Posts by FlippingGerman

UK to buy nuclear-capable F-35As that can't be refueled from RAF tankers

No need to vary the contract - the 138 was merely a stated intention (which hadn’t been confirmed for a few years), not a contract to buy.

Qualcomm 'pausing' X-Elite Dev Kit, offering refunds

Doomed?

I really want these things to do well, mostly because of the battery life improvements - and extra competition doesn't hurt either. But Qualcomm and Microsoft together seem to be doing their best to stop the current attempt and Windows on ARM from getting all that far - crappy developer support being the biggest issue. They even had Apple's example to learn from, although without the benefits of a dictatorial (in the original sense) ecosystem.

If Dell's Qualcomm-powered Copilot+ PC is typical of the genre, other PCs are toast

Re: Function keys on a touch bar?

Something I do with my computers is disable the power button in Windows (set as "do nothing"). I shut down in software, but I did that anyway. A laptop I would sleep by closing, if you're willing to trust "modern standby" not to cook it. Press and hold will still force a shutdown for emergencies.

Valve powers up Arch Linux – because who needs Windows when you have a Steam Deck?

Re: Woa - desktops = production??

I'm "still" using my 2018 self-built desktop; I've only upgraded the CPU, graphics card, RAM and storage.

That doomsday critical Linux bug: It's CUPS. May lead to remote hijacking of devices

Re: Is that all?

My mini-pc home server running Ubuntu had it installed and running. My Raspberry Pis appear not to.

Feds urge 3D printing industry to end DIY machine guns

Handgun?

"Full-auto" handguns in particular are fairly pointless; even the specialist police forces and military units don't seem to have a use for them. It wouldn't surprise me if they're *less* effective at hitting a target than a normal one - perhaps the DoJ ought to be encouraging them?!

It is inherently difficult to restrict such devices; automatic firearms often have even simpler mechanisms than semi-autos. 3D printing certainly lowers the bar for entry for making these things - far easier and cheaper than learning to become a machinist.

If every PC is going to be an AI PC, they better be as good at all the things trad PCs can do

Re: Hamster wheels?

One of the few genuinely really useful consumer machine-learning things I've seen is RTX Voice. It's noise-cancelling for your microphone (i.e. calls) that runs on your graphics card, and it's bloody good. Getting that working on more efficient, less general-purpose hardware would make it useful in laptops, where you're more likely to actually be doing such calls and where the probably rather high power consumption is less of an issue.

"AI", which isn't (machine learning is a much better term), really does have uses. Sadly the hype is absolutely awful and people (well, businesses) are going crazy about things no one wants or that aren't even specified - like the Copilot+ (why plus?) PCs.

Microsoft closes Windows 11 upgrade loophole in latest Insider build

Re: Should be made illegal

I'm more pissed off that "Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows" turned out to be false advertising. I paid for the copy on my desktop - it came on a USB drive in a shiny box! - but support has not been as long-lived as I'd like, despite the hardware being more capable than the majority of computers on desks.

Raspberry Pi 5 slims down for cut-price 2 GB RAM version

Re: Vision

I've recently fallen in love with the Zeros - I've gone from 0 to 6 in about two months... - because they're cheap, small, can do all the electronics stuff (cameras included) and generally fast *enough*.

If I were buying a new proper Pi for electronics it would at most be a 4; I doubt I would need more computing power than that provides, and wouldn't feel like spending the extra (and needing a heatsink) on a Pi 5. Perhaps for server-like applications they have a place, but the high-end ones with added extras are comparable in cost to a cheap mini-pc and much less powerful - less RAM, no storage - and a little thing from Minisforum serves (literally) quite well.

Virginia's datacenters guzzle water like there's no tomorrow, says FOI-based report

Reuse?

Normal water cooling doesn't use much water at all; you just use it to transfer the heat away from the hot bits efficiently to somewhere you can easily cool it, like radiator.

Do datacentres not do that? Are they just piping it straight back out again, because it's easier and cheaper? Or perhaps they *do* in fact reuse it, but the increase in datacentre water cooling just means more use in general.

More to come - power densities are going up and up, and water cooling seems to be the only way to deal with it - c.f. Nvidia Blackwell racks that use a mind-boggling 120kW.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/21/nvidia_dgx_gb200_nvk72/

Angry admins share the CrowdStrike outage experience

Re: Holidays

I had this issue at work recently as the person most likely to solve computer problems. I actually did manage to convince an old Mac to go to a newer - not current, it’s about 12 years old - version and then restore everything. It required fully wiping and reformatting it, then updating the “to” Mac.

It was certainly harder than I wanted and even expected, given how easy TM is to set up.

I’ve never had to do the same to Windows; I don’t imagine that’s great fun either.

Copilot+ PCs software compatibility issues left to you to sort out, with help from crowdsourcers

Disparity

Reviews of the new ARM laptops have mostly been pretty happy - performance in general decent enough and battery life is better than x86.

