active Directory for security and routing--all gone.

I'm not saying that replacing the Windows desktop with a Linux desktop can't be done in this instance. It just can't be done without a huge outlay of money, time, loss of work, and severe inconvenience to the bank's customers.

You're not wrong. The scope for quantum computers remains small

On the Other Hand...

I'm old enough to remember a time when we were informed that no one would ever have a computer in their home because computers were the size of an office building and required enough power to run a small city. I expect that once quantum computers are of a sufficient size and stability, uses (meaning algorithms and/or new programming techniques) will be found for them that we aren't thinking about today.

Microsoft's latest security patch troubles Windows 11 users

No Problems for My Windows 11 Installation

See title.

Google engineer suspended for violating confidentiality policies over 'sentient' AI

Greywolf, I said "intelligence" because I haven't seen anyone using the term "artificial self-awareness."

I could have missed that, of course, but it certainly isn't commonly used.

The aspect of this whole discussion that troubles me is that if a machine/computer/whatever actually did develop sentience, people would never admit it because it would make them feel less special. People like to feel special. Humans may never create true artificial intelligence because no one would accept it.

The next time your program is 'not responding,' (do not) try these steps

Joke reminds me strongly of...

...the argument over whether the tracks are deer or moose.

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

Re: Live Free or Die

Without intending to sound snarky, it seems that you are saying that choice is a great thing, as long as everyone chooses what you like.

Oy Vey

Look, I don't care what OS anyone prefers to use. I really don't. You can use Linux, Windows, BSD, or something you wrote yourself if that's what serves your needs. Linux does not serve my needs.

Does this mean I think Linux is somehow "bad?" Not at all. It just means that Windows, for me, is the best choice. Complaining about Windows (or Microsoft) isn't an argument for using something that will not run the software I need nor support the hardware I use.

Not every desktop user is an 82-year-old grandmother who only browses the web. Some of us use our computers for far more than that, and for the vast majority of us, Windows serves our needs just fine. Use Linux if it does what you need, absolutely, and be so kind as to stop trying to make the rest of us feel inferior. Please?

We have redundancy, we have batteries, what could possibly go wrong?

Flashlight

One day at work, someone digging in a nearby field cut the main power cable to our building. Everything went dark, then the emergency lights came on. The two enormous generators in the back of the building failed to start for some reason and our facility was dead. We were told to just relax and take it easy while the power was being restored. Whilst waiting, I dug out my flashlight from my briefcase and took it with me to the men's room, as I remembered there were no emergency lights there. I was right, but I had no trouble, ah, taking care of business. Turned out the men's room was pretty well occupied at the time, including a lot of guys who used to wonder why on earth I had a flashlight in my briefcase. When I tried to leave there were yells of "HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!" from the stalls.

Never got questioned about the flashlight again...

Fujitsu: Dumping older workers will wipe out quarter of forecast profit

Re: Disgusting..

If the population is getting older, then the USER bit of UX is getting older too

This is a serious issue in Japan, certainly. However, please note that Fujitsu is an international corporation, selling to many, many other countries other than their own. Not everyone's demographics are as dire as Japan's.

There's something to be said for delayed gratification when Windows 11 is this full of bugs

Re: Well...

ITMA: If you are referring to my post, then I will reiterate that I'd already made the hardware changes while still using Windows 10. I didn't know about Windows 11 until well after the changes were made. I may have unintentionally conflated some conditions to make it appear that Windows 11 was responsible for the massive increase in speed of my computer--mea culpa. What I was trying to say was that even with the new hardware, I still noticed an increase in system speed.

I did not change the hardware to meet any conditions for Windows 11.

The only change that I am aware of in Windows that might help with speed is a new memory management system, and, as I said, I do notice an increase in speed. Of course, as always, YMMV.

Well...

I've been running Windows 11 for about two weeks now, and so far the only real problem I've had was one of my own making--I totally hosed the system drive on my computer and, via a MAJOR brain fart, failed to realize what I had done. Got that fixed and since then things have been more-or-less okay.

I can't say that I really notice all that much difference from Windows 10 except that some applications (especially my Firefox browser) are noticeably faster to come-up than before. I downloaded Winaero Tweaker because I knew there would be some things I wouldn't like, such as the two-layer context menu. That is nothing more than an annoyance to me. Most of the tweaks I made were the same ones I used in Windows 10. I haven't run into any serious bugs, but this isn't a work computer on a corporate network, either.

Having upgraded my hardware to a 3rd gen Ryzen 5, TPM 2.0 was not an issue. Replaced all my spinning rust (except for an 'emergency' external USB drive) with an m.2 NVME system drive and SSD for the rest, the system is about 5-8 times faster--the computer boots to a usable desktop in about 20 seconds from a cold start. I did this while still using Windows 10.

