Posts by bobbear

Amazon's nuclear datacenter dreams stall as watchdog rejects power deal

Re: fusion

"I think that's pretty much the point".

I shouldn't have to say this, but "as heat" (more correctly known as molecular kinetic energy)...

Re: fusion

"waiting for fusion to come, just need something to contain that 100 million deg C."

... and to solve the problem that ALL of the energy so released from conversion of mass to energy, (by whatever means), eventually ends up in the environment according to the first law of thermodynamics.

Re: Seems clear cut to me

"CCGT isn't a clean solution..."

Neither is nuclear from the point of view of energy pollution...

Low orbit satellites for phone service may cause more light pollution

Things must be bad if Musk can't afford a few cans of matt black spray paint. My consultancy fee bill's in the post...

Twitter set for more layoffs as Musk mulls next move

He ran a poll 51.8% in favor of overturning Donald Trump's ban... but some must be bots, right Elon?

I'd guess about 50% of them and I don't mean 50% of 51.8%.

How dumb can you get - the Glavset mob are NOT going to miss an open goal like that...

Porsche wants to sell you a rusty tailpipe soundbar for $12k

It's gotta be hot and glassy...

"No valves in it" probably comes in at number 1, (or pretty close to it..)

As Russia wages disinfo war, Ukraine's cyber chief calls for global anti-fake news fight

Vranyo

Soviet Union/Russian Federation disinformation is nothing new. You have to understand the Russian mindset - "vranyo" is a long established, accepted, well understood Russian practice and as such, lying, (as we understand it and deprecate it), is not viewed in the same way by the Russian mindset. Fortunately it is easily detected if the speaker is visible - if his lips are moving than he is almost certainly lying and the higher up the command chain you go, the more likely that is to be true.

Micro molten salt reactor can fit on a truck, power 1k homes. When it's built

The mechanism is irrelevant - you are still releasing latent energy stored in mass and that is energy polluting..

You could make an interesting comparison between the old method of storing local energy in gasometers and this method of locally producing energy by this process, if it ever makes it off the drawing board and into mass production, that is. Just convert every church, (or any other ubiquitous structure such as a B&Q store), in every town to a molten salt reactor and energy problem solved!

Well... on the face of it, that is.. If you look a little deeper all nuclear power converts mass into energy, (as do non-nuclear methods), so although the authoritative NASA/GISS figures for global mean surface temperature show that global warming is often generally exaggerated & abused by various interest groups, this process is still nevertheless energy polluting, so not the ideal solution, but then given the 400% and rising increase in the human population since the turn of the 20th. century, energy pollution, (mitigated only by genuine renewables), is always going to be a problem, (among many others..), although I think Mad Vlad is working on a 'final solution' to that particular problem like a 20th. century predecessor..

Definitely an interesting local base load option, though, reducing transmission losses by localisation into the bargain as it does, and also making large scale destruction of a country's energy infrastructure that bit more difficult.

I wonder if the electrical energy system will evolve to the point where a national grid distribution system no longer exists in its present form? Interesting times.

Paper batteries on the cards to power IoT and smart labels

A lemon battery? That's only for the toffs - we were far too poor to afford a lemon battery - we had to make do with a potato battery AND we had to eat the potato afterwards - waste not want not. (Mind, it had a funny metallic flavour..)

Throw away your Ethernet cables* because MediaTek says Wi-Fi 7 will replace them

Powerline?

WiFi - is that thing still going? I gave up on it years ago - I'll stick with my powerline LAN, thanks, (her indoors won't let me drill holes in all the walls and drape wires everywhere for some unaccountable reason).

As someone else has pointed out - 'new standard' = "we need to sell more kit". 5GHz wifi reliably gets about half the distance of 2.4GHz wifi in my place, or to put it another, it's twice as useless as 2.4GHz. It might be great if you've got a cardboard house, but no good if you've got brick and/or block walls..

