Posts by Baldrickk

If at first you don't succeed, Fold? Nope. Samsung redesigns bendy screen for fresh launch in September

Re: "apparent that it is an integral part of the display structure and not meant to be removed"

have the film extend beyond the screen and down into the device where you can't get at the edges...

Re: Another solution...

Prior to the iPhone they were pretty dire things though, running Windows mobile or Palm OS - which were fine, but functionality was more akin to my old pocket organiser than what we have today.

I was using the web and apps on my nokia phone, but did want a bigger screen etc. One of my friends had an early HTC (running windows mobile) pre-iPhone and I wanted one of those back then!

The real thing that made the iPhone sell originally was having enough onboard storage to replace your iPod, and the big pretty screen, plus the unique contracts.

Ironically, I got an iPod Touch, but the experience made me vow not to buy apple again. When I got a smartphone, it was an Android device.

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, where to go? Navigation satellite signals flip from degraded to full TITSUP* over span of four days

Re: You are right.....UK companies aren’t capable of doing this

"We" didn't necessarily mean "UK"... It's almost as if we had allies in the fight with us?

Re: You are right.....UK companies aren’t capable of doing this

Pretty much everyone was bankrupt after the world wars.

Only we also gave Germany plenty of support to rebuild - to rebuild with completely new and modern infrastructure...

One take on this is that Germany has been so successful in the years following the war (on a tech/engineering level at least) because they got to take all the knowledge up to that point, and start from scratch in producing new products, whereas being victorious, we had no help getting our economy back up and running, and still had all the constraints of prior industry.

For an example, imagine if our rail network had been destroyed. We would have had to rebuild, and might now have room for some of these larger trains in use in Europe today, instead of having the maximum size being restricted by the space beneath our bridges and inside our tunnels.

Though I have to say, we have a lot more surviving history than in Germany too, which I personally love.

Re: Huzzah!

Maybe we should also invest in a Black Arrow 2?

We are of course still the only country that has developed orbital capability and then then gone "nope, that's good enough" and closed the book on it.

Airbus A350 software bug forces airlines to turn planes off and on every 149 hours

Re: What is overflowing?

Agile =\= no tests

Low Barr: Don't give me that crap about security, just put the backdoors in the encryption, roars US Attorney General

Re: Relevent XKCD

And the follow-up

Re: I'll do it if...

He's just asking for his social media to be hacked now, isn't he?

British ISPs throw in the towel, give up sending out toothless copyright infringement warnings

Re: Entertainment is a problem

Dreamcast? That only had a CD player app, no movies.

Quantum goes open and passwords must die in a week of Microsoft fun

The VR headsets have pretty much already been given the chop.

You can't buy them on the MS store any more, you can't buy them on Amazon, or in pretty much any retailer.

I think my local John Lewis has a single HP one sat in a box on a shelf - but it's had that since last year without shifting it...

MS failed to support their VR ecosystem, therefore it failed. It was always on the cheap side anyway - clearly a budget option. Not bad but you got what you paid for. The only WMR headsets you can still get are the Odyssey+ (but not in Europe, because reasons I guess) and the HP Reverb (which I think you can buy again since their recall right after release?)

Time to Ryzen shine, Intel: AMD has started shipping 7nm desktop CPUs like it's no big deal

Re: I think it's around the right time

Single core or multithreaded benchmarks?

It does depend on what you need it for. Video rendering sounds great on it. With the majority of game engines STILL only using a low number of threads, you may still get better performance out of a lower rated chip with better single core performance*

*if there is one - I'm not diving into benchmarks as I currently have no upgrade plans for my PC, except maybe a GPU refresh at some point.

I don't have to save my work, it's in The Cloud. But Microsoft really must fix this files issue

Re: I could train 1st line to be fluent in 'user'

I'm not dyslexic and I do this!

My RPi sits on top of a switch, a short (20cm) cable is certainly convenient in that case :)

Re: I can see where you went wrong, step 1

https://xkcd.com/763/

I recommend the notes section for what you are going to say - it doesn't show on the screen, but you can point your teachers at it.

Broken tabs on RJ45s? yeah, I have a good few of those in use at home.

They're fine until you snag the cable, and sometimes even then they still work.

They do go into my spares pile if I have unbroken ones though.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean Google isn't listening to everything you say

And are we surprised?

Google's Fuchsia OS Flutters into view: We're just trying out some new concepts, claims exec

Re: @Baldrickk - A new OS from Google

Who said I'm ok with being slurped? I use no-script, ad blockers, an additional extension that exists purely to block facebook tracking pixels...

But however I slice it, being tracked by only one entity is better than being tracked by many.

Re: A new OS from Google

If it's a good OS, it'll be used.

Given that most of "us" have an Android phone and or use Chrome as our desktop browser anyway... you have to wonder how much more there is for Google to slurp?

The biggest advantage here seems to be that you can consolidate the slurp to one company XD.

I mean, Microsoft are doing their best to slurp you too.

If it helps protect against malicious apps harvesting your data too, then it's a net positive, and being open source, we might get a telemetry light version too, maybe?