Overall I guess I'd say that Windows 11 works tolerably well, for me. I wouldn't presume to speak for a corporate environment.

Reason 3,995 to hold off on that Windows 11 upgrade: Iffy performance on AMD silicon

This is what spare drives are for

I'm going to install this to a spare SSD

So that I can suss what there is to see.

With nothing to fear from errors and such,

I'll find out if problems are just too much--

Or, if it works out as well as MS doth say,

I can always upgrade on another day.

--Burma Shave

We hope this hotel has a nice spa because Windows sure looks like it needs some R&R

Odd coinky-dink

I got stuck in one of these recovery loops a few weeks ago, immediately after installing a new M.2 SSD as the boot drive. Windows kept trying boot from the previous drive and, of course, immediately failing to recovery mode. I finally selected the boot drive myself prior to startup, and the system came up properly. But the next time I restarted without selecting the drive (as an experiment), the same error occurred.

I was starting to get a little perplexed. I went into the BIOS and checked the system boot order--it was incorrect. D'oh. I set it to the correct order,saved, and restarted. The wrong drive got selected before I could get the boot order menu. Back into BIOS. Wrong order still. Corrected. Restarted. Wrong order, failed boot.

WTF? A bad chip?? Why won't it save??

Did the same thing about five more times and suddenly, everything was working correctly. Pushed my luck, went into BIOS--the boot order was correct, and has remained so every since. I have never seen something like this happen before in ~40 years of putzing with personal computers.

Web prank horror: Man shot dead while pretending to rob someone at knife-point for a YouTube video

Re: It doesn't even need a gun

'Way back in the mid-1970's a newspaper in Florida reported a story about a man who had been stopped in (IIRC) Miami by a mugger armed with a knife. The victim reached inside his jacket and produced a hand grenade, pulled the pin, and screamed, "Not again! This is the last time!"

The grenade was inactive, but the mugger didn't wait around to make that discovery.

Apple aptly calls its wireless over-the-ear headphones the AirPods Max – as in, maximum damage to your wallet

No you didn't.

Mate, it's the '90s. You don't need to be reachable every minute of every hour. Your operating system can't cope

Is Power Optional?

While working at Microsoft as a front-line tech, another tech who was having a major problem with a customer's system asked me for some help. I was known as the "hardware guy" since I built my own machines, etc. The computer would not boot, would not display anything, would not--well, anything at all.

After hearing the t-shooting steps that had been tried, I said, "The computer isn't plugged into the wall."

The tech went back to the customer and asked him to make sure the system had power. The customer blew-up at him (I'm sure you've all had the experience) and let him know that he was a doctor and not some ignorant doofus off the street, and the problem was Windows and so forth. A week went by like this, and finally the tech asked the customer again to check that the computer was plugged-in.

You can almost certainly guess the answer. No, the computer was not plugged-in.

Lizards for lunch? Crazy tech? Aliens?! Dana Dash: First Girl on the Moon is perfect for the little boffin-to-be in your life

An interesting review

This book reminds me (vaguely) of a book I read when I was in the third grade: The Angry Planet, by John Keir Cross, which was full of unpleasant scenes with illustrations to match. It didn't have what I would call a "happy" ending. If a nine-year-old can enjoy Dana Dash then that's a good thing, with it's emphasis on STEM.

Dr. Cavor sure gets around the time stream!

It's been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how's that working out for you all?

No real issues

Except for the last upgrade to 2004, when I did have a problem ("not connected to the Internet") and decided to install from scratch rather than fight with the upgrade. I fully admit that I'm in a position to do this anytime I want without repercussions, as this is not a work computer and everything I need is local. The only serious trouble I've had came from a failed hard drive.

I don't think Windows 10 is perfect. There are numerous things I wouldn't mind seeing changed. However, I use applications which are Wiindows-only and see no need to deal with a non-Windows OS.

If Daddy doesn't want me to touch the buttons, why did they make them so colourful?

My solution

When my daughter was a little bitty, she would visit me in my "computer room" at home and demand to play one of her games. Of course, this was always while I was busy writing software. One day she escalated the situation by randomly pushing buttons and pulling cables. My solution was to get her involved in my work so she would have something to do besides reboot the computer(s).

I had a leftover from college days: A set of two large plastic buttons, one red, one green. The red button had "Total Destruct" printed on it; the green button had "Reset." Both had squeakers inside. I stuck these to the side of a heavy tower case and told my daughter that she had to be ready to press the red button at any moment to keep my work from being lost, and then press the green button so I could keep working. She accepted these instructions very solemnly, and volunteered to help me at anytime. I made sure to ask for button presses often enough to keep her happy without completely destroying my workflow, and for many months we were both content.