Epoch-alypse now: BBC iPlayer flaunts 2038 cutoff date, gives infrastructure game away

I can't imagine the BBC lasting that long, so I doubt it's going to be a problem. As far as I am concerned, the sooner the BBC encrypt their channels and the licence fee is scrapped the better. It won't make one jot of difference to me as I long ago gave up watching their biased news and current affairs output, awful PC dramas, low-life soaps, reality rubbish and don't get me started on what passes for comedy these days and the bloated salaries they pay to the likes of Lineker et al.., but what I object most strongly to is having to pay the BBC tax to be able to legally receive and watch other advertising supported real time satellite and terrestrial 'free to air' content which I am also indirectly paying for in addition.

If we ever get decent broadband in our area to support streaming as opposed to the current wet string distributed snail pace so-called "Superfast" offering, that's the day I cancel my BBC tax contribution..

'Windows 11 has been successfully downloaded,' says update for Xbox version of Microsoft Flight Simulator

The only thing an XBox would be of use for to me is a doorstop..

I had my own lucky escape yesterday - apparently my Toshiba Satellite Pro has a 2.5 GHz twin core i5 cpu that isn't compatible with W11 Yay - success..! It's these small moents of joy that make life worth living..

Engineers' Laurel and Hardy moment caused British Airways 787 to take an accidental knee

Reminds me of the Monsters v. Aliens 'buttons' design:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1CxlyMoFRs

When I was involved in life-critical safety & protection systems, a major mantra was "If something can possibly happen, it eventually will" and thus the aim was to spot bad things that could possibly happen in order to make them impossible, which is where abilities such as foresight, deductive reasoning and basic intelligence play a major part. Unfortunately, such qualities seem to be in short supply these days. I blame leaded petrol...

With a straight face, Putin agrees to do something about ransomware coming out of Russia, apparently

Re: MRDA ..... but one cannot plausibly deny its veracity for surely such then is delusional.

I pick the first option, Ivan..

I don't think quoting the Kremlin's state sponsored mouthpiece is going to get you very far.

As Putin himself might say: "You say we make cyber war against the West - is all lies! You say Russians working from so-called 'troll factory' in St.Petersburg post lies and propaganda in your news media - is all lies! The building you say is "troll factory" is civilian factory making baby milk for beautiful rosy cheeked Russian babies in their mother's arms and Russians are devoted to make sure that internet is safe and used only for honest purpose and never for spying and never used by money laundering criminals, that is why we never give up Russian citizen to West for foreign trumped up charges as always is all lies!"

I remember in 2019 Ofcom fined RT £200,000 for seven breaches of impartiality rules over its reporting of the Salisbury poisonings and the Syrian conflict. RT’s journalistic reputation was then pretty well trashed by an interview with the suspected poisoners, who claimed to be members of the "fitness industry" on a tourist visit to Salisbury Cathedral..

In China, the Smart TV watches you, shares IP address, Wi-Fi SSIDs, viewing habits, and more

You sort of expect it..

.. from Chinese made devices, i.e. most of them.. I recently installed a Hikvision 'Colorvu' cctv camera, (Western region..), and on setting it up I noticed that the 'privacy mask' function was disabled for a few mS every 15 minutes or so, allowing whatever it was hiding to be seen in plain view. On checking around I discovered at least one other person had spotted it.. A bug? most unlikely - more likely a hangover from an original Chinese market development firmware version.. Needless to say, I would never dream of connecting them to the internet - no way, Pedro. Pass me my tinfoil hat..

Key Perl Core developer quits, says he was bullied for daring to suggest programming language contained 'cruft'

The server is good, the server is great..

Verily, the day will come when the final 'one true language' will appear and it will be good and it will be called "new machine code" for it shall be so that only evolved machines can write it and only evolved machines can understand it and only evolved machines can run it and it will be a hundred times faster to execute than all other crude interpreted and compiled languages and take up a hundred times less storage space than all other languages and all other languages will look like Basic running on a ZX81 in comparison and the meatbags will be finally redundant and will be swept from the face of the earth..

Scottish Environment Protection Agency refuses to pay ransomware crooks over 1.2GB of stolen data

Re: Lemme guess running MSWindows

The real problem component is probably the nut on the keyboard..