Queen Elizabeth has a soggy bottom: No, the £3.1bn aircraft carrier, what the hell did you think we meant?

Re: There it is...!

Harriers were also used in STOVL roles, the 20s limit to vertical operation (limited water coolant for the engines taking all the strain, no lift from the wings) stopped it from being effective as a "proper" VTOL - it could do it, but you'd run low on your budget very quickly.

Tesla’s Autopilot losing track of devs crashing out of 'leccy car maker

Re: Tunnel Vision

In many places, there are no road markings - country lanes etc. It just isn't cost effective to mark them.

In many places, there are too many road markings, where drivers get assaulted with too much data, some of it conflicting.

Adding more markings isn't going to be cost effective, or solve confusion, depending on where you are.

Re: Really?

Though if you release self driving cars over a larger area and have a common mapping system that they all contribute to, then you can build up your maps of pretty much everywhere pretty much overnight.

Take the bus... to get some new cables: Raspberry Pi 4s are a bit picky about USB-Cs

I've heard that the IKEA USB-C cables are very good, as are their mains->USB adaptors.

You TalkTalk a big game, says ads watchdog, but your testing not good enough to say your Wi-Fi's best

If BT can't make spurious claims, NO ONE CAN!

Who's been copying AMD's homework? Intel lifts the lid on its hip chip packaging to break up chips into chiplets

Re: Not quite yet

It was an observation, that then became a target, which kept the growth on track until recently.

Can you trust Huawei... or any other networks supplier for that matter?

That's not really what it's set-up for though - it's really there to look for evidence of Chinese government spying, the security bugs being reported are just additional goodness to come out of the process.

Got an 'old' Tesla? Musk promises 'self-driving' upgrade chip ship by end of 2019

Re: "Awareness" at 360 degrees

Tesla can get that kind of "awareness", only the addition of visual sensors is required.

But isn't autopilot a primarily visual system already?

DoH! Secure DNS doesn't make us a villain, Mozilla tells UK broadband providers

Re: Mozilla are only partly right

nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn isn't a valid IP either, but we all know what it's representing.

Let's talk about April Fools' Day jokes. Are they ever really harmless?

Re: getting to an impossible to reach else clause

z = (a-b) + (c-b) to

z = a+c -2c

you have more problems than the overflow...

z = a + c - 2*b

But yes, we do have to remember sometimes that programming isn't math.

Poetic justice: Mum funnels £100 into claw machine to win single Dumbo teddy for her kid

Was at a theme park the other day

Basketball - dunk 3 balls, win a large prize.

Hoops were nice and wide, but you could get around the stall and look at the hoops from the side - they were barely deep enough to accept the ball. If you're off even slightly, you're bouncing out.

One for the suckers.

Stop using that MacBook Pro RIGHT NOW, says Uncle Sam: Loyalists suffer burns, smoke inhalation and worse – those crappy keyboards

Re: "I have a small business where it is just me, I can't afford two laptops."

Do note that he specified "equivalent" - he's not talking some cheap tat.

Firefox Preview for Android: Mozilla has another go at a mobile browser

My hand lives near the bottom. I want the content I'm interacting with to be down there.

Re: I'm genuinely surprised usage is so low

What are you running it on?

Mine is instant - well, close to it. running adblockers really help with both quota and speed. Even without that, it's a FAR cry from even one minute. single digit seconds at most for heavy pages.

Bonkers British MPs rant: 5G signals cause cancer

Regarding point #1, isn't it shown to be fictional in the show too?

It's a fullblown Crysis: Gamers press pause on PC purchases, shipments freeze

Re: Mature Product

https://xkcd.com/606/

Comms room, comms room, comms room is on fire – we don't need no water, let the engineer burn

Re: "the (suicidal?) bravery (stupidity?) of our colleague"

[pedant]surprisingly massive[/pedant]

LibreOffice 6.3 hits beta, with built-in redaction tool for sharing those █████ documents

Re: ██████

It would still be through an export process, but you wouldn't have to draw on the lines

Re: ██████

I certainly find it a little funny that there isn't an option to replace blocks of text with ██████ as a redaction tool...

you could just mark the beginning and end of sections in the original document, and the export would do the blocking out for you.

There's a reason why my cat doesn't need two-factor authentication

Re: A pretty simple concept really:

That actually sounds like a pretty good system - not locking people inside, yet still having some level of security (the alarm)

The only issue would be if the server failure and unlocking of doors was a silent failure.

A pretty simple concept really:

AviD's Tenet of Usability:

Security at the expense of usability, comes at the expense of security.

Make it easy to use and secure, and it'll work.

Make it easy to use, and people will at least use it, even if its only a minor security improvement

Make it secure, and people will try and work around it to make it easy to use, screwing the security. - we see this all the time: "Password1!" emergency exit doors propped open so people can come and go for a smoke etc.

Samsung reminds rabble to scan smart TVs for viruses – then tries to make them forget

Re: Oh, well, that's okay then...

Ah, the trouble I had getting my sister to use my proper speakers for watching movies.

My new TV lets me disable the internal speakers entirely, so I can't have this problem any more.