Surprise! That £339 world's first 'anti-5G' protection device is just a £5 USB drive with a nice sticker on it

Re: 5G Facts Summary So Far = Not Much

"The only other major differentiation related to frequency is if the EMR is Ionising or not, i.e. contains enough energy to actually harm biological cells in plants and animals. You need to be at ultraviolet or above for that to be the case, anything from visible light or below, which includes all radio frequencies, just doesn't contain enough energy to do any direct cell damage."

Please be a little more careful about saying such things. If you were indeed completely correct, my microwave oven wouldn't be worth anything.

IBM, Microsoft and Linux Foundation link arms to fight patent trolls with 'multimillion' scheme

The only way Microsoft could make some people happy

And I include The Register in this, would be if the ownership of the company were to be handed to Linus Torvalds gratis, along with the right to employ anyone he wanted in all corporate positions (CEO, CFO, etc.). While I would never say that "Microsoft can do no wrong"--I know better--apparently there is no other way for them to make amends for past mistakes and a comment made nearly twenty years ago from someone who doesn't work there anymore.

Yes, of course I will be downvoted about a gazillion times but I have little patience for anyone who can't let go of the past and look at the present instead. Being cautious is all well and good, but ignoring potential benefits because of old news is just asking to have a bullet removed from your foot.

Guess who reserved their seat on the first Moon flight? My mum, that's who

I have one of those

I've got First Flight card #1062. I've had it since 1969 when I signed up for a moon flight at the Montreal Exposition. I like to take it out now and then and sigh heavily, then put it away for another few years.

Incidentally, and not related, I also have a "I Ate Just One" gold medal from Lay's Potato Chips. I would happily eat their potato chips on a flight to the moon.

Now that's just offal: Heap of pig guts hog road after truck spills load in Kansas City

PORK WAH???!

Oh, you get it all right.

Amazon boss snubs 'expensive', 'sub-optimal' relational databases. Here's looking at you, Larry

'Would you like a black, always-on cylinder in your kitchen...'

Why, no. I wouldn't, I haven't, and I won't.

Phew... Oi, was that you, Curiosity? Euro Mars sat inhaled mega methane blast, boffins baffled

Whoopsie

Uhm, I almost hate to break it to you folks, but methane doesn't have a distinctive smell--it is colourless and odourless*. That's why tiny amounts of hydrogen sulfide are added to the methane in natural gas pipelines and storage containers--so that the human nose can detect a gas leak. At least, it is added here in the US, I don't know what other countries may do, if anything.

*Look it up.

What happens when security devices are insecure? Choose the nuclear option

Re: At MonkeyCee, re: nuke plans.

My family lived in Roswell, New Mexico, many years ago, adjacent to the Walker SAC base (long since shut-down). At the local elementary school we were made to practice "duck and cover" by filing into the interior hallways and sitting, facing the walls, hunched over with arms covering the head. For some reason it was thought that we needed to practice this rather often, at least until That Day when, just as everyone was settling into place, a B-58 Hustler (yes, it was that long ago) from the airbase went supersonic over the school. Nobody knew if it was intentional or not--personally I never thought so but you never can tell with Air Force pilots. The school declared a half-day and we all went home.

Microsoft readies the swatter as more bugs wriggle out of the Windows 10 woodwork

Re: I Just Don't Understand

@herman:

Nope. I'm so sorry that it bothers you that I refuse to piss and moan about problems I'm not having.

I Just Don't Understand

Features and functions reported as being "broken" in the 1809 update work properly on my Windows 10 x64 install.* I'm following the steps people claim to fail or break, and there's just no problem. There hasn't been any problem with updates/patches since I installed Windows 10 on three computers (a desktop, laptop, and tablet) the first or second day it was released. As I've said before, I'm using the same bits as other people so I cannot for the life of me understand why failures are being reported when I never see them.

I am NOT saying this in an effort to refute the claims, but rather to suggest that perhaps some other fault may be involved.

*I want to note that I do not use some of the software said to be experiencing problems, such as iCloud or Windows Media Player. However, I can associate file extensions with any Windows app that I want all day long and it works as it is supposed to work (as one example.)

Grumbling about wobbly Windows 10? Microsoft can't hear you over the clanging cash register

Re: Conditioning.

Windows users will put up with *anything* and they simply don't believe that other systems can run for multiple years without a single problem.

I haven't had an issue on a Windows machine since 1998 that wasn't caused by a hardware problem. That was the last time I got a BSOD, which is why the date stands out. So I have no idea what you are going on about.