Then there’s this article, and notably a video from Level1Techs that points out that sure, the above is true, but the user experience is somewhat crappy - again - and MS really isn’t doing enough to support developers in changing that.

Contrast Apple’s transition to ARM on Macs, where they had a clearly defined transition period and lots of support, and things worked pretty damn well by the time any users bought anything.

Separately, I’ve been wondering how well Qualcomm is going to support here chips. They famously aren’t great for long term support of Android SoCs; have they committed to doing better here? Maybe it’s just not an issue for reasons I don’t understand, or maybe these laptops will stop getting updates after three years for no apparent reason.

Hey, Reddit. Quick question. All those clicks on my ads. Were they actually real?

Fraud and proud

when a person or program clicks on an ad with no intention of doing business with the advertiser“

That would be me, then, because every time I’ve ever clicked (or tapped, more frequently) on an advert has been accidental.

Aliens crash landed on Earth – and Uncle Sam is covering it up, this guy tells Congress

Re: Not impossible, just ludicrously unlikely

Only if centuries is a long time to you.

YouTube's 'Ad blockers not allowed' pop-up scares the bejesus out of netizens

Price

I’m currently in YT Premium’s free trial. I will not be continuing, because it’s inordinately expensive. I don’t care about access to YT Music - I just want no adverts.

Cisco: Don't use 'blind spot' – and do use 'feed two birds with one scone'

Re: "English has more words than any other language, , by a factor of two or three"

Or, presumably, sit, if you lack the ability to stand. Not that I wish to imply that only those requiring wheelchairs are disabled.

I’m being silly but the example in the article make about as much sense to me as this - if you take away everything but literal language then you destroy a languages character.

Prepare to be shocked: Employees hate this One Weird Clause

Re: foreign law

It's *not* Texas, that's the issue!

Native Americans urge Apache Software Foundation to ditch name

Re: Three questions

As far as I know, the DOD *asks* the relevant tribe if they're OK with it before naming helicopters after them.

Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home

Re: Tonight's Headline

If you look at Przewodow on a map, it's plausible that a missile could alunch from within Ukraine, be on course to intercept a missile inbound from Russia (or more likely Belarus), miss, and fall into Poland. Last-minute terminal manoeuvring in particular could suddenly throw its course westward.

Datacenter migration plan missed one vital detail: The leaky roof

Re: Facilities 'so called' experts

10/10 good rant, especially the last paragraph got nice and ranty, please post more.

I paid for it, that makes it mine. Doesn’t it? No – and it never did

Re: Physical media is still the best

I just discovered Google offers something called “Takeout” - lets you download all the data they have in you (yeah, right…). I haven’t looked through it yet, but it’s ~150GB, which is a hell of a lot more than my Gmail and Drive.

Re: Dubbed Content

You’re not nearly ambitious enough.

Subscription cars are coming. Subscription *everything* is coming, whether you like it or not. I suspect not.

I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems all too well

Re: Computing smarts in the cloud

I used to keep a local copy of English Wikipedia a few years ago. Used it too, out of necessity.

Start your engines: Windows 11 ready for broad deployment

Re: Don't give a monkey's about rounded corners but....

I found out fairly quickly that you can tell every one of those stupid boxes to fuck right off, and end up with nothing but a list of programs. Makes the Start Menu nice and thin too.

Not the kind of note you want to see fluttering from an ATM

Re: Not only Sainsbury's

You can just disable JS on a per-site basis (in Chrome). Even used to be possible straight from the website, now you have to go to settings…

BOFH: Pass the sugar, Asmodeus, and let the meeting of the Fellowship of Bastards … commence

Re: The weedy bloke

Why spend 50 quid when you can spend three weeks coding it?

Spring tears down math geek t-shirt listing because it dared to mention the trademarked word 'zeta'

Re: Oi - Merkins

I said that word to refer to the Leftpondians for a while, then, by coincidence (honest!) I came across this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin

Israeli firm Bright Data named as enabler of Philippines government DDOS attacks on opposition groups

Israel

I don't know why, but there seem to be a lot of these "Israeli cybersecutiy firms" doing really dodgy things, although it's quite possible I get that impression because NSO Group comes up so often, and the rest is confirmation bias.

Leaked Guntrader firearms data file shared. Worst case scenario? Criminals plot UK gun owners' home addresses in Google Earth

Re: Consequences

Breech.

Et tu, Samsung? Electronics giant accused of quietly switching SSD components

Re: Is it such a big problem in this case?

Starlink is made just for people like you (and NOT for people in towns).

What's the top programming language? It's not JavaScript but Python, says IEEE survey

Definition problem

"Most popular language" does not to me seem a well-defined concept. Number of man-hours spent writing? CPU-hours spent running it? Projects completed? Most people considering it their favourite language? All of these have problems.

Pi calculated to '62.8 trillion digits' with a pair of 32-core AMD Epyc chips, 1TB RAM, 510TB disk space

Re: they are now the last known digits of Pi

Normies think pi is cool and weird, and so this stuff gets headlines, which (hopefully) gets grant money for other stuff. I imagine the development of the processing algorithms are genuinely useful.

