Posts by Diodelogic

Prof Hawking to mail postage-stamp space craft to Alpha Centauri using frickin' lasers

More information for those interested

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/100-million-plan-will-send-probes-to-the-nearest-star/

Windows 10 debuts Blue QR Code of Death – and why malware will love it

Had to laugh at myself

It's been so long since I've seen a BSOD on a Windows box that it took me a few seconds to remember what a BSOD is. The last time I had one was when I installed some defective "brand new" memory--around about 1999, or maybe 2000 (memtest confirmed the problem for me). After that happened, I kept a small spare machine around just for testing new hardware of any kind, or for testing older hardware that seemed to have failed.

The closest I've come to such a problem was a few months ago, after updating my video driver. A resizing operation inside of Photoshop suddenly starting failing, but at least I got a nice clear message that the problem was, in fact, in the video driver. Not really a crash, more of an inability to perform the operation. Rolled-back the driver and was fine.

Adobe preps emergency Flash patch for bug hackers are exploiting

Flash Flushed

I got rid of Flash several months ago and haven't really missed it at all. Every time I think that maybe a particular Flash animation on a website might be worth a look, I remember the potential consequences of installing it again and simply shrug my shoulders.

Tesla books over $8bn in overnight sales claims Elon Musk

Re: Great looking but...

One thing that isn't mentioned is the percentage of orders coming from which countries. If the great majority of orders are coming from the US, then the lack of charging outlets in another country isn't going to matter very much, at least for some years.

Apple's fruitless rootless security broken by code that fits in a tweet

Re: randomly deleting files in C:\WINDOWS

I once watched a guy dump his entire Linux computer system in his backyard, then proceed to chop it to bits with an axe. No one would risk getting close enough to him to ask why he was so angry.

Go nuts, brother: Ubuntu 16.04 beta – no more auto data-spaffing

'No more "spyware" turned on out of the box'

Wait, what?

FBI backs down against Apple: Feds may be able to crack killer's iPhone without iGiant's help

Iceberg aircraft carriers

"You do know the Yanks seriously considered converting ice bergs into air craft carriers during WWII?"

You do know that the idea originated with the British? Project Habbakuk?

A typo stopped hackers siphoning nearly $1bn out of Bangladesh

Re: What surprises me

According to the article, the bad guys made off with maybe 10% of the total of nearly one billion dollars. I wouldn't mind having the rest.

What surprises me

I had no idea that Bangladesh HAS that much money in the bank.

What's next? FBI telling us to turn iPhones into pocket spy bugs? It'll happen, says Apple exec

I seem to remember...

...that there is malware around that can remotely turn on cameras and microphones on desktop/laptop computers without the user being aware. Does any of that apply to phones as well?

Or am I misremembering?

Is there anything left to ask Bill Gates? (Other than gissus a million?)

A Story

When I worked for Microsoft years ago, I had several occasions to meet Bill Gates at after-presentation lunches, and such. At one lunch, I saw him standing in the middle of a circle of middle-management-to-peon (like me) people, answering questions, all of which were tech or tech industry related. I walked through the circle--no one was closer than about six feet to him--shook hands with Bill, and asked him how he was doing. We chatted for a moment, then I asked how his wife was doing (pregnant with his first), if they knew the sex of the baby, and that sort of thing. I could see him switch gears, and he smiled as he answered my admittedly-personal questions.

When I left him, I was inwardly pleased by the looks I got from the other people. Perhaps, like many others, they didn't really believe that Bill was human, with human feelings. Of course, they hadn't made much effort to find out...

Pentagon to Dept of Defense: Give us $580bn for cyberwar and spacewar

Re: Necessary?

"Unless we're expecting to be attacked by aliens"

My personal, unsubstantiated feeling is that most of the toys involved--railguns! lasers!--are just too cool not to build and improve. There's no need to envision using them in a conflict, they are their own justification.

Who hit you, HP Inc? 'Windows 10! It's all Windows 10's fault'

Re: Win-10-nic lowering new PC sales (as expected)

Well, maybe you're right. But why aren't the hundreds of millions of Linux and other non-Windows operating systems users not purchasing printers? The sales of printers fell even further than that of PCs in percentage terms. Are Linux, etc., users not buying printers either?

Or are people buying other brands of printers, just not HP printers, perhaps? I don't know... it's a question, not a comment.

Linux Mint hacked: Malware-infected ISOs linked from official site

Re: With success, comes malware..