It walks, it talks, it falls over a bit. Windows 10 is three years old

Windows 10 seems just fine to me

I've been using Windows 10 since the day after it's initial release. The problems I've experienced have been:

1. None at all.

2. See 1.

Please don't bother to tell me how "lucky" I am. I'm using the same bits as everyone else. NO broken updates, NO update interruptions (I tell Windows to perform the updates in the middle of the night when I'm sleeping), NO issues with application software, NO BSODs, a faster UI, and frankly, I couldn't care less concerning someone else's opinion of what the interface should look like. Every piece of hardware I use has worked flawlessly with Windows 10.

If the above offends you, tough.

BOFH: Give me a lever long enough and a fool, I mean a fulcrum and ....

A Coincidence

The webcomic Doc Rat is using this same idea as a storyline, though perhaps without quite so happy an ending.

http://www.docrat.com.au/comic/ad-overview/ and a few more strips following.

Elon Musk invents bus stop, waits for applause, internet LOLs

Re: High tech for the sake of high tech

Well the last few stabbings I read about in the news occured on the top deck of a London bus...

Research suggests UK consumers find 'fibre' advertising misleading

Strange advertising here

I was visited by a couple of ATT representatives who informed me that fiber was available for my home (ATT had been digging and burying fiber lines for about three months). I asked a few questions: Was it fiber all the way to the modem, and what were the upload/download speeds I could expect, and what was the cost. I was told that it was fiber to copper at the "box" on the outside of my house but I could expect gigabit speed down and about 750Mbs up. The cost would be the same as my current service.

The actual installation was all fiber to the modem and gig down and gig up, which I verified using a wired connection to a computer. The installation was free, the connection is unlimited, and costs the same as my previous 45Mbs, including five static IP addresses. I'm not complaining.

Sophos waters down 'NHS is totally protected' by us boast

Re: If the statements of Sophos were true...

@ Christian Berger:

Your description of the halting problem didn't sound right to me...

"The halting problem is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running or continue to run forever."

Lyrebird steals your voice to make you say things you didn't – and we hate this future

At Least the name sounds right (especially for politicians)

"Liar"bird.

Oracle refuses to let Java copyright battle die – another appeal filed in war against Google

Or a vermicious knid.

SQL Server on Linux? HELL YES! Linux on Windows 10? Meh

Re: Windows ME was worse

"I regarded Win9x and ME as game consoles. Never sold or installed them for business."

All I have to say about it is this: Back in the 90's I was a support tech for Windows at Microsoft, first-line support as it's called. I "graduated" to the Premier Support group after awhile, meaning that my team provided phone support for customers paying for it. Fortune 500 companies, smaller-but-still-quite-large companies, occasionally a rich person who was showing-off. I took thousands of calls from businesses. I supported Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and ME. All business, all the time. And I will just mention that the vast majority of calls were exactly the same kind as for free support, and most of the rest were just barely more challenging.

Pentagon anti-missile-on-missile test actually WORKS, for once

Re: Good news or bad news?

This dredged-up an old memory of mine: Back in the late '70s I was seated at a private dinner with a guest who a missile officer on a US ballistic-missile submarine. I tried to question him about nukes, the ONLY thing he would confirm for me was that the Little Boy bomb functioned by jamming two masses of uranium-235 together. I was disappointed (physics major in college) but I understood that he was sworn to secrecy. Imagine my surprise when, in reply to someone else's question about politics and nukes, he said, "We all know that maybe one in ten H-bombs will go off." I have no reason to think that he made a deliberate mis-statment, because there would be no point in doing so. He said no further word that evening concerning anything other than sports. He did take me to one side as he was leaving and said, sotto vocce, "We never had that conversation. Right?"

Elon burning to get Falcon back on the launchpad

Oxygen is not flammable

Something is missing from the SpaceX report, or wasn't mentioned in the article. Oxygen is not flammable--it supports the burning of other materials or compounds, but does not by itself burn. Therefore the oxygen in the buckled tank could not have ignited.

Botched Microsoft update knocks Windows 8, 10 PCs offline – regardless of ISP

Re: Only Britain? Short answer: No.

MSGrrrrl: I saw this when I Googled it: "It's thus worth adding that the Windows 10 technical preview has these requirements". The articles below this say that the Windows Acccount and Internet Connection were not required in the release version of Windows 10.

Slight confusion, perhaps not really Microsoft's fault, but the user's for not reading the first article properly or completely.

Cargo capsule goes AWOL, explodes on its way to Space Station

50 years on, the Soviet-era Soyuz rocket is still our favorite space truck

Or is it?

Mac book, whoa! Apple unveils $300 design tome

For anthonyhegedus

You're holding it wrong.