Trump administration says Russia behind SolarWinds hack. Trump himself begs to differ

Breaking News! Russians deny any cyber warfare involvement!

GRU statement:

"You say we make cyber war against the West - is all lies! You say Russians working from so-called 'troll factory' in St. Petersburg post lies and propaganda in your news media - is all lies! The building you say is "troll factory" is civilian factory making baby milk for beautiful rosy cheeked Russian babies in their mother's arms and Russians are devoted to make sure internet is safe and used only for honest purpose and never for spying and never used by money laundering criminals, that is why we never give up Russian citizen to West for foreign trumped up charges as always is all lies!

You say we interfere in Americanski elections, but is not true - is all lies! We never interfere in anything. Donald J Trump won, how you say, 'fair and rectangular' with no interference from anyone. Ask him yourself, he is moral man of great wisdom, truth and honour, like all Russian people and our leaders - a true friend and oligarch with many roubles and he knows much about Russia and its kindness and generosity. If you put Uncle Joe's hat and moustache on Mr. Trump then he is, how you say, 'expectorating image' of Uncle Joe - it brings tears of joy to our eyes. We help him stay Americanski leader for long time!

Signed:-

General Orlovu Sodovski

Director:- St. Petersburg Baby Milk Factory"

Re: Mr Irrelevant Tweets what?

"PS: And what does Vlad have on him?"

I could easily imagine quite a bit, then there's Moscow Trump Tower which might end up being the "stable genius"'s only viable bolt-hole when the excrement really hits the fan as I suspect it will shortly do so when he's finally winkled out from his protected status..

https://twitter.com/i/status/1338637597892112385

Besides, the dog never criticises his master..

Trump fires cybersecurity boss Chris Krebs for doing his job: Securing the election and telling the truth about it

Re: Its Trump's fault really

Quite right..

To paraphrase the old saying: "People might suspect that you are a lying, immoral, incompetent, immature, small-minded, vindicative, racist, dim-witted, misogynistic, self-serving, mentally ill moron with delusions of adequacy, but why keep opening your mouth and removing all doubt?"

Biden projected to be the next US President, Microsoft joins rest of world in telling Trump: It looks like... you're fired

Re: Re: Compared to Trump either of my cats would make a better president

I blame leaded gas/petrol..

The Russians are at it again: Zebrocy backdoor malware is evolving, Uncle Sam warns close to eve of presidential election

"The biggest threat to US democracy lies in the Whitehouse not the Kremlin." - Not a lot of difference with the clear support for Trump by both the Russian Kleptocratic Dictatorship and the Chinese Hegemonic Dictatorship. Both China and Russia want whatever is in the worst interest of the West..

India to run optic fibre to 450,000 villages in 1,000 days and give 1.3bn a digital Health ID

Backwards Telecom, listen? That'll be the day hell freezes over.. I've just received my 'new fibre connection' (and a Home Hub 2, now serving a useful function as a doorstop, although it does keep falling over..).

As you may have guessed - VDSL2 over a long piece of dodgy copper.

Identical (very slow..), throughput to the 'old' ADSL2, just re-arranged slightly to give a lower download speed and a faster upload speed. Oh, and my account charge, which "won't change" has gone up because they've contemporaneously scrapped my old unlimited landline calls for a 'new evening and weekends limited free call system'. which, you guessed it, will increase my overall costs. If only there was some practical competition in my rural backwater - can't even get a decent phone signal.

If India's third world, (possibly now promoted to first world in telecoms terms), I guess we are fourth world in telecoms terms, or am I being too generous?

Minister slams 5G coronavirus conspiracy theories as 'dangerous nonsense' after phone towers torched in UK

Ahhhhh indeed - she's back in "Kate and Koji"

Ofcom measured UK's 5G radiation and found that, no, it won't give you cancer

10G woodstove..

Dear Deidre,

I'm very worried about my wood burning heating device. When I sit in front of it I notice that any exposed skin gets very hot as it is exposed to high levels of electromagnetic radiation at a far higher frequency than 5G. Should I be wearing a tinfoil balaclava, trousers and gloves?