Curiously enough, from reading about this event on several blogs, the Linux Mint website was hacked, restored, and then hacked again. The website is offline as I write, while the Mint people work on the server.

I downloaded the KDE 17.3 version of Mint because the 17.3 Cinnamon package wasn't ready at the time, but I couldn't make it work. I was thinking about downloading Cinnamon yesterday but didn't get around to it, and for once my laziness paid off. Although I'm still planning to get Mint and try again.

UK to stop children looking at online porn. How?

Somewhat surprising!

What's that? you say.

It's somewhat surprising that everyone (I think) has missed the obvious. The UK government doesn't expect this plan to work and never did. What they do expect is that that they will pick up goodwill points for being anti-pornography and for saving-the-children, plus maybe some extra shine by successfully prosecuting a few sites. These are the things that matter to career politicians.

Twitter CEO Jack's off to the settings page, adds robot-sorted tweets

Twitter CEO Jack's off to the settings page

Rule 34?

Amazon UK boss is 'most powerful' man in food and drink

Re: Amazon to 'av Ocado?

Alligator pear,

Crocigator pear,

Dat's why dey so MEAN.

AdBlock Plus, websites draft peace deal so ads can bypass blockade

Is someone under the impression...

... that Adblock Plus is the only ad-blocker available?

German Chancellor fires hydrogen plasma with the push of a button

They stopped using helium

because the reactor sounded like Donald Duck every time they fired it up.

US government's $6bn super firewall doesn't even monitor web traffic

At least 90% of the Register's readers

could have written this article after being told nothing more than the name of the department in charge of the firewall, although he/she might not have gotten the statistics exactly right.* That would apply to a British version as well.

*The only surprising information is that the firewall caught as much as 29% of the intrusions. I'd have guessed somewhere in the 6-9% range.

Microsoft sinks to new depths with underwater data centre experiment

Put it on an drilling platform

Only without the drilling machinery. Existing engineering, a huge area for the data center, cooling water right below you, and can probably house it's own power generation (just like a drilling platform).

Why a detachable cabin probably won’t save your life in a plane crash

Re: I'll tell you one thing...

Richard, perhaps I wasn't clear in my post: I was not saying that there ought to be some way of making the detachable cabin idea work. What I was trying to say is that there might be some other way of saving the passengers that would work. Especially for controlled flight into terrain--whatever happened to things like avoidance radar, and so forth, to force the aircraft to avoid flying into a mountain or the ground? It doesn't/won't work? Too expensive? I don't know. The basic construction of an airliner doesn't seem to be much different now than it was 50 years ago, but I'm not an aeronautical engineer and I may be very mistaken.

I'll tell you one thing...

Having been a passenger on an aircraft that came 'way too close to crashing, and having talked with a couple of people who survived an air crash (Eastern Air Lines Flight 401), I can tell you that the last thing passengers consider as the end approaches is "Wow, this doesn't happen very often!"

The basic objection to any kind of bulk rescue is cost. The article makes this point many times. It would be nice, if, rather than throwing out the entire concept, someone with the know-how came up with some way of doing it that would be acceptable.

You've seen things people wouldn't believe – so tell us your programming horrors

My own fail

Years ago, the company I worked-for had a microcomputer (16-bit, though) running Xenix and a package of Business BASIC applications. The system ran nicely but one day we got a warning that the disk drive was nearly full. Business being good, too much of the drive was active to be backed to tape, and the computer itself could not handle a larger drive. Sooo... we bought a new computer with a larger drive, and I committed myself to transfer the data from the old drive to the new one. The only good way to do it was to write programs to dump the data over an RS-232 connection, accept it, and write it to the new drive. In itself, not too big a deal. We set the transfer date to a holiday, July 4th, when I would come in, finish the programs, and start the transfer.

Came July 4 and I was feeling awful... just terrible. I dragged myself to the office anyway and worked on the "acceptor" code until I simply couldn't do it any longer, but I thought I had finished it and the transfer wouldn't take more than a few hours. I went home, then dragged myself back into the office the next day with a temperature of 104F and tried to start the transfer. The data was making it's way down the RS-232 line but was being scrambled on the disk, so I started going through the "acceptor" code. I found things like:

IT (blijk(i) <+ feemble} TENH GOOT ++++;

Utter gibberish. The second half of the program was ALL gibberish. Apparently I wasn't able to write comprehensible code with a temperature of 104 or higher. I finally gave up trying to fix it, bailed out of the office until my fever went down, then returned to write the code properly and run the transfer--which worked fine afterwards.