When customers see red, sometimes the obvious solution will only fan the flames

Re: Dolt

https://xkcd.com/1814/

Re: longest word in the dictionary

That's the name for a health issue caused by breathing quartz dust, isn't it?

Akamai CEO: Playing games from the cloud? Seems too expensive to be viable right now

Re: ...until Google take their ball and go home

I wouldn't worry about that... Google never shut down services practically overnight, do they?

*cough*

Re: Latency

We can use Steam in home streaming as a yard-stick here.

That is, one PC playing the game, and another sat in front of the gamer.

I have a Steam-link, and while it's indistinguishable from a full PC, lets use a second PC as the client machine, so we can benefit from having the Steam-link's limits removed (e.g. it only has 100mbs wired networking).

In this setup, we have two PCs, both connected to the internet network via wifi, but connected together with a 1GBs Ethernet connection, which can be forced into use for the gaming stream.

This is essentially the best possible setup for streaming a game across a network - if a single cable can be considered a network.

I haven't done any particular in-depth tests with this, aiming only to satisfy my desire to play casual games from the sofa, older games were chosen to reduce the workload so as to not bottleneck the encoding and streaming:

Picture quality - pretty good overall. At times, you can notice artefacting, which appears similar to turning the sharpness up too high on a TV, or jpg compression on images.

Delivery quality - Over a direct wired gigabit connection, the stream is rock-solid, with maybe a little hiccup maybe once an hour.

My current setup, with a 100mbs steam-link connected to PC through two switches is just as solid.

Over Wifi, it's a different story - even on 5Ghz uncontested link, hiccups occur, at a rate of 2-3 a minute, lasting a second or two each time, which is't terrible from a performance state, but is immersion breaking. Reducing the image quality reduces the frequency and duration of these hiccups, but they still occur and you have a much more noticeably compressed image.

Delivery latency - One of the games I tested was Mirror's Edge (2008) Constant latency is distinctly noticeable, even with the direct wired connection. It's perfectly possible to play the game, but you have to anticipate all actions. Most notable is when performing a roll when landing - playing locally, you pull the trigger just before hitting the ground - playing remotely, you have to pull the trigger prior to landing - when about 2m in the air. The same latency is noticeable when engaging in combat, making shooting harder (smooth movements are required) and disarms of AR armed enemies pretty much requires slow-mo due to the short period given to perform the move. I have a fairly sensitive NFS Shift configuration set-up with almost no dead-zone on my wheel. The latency made racing effectively impossible, being almost impossible NOT to over-correct for even minor deviations from the racing line. It was like trying to drive in one of those drunk-driving simulators.

From memory, the reported latency was reported by steam-link as about 25-30ms but I'd take that with a grain of salt. I'm pretty sure there are additional sources of latency that are not being accounted for in this value, and this is a local connection. Over the web, I would expect latency to be twice that.

For "casual" games, it's great - and I'm using casual in terms of "not requiring reflexes" here - games I can relax when playing. Something like XCOM-2 works great, but local streaming on anything requiring fast reactions can be anywhere from having annoying latency to unplayable.

Lets just say that I'm not optimistic about web game-streaming providing an experience that suits anything other than "casual" gameplay.

That sort of game can typically survive being run on lower powered (aka cheaper) hardware locally, albeit at "cinematic" frame rates without causing issues to the gamer. This is where I think the competition will be, and the cost equation is a lot different between a £300 machine and a £1200+ machine when compared to the costs of an online gaming subscription.

When it comes to DNS over HTTPS, it's privacy in excess, frets UK child exploitation watchdog

Re: Yes.... but it’s less emotional.

There is a difference between accidents and murder...

Now if people had intentionally driven into 3700 people, then that would be different

What's in store for Microsoft's US pop-up shops? Not much, they're being closed

Re: What would you buy?

I'll add that their Mice were quite good - at least about 15 years ago. I have two of their early optical mice, which are still going strong. Quite possibly the most reliable pieces of tech I own.

Supra smart TVs aren't so super smart: Hole lets hackers go all Max Headroom on e-tellies

Re: Not impressed with so called smart TVs full stop.

My "WebOS" LG is doing a fine job, for now at least. The only thing I wish I could do was easily stream music from play music (because I like to own my music, and it's convenient to use it to have a copy online) The app will happily stream to a chromecast, but nothing else.

Apple kills iTunes, preps pricey Mac Pro, gives iPad its own OS – plus: That $999 monitor stand

Assuming

You know what they say... To assume makes and ass...

$200 for the adaptor

Microsoft Windows 10 'Burger King' build 1903: Have it your way... and it may still leave a nasty taste in your mouth

This update...

My biggest problem with it is - it won't install. Just fails and rolls back.

> The latest update separates Cortana from the Windows Search box,

Yay! I don't need a voice assistant on a desktop

> a move made in preparation for the foretold unification of search across Bing, Office 365 and Windows.

Aww Hell.

If I want to search the web. I'll open the browser. STOP FING UP SEARCH EVEN MORE MS!

> It makes more Windows built-in apps uninstallable.

wait... does this mean we can remove more, or we can't install/uninstall them