Apple's iPhone computer vision has the potential to preserve privacy but also break it completely

iPhone

I was leaning very heavily towards replacing my current phone with an iPhone. I'm now leaning so far the other way that I have a concussion.

This all makes me very sad. Just when I was starting to trust that actually, maybe Tim Apple really cared, bam, only joking, we're gonna check through your private stuff to make sure you're not a paedo.

Tired: What3Words. Wired: A clone location-tracking service based on FOUR words – and they are all extremely rude

Bloody stupid idea anyway

Their adverts are inane, "um I'm in a forest, I don't know where I am". If your phone knows where you are THEN USE BLOODY GOOGLE MAPS! Either get coordinates (heard of those?) or send someone a fucking Google link, it's brilliant, you can then go straight to directions!

Fuckers. Stupid solution for a solved problem for stupid people.

Jackie 'You have no authority here' Weaver: We need more 50-somethings in UK tech

Re: See through

From where I'm looking, someone earning 100k is rich. Not fabulously, but given that they probably own their own property too, and by over 50 have likely paid off their mortgage, they have many times the disposable income that I and the majority of the population do.

Do you want to become a vulture? Now's your chance to join The Register's news desk

Re: Tempting

Doesn't the "_" indicate italics?

Tech contractor loses IR35 tribunal appeal: 'Right' to substitute didn't mean he could, say judges

Re: Yet another push for us to all go work at Tesco

I like paying income tax, because I live in a society and appreciate the benefits that come from that. I expect others to do their bit too.

FTC approves $61.7m settlement with Amazon for pocketing driver tips

Stealing

How come no one gets put in prison for stealing massive amounts of money?

Open-source JavaScript project Babel 'running out of money' after employing paid maintainers, sponsors pull out

Holy shit

11k per month gets it across rather better than 130k per year. Holy shit that's a lot of money, what do people even spend that on?

Basecamp CEO issues apology after 'no political discussions at work' edict blows up in his face

Six months pay to find a new job?

After having been there for three (or more) years? Sure! I cannot state how horrified I am at the new workplace rules, and feel obliged to leave!

Researchers say objects can hide from computer vision by seeking out unusual company that trips correlation bias

Re: There may be regional differences to consider...

We should get married (or at least, eat cream teas together) - I eat mine without cream.

Terminal trickery, or how to improve a novel immeasurably

Harlem

Anyone feel like letting me know what was said there in decades past?

Patch alert for Apple fans: Cybercrooks have already been exploiting this flaw in iPhones, iPads, and watches

Re: Is it just me ..

Isn't more patches good? The bugs are there anyway, this just means they're finding and fixing them.

Android, iOS beam telemetry to Google, Apple even when you tell them not to – study

Re: Most of the data

All those are excellent uses for telemetry. None of them are justifications for sending telemetry when it has been disabled, and without informing the owner (not "user") of the device.

Backblaze on the back foot after 'inadvertently' beaming customer data to Facebook

Hey

Hey Backblaze, what the fuck? Stop it, and own up to what was happening. I was a happy customer, now I'm an unhappy customer, if you keep it up I won't be a customer.

From Maidenhead to Morocco: In a change to the scheduled programming, we bring you The On Call of Dreams

Re: Foreign travel

I was in the Eiffel quite possibly in 2003, and also went to a bell foundry! But I would have been six, so I don't exactly remember the year.

Gummy bears as a unit of measure? The Reg Standards Soviet will not stand for this sort of silliness

Brontosaurus

I'm confused as to how a brontosaurus can be half the length of an aircraft carrier, generally several hundred metres long.

OVH founder says UPS fixed up day before blaze is early suspect as source of data centre destruction

Re: Who, me?

I turned on an old PC at work recently. Being young, I had no idea that was a thing, and apparently it was set to 115V. It went bang, and the magic smoke came out. Now I know.

Blind man sues Dell over inaccessible website

Harder

"harder for visually impaired people to interact with Dell's platforms than it is for sighted users" - well, yes. Being visually impaired makes things harder, that's why it's classed as a disability, so I'm not sure why he bothered saying this.

But they have a legal and social responsibility to make their site usable for visually impaired people too, so I wish him the best of luck.

That said, Dell's website is simply hard to use in general, and I'm pretty sure that's at least partly by design. And ever since LinusTechTips recent video, where they try to buy a PC and are actually scammed by their sales team, I've been pretty unimpressed by Dell.

The wrong guy: Backup outfit Spanning deleted my personal data, claims Cohesity field CTO

Unlimited fun

They really shouldn't use the "unlimited term" - if you can't handle the extreme users, you're not really offering it.

I use Backblaze, which unfortunately uses the same word, and I'm at about 2TB, which is unlikely to grow. Decent company, it seems, but I'd quite like them to stop saying that. I wonder if saying "up to 5TB" makes people want the ability to pay less for less storage?