Apple yanks international travel plugs over shock worries

Translation

"Siri" is Japanese for "Silly".

I've no idea why I just thought of that or why I posted it.

Stephen Hawking reckons he's cracked the black hole paradox

Re: Soft Photons

A "soft" photon is one with low energy. As I understand it, in Hawking's theory, soft photons have zero energy. It's like differentiating between "soft" and "hard" X-rays.

Windows 10 makes big gains at home, lags at work

Re: A hit?

@Timmy B

One thing to remember when reading comments on the Register is that the Register and its readership is, overall, very anti-Microsoft-anything and extremely pro-Linux. That's a COMMENT, not a criticism. A single fouled-up Windows 10 installation will automatically become a rallying-point to condemn Windows 10 for a million perfectly-fine installations (yes, I am being hyperbolic). I don't like the constant nagging to install Windows 10 or the telemetry either, but as I've said before, the vast majority of Windows 10 users that I know don't seem to be very concerned about it, if at all. I disagree with this attitude but, hey, it's their computer, not mine, and nobody seems to want me to do anything about it.

IN NO WAY am I saying anything negative about Linux (or Apple, for that matter). You use what you want, it really isn't any of my business. I'd appreciate the same consideration.

Philae's phinal phling: Germans made weekend spin-up attempt

Re: I mean what is the point

cosymart: Sorry. Usually I know better but the theme music just popped into my head, burst out of my ears, ran down my shoulders onto my fingertips and forced me to type.

Re: I mean what is the point

dum pah dahhhh

It's the Loony Pa-troll !

dah dah dahhhh

The Loony Pa-troll !

LOONY PA-TROLL is GO !!

Obama: What will solve America's gun problem? What could it be? *snaps fingers* Technology!

Re: Simple fix - Do what Australia did and ban them

If guns are banned in Australia (is this really true?) then how do people in Australia keep getting shot?

And let's not avoid: http://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/baby-stabbed-to-death-in-attack-at-parkinson-in-brisbane/news-story/9a749b8f2d7a7e4bdd691fdf7d3786d9

Or: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-35240438

Don't get too holier-than-thou, okay? The US isn't perfect, but... neither are any of you.

Re: they can't own a nuclear missile for instance.

The limitations are generally left to the states and to local administrations within the states. What is legal in one area may not be legal in another. For example, in California a "modern" .50 caliber rifle (such as the Barrett) is illegal. In other states, it is legal. In some states, a muzzle-loading black powder firearm is treated the same as a modern, fixed-cartridge firearm. In other states, it is not.

Certain firearms, such as machineguns, short-barrelled rifles, short-barrelled shotguns, suppressors, and several others, are regulated by the BATF, which is a Federal agency. Further regulation of these "NFA" weapons resides at the state and local level.

Re: Huh?

I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but I've already had to use a firearm to protect my family and myself in my home. Of course, in other countries (do I have to name names?), such an action would be considered not just illegal, but rude and anti-social.

'Powerful blast' at Glasgow City Council data centre prompts IT meltdown

If a burrito-fueled irruption can do it, why can't a fire suppression system?

Microsoft steps up Windows 10 nagging

Re: We don't know the same people

Whoa, I think I have given the wrong impression by what I wrote initially--let me try to correct that.

My real point was the number of people who did the upgrade to Windows 10 without the slightest idea of what was involved, nor of what Windows 10 contained. I wasn't really happy about that, but I am somewhat convinced that the reason nobody was concerned was because the upgrade went reasonably smoothly. They had no reason to go chasing information on the 'net.

The other remarks were more to show how non-IT-oriented these folks are. It may be difficult for the average IT pro to understand just how far away from being IT-pros people often are.

My apologies for a misleading post, if you were misled. Totally my fault.

We don't know the same people

I've talked to 32 people, as of two days ago, who have upgraded their systems from Windows 7 or 8.x to Windows 10. A couple had some minor issues, since resolved. One knew what I was talking about when I mentioned "telemetry" and none accepted an offer to block said telemetry. None of them knew what Linux is. These are your bog-standard, everyday users, a few of whom use computers at work--Windows again--and none of whom are IT professionals. The kind of people who, when you ask what operating system they are using, answer "Internet Explorer" or "Firefox" or whatever browser they prefer.

All the noise and debate concerning Windows 10 is apparently just passing them by...

How to build a real lightsabre

YOU'LL POKE YER EYE OUT, KID

Hence why I'm not really interested in a lightsabre*.

What I definitely would like to have is the power source for a lightsabre. Could drive an electric car for years on a thing like that. Or fly a drone to freakin' Jupiter.

*One-third less calories than a regular sabre?

Old jet bits, Vader's motorbike gear, sonic oddness: Hats off to Star Wars' creative heroes

Just some notes

I've still got the official handout Star Wars booklet that was distributed by some theaters when the first movie came out. I used it as a guide to building scratch models of the various ships (X-Wing, TIE, and Destroyer). I got the booklet because I was first in line at the first showing of the movie at my local theater--me and the next ninety-nine people, I think it was.

I remember reading (this is like 35 years ago) that the props crew bought thousands of model kits, everything from aircraft to tanks to cars to ships, to use the bits and bobs for decorating the models, especially the Destroyer. I followed suit to the tune of a half-dozen kits and discovered just how handy they were for adding all that detail.

Star Trek was specifically noted for its use of background sounds to create an environment. The US Navy was supposed to have asked for the "red alert" klaxon sound to use in at least one of its new aircraft carriers. I never did find out if that happened.

Mem'ries... light the corners of my mind... god I feel old.

Pause Patch Tuesday downloads, buggy code can kill Outlook

Re: It may just be me--(methinks it is...)

You are describing some things that are not Windows-related and blaming Windows for the problem. I'm sorry but I still find it difficult to accept that any appreciable portion of Windows users have suffered "life-changing" problems. Equally, I find it difficult to accept that no user of a non-Windows OS hasn't suffered from similar problems.

You have still failed to explain to me why people should not be allowed to choose and use the OS that they want without being condemned and vilified, which was my original post and point. Even though I use Windows, I don't go around ripping into anyone who has a different preference.

Re: It may just be me--(methinks it is...)

Kiwi, sorry, but I think you are generalizing terribly. I personally know of no one whose life has been destroyed by Windows, any version, any time. I guess it could somehow happen (though I've no idea how) but I've never heard of such a thing. I have known people who took a Windows computer, junked it, and then suddenly realized that there was, after all, information on the hard drive they really wanted to keep. I don't see how that can be blamed on an operating system.

It's still the individual's choice. If someone is perfectly happy with Windows, then that is their decision, not mine and assuredly not yours. I've seen plenty of people struggle with, say, a Linux installation and eventually just give up and go back to what they like (not necessarily Windows). Did I run up to them and scream that they were fools for trying Linux? Of course not. Were their lives destroyed because Linux was not for them? Of course not.

Are you being a little overboard? I think you are.

Re: It may just be me--(methinks it is...)

You didn't actually say why my philosophy is a bad one. All you said was why you don't like Windows 10. I have yet to see any of the problems you describe, including among the rather large number of people that I know using Windows 10.

Windows 10 is just fine. MS did a good job with it, and I hope they are around for many many years to come.

It's just fine and dandy and your "argument" is what is sad. You are perfectly free to feel otherwise, but that isn't going to change my mind.

Sneaky Microsoft renamed its data slurper before sticking it back in Windows 10

Re: I Can't Seem to Find

Solmyr: I haven't uninstalled anything (so far as I know) and I haven't deliberately intercepted anything, but your comment gives me someplace definite to look. Thank you.

Re: I Can't Seem to Find

Daniel: I've got the 1511 version and neither service shows up. I dunno what is going on but I guess if it's not there, the telemetry isn't either. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Re: I Can't Seem to Find

matrix29bear, thank you for your very helpful response. I'm still not switching from Windows.

I Can't Seem to Find

anything called "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry Service". Is that the actual name as would be listed in Services? Or where?

Hillary Clinton: Stop helping terrorists, Silicon Valley – weaken your encryption

It IS an adversarial situation

But not the way Ms. Clinton thinks.

The problem is the other way around: Governments think that the tech companies CAN perform the kind of "secure but still tappable" encryption that they want, but that the companies don't WANT to do it. The realities of mathematics and encryption will not permit the kind of security the governments want--they simply will not believe it.

Perhaps a genius will emerge who can, in fact, determine a way to make everyone happy, but I'm not holding my breath.