Yours,

Paranoid of Pontefract

Feds slap $5m bounty on 'Evil Corp' Russian duo accused of running ZeuS, Dridex banking trojans

Re: Go Pleasure Yourselves

What Jurisdiction do the Americans and their British puppets hold over Russians and other foreign nationals ?

None, of course - as you well know.. They will be protected/sponsored by a state that has an international transparency.org corruption/fraud rating akin to Nigeria..

However, should they decide to take a holiday in sunnier climes in their lifetime..

Mozilla locks nosy Avast, AVG extensions out of Firefox store amid row over web privacy

Re: Gosh, I remember when Avast was free

I too have left Avast behind..

Boffins believe it was volcanoes, not just life, that made Earth what it is today – oxygen rich

Thank goodness for CO2 - it's a pity that there are powerful forces demonising it and intent on getting rid of it. Still, I'm sure we can manage OK without food and oxygen..

Antivirus hid more than 9,000 'cybercrime' reports from UK cops, says watchdog

Back in the days when I used to file abuse reports with registrars and ISPs it was amazing how many of them had anti-spam/AV protection on their abuse address which would stop me sending the evidence, without which they'd just reject the report.. I used to wonder if they were just dumb or didn't want to know. A mixture of both, I expect. I bet not much has changed..

Help! I bought a domain and ended up with a stranger's PayPal! And I can't give it back

or Royal Mail.. or BT..

I suspect the list of unresponsive companies is probably endless - the digital age means that getting to speak to a human being these days is getting increasingly impossible..

Dixons hits back at McAfee's £30m antivirus sueball: Your AV didn't work on Windows 10S

Re: PC World

I've always made my own desktops and in a moment of weakness I offered to make one for my neighbour, (stupid boy, I know...). Thankfully he wanted to go to PC World 'cos he liked the decor, I think, so I suggested a machine that looked the best compromise between excessive price and awful spec. that I could see & suggested that, (note, not 'recommended' - you have to be careful with words..). He came back next day to gleefuly tell me that he'd bought a machine that the salesperson said was "just as good" for £200 less "than the one you recommended", along with a bottom of the skip monitor without any leads and expected me to set it all up for him. That's why I no longer ever give advice on computers..

Has science gone too far? Now boffins dream of shining gigantic laser pointer into space to get aliens' attention

Sigh..

I hope there's intelligent life somewhere in the universe as there's bugger all on earth..

It might get to our nearest star, Proxima Centauri, in a little over 4 years, and then another 4 years to receive a reply assuming there's a planet hosting intelligent life in the system, but I suspect 20,000 light years away may take a little longer, I'd guess about 20,000 + 20,000 years or so.. Trappist1 would be 39 +39 years give or take a second or three according to the published data...

"It would mean, that extraterrestrials over at Trappist-1, for example, would be constantly bombarded by the light." - No - a quick flash once a day, perhaps as the earth rotates and they'd only notice it if they had infra-red sensitive eyes of incredible sensitivity..

Is that the standard of MIT graduates/professors these days? We're doomed, (hence the icon)... I know this is to be taken with a pinch of salt but the old saying "people may think you are stupid, but why open your mouth and remove all doubt?" seems to apply here.. This has got to be clickbait, surely? It's the sort of bogus science that is seen every day in the media with their arts graduate 'science' correspondents..

Is it me or is the biological infestation on our little piece of rock getting dumber? Personally I blame leaded petrol/gas..

'The capacitors exploded, showering the lab in flaming confetti'

Electrolytic bazooka..

Ah, that brings back memories of the odd high voltage exploding electrolytic PSU capacitor which would bomb out of its case with a large explosion and leave a rail of aluminium and paper as it followed a random trajectory putting life and limb at risk. There's probably a definite potential for weapon development there...

Why did I buy a gadget I know I'll never use?

An excellent pest deterrent..

I love boiled sprouts - a dozen or so, (preferably covered in onion gravy), and no-one will come anywhere near me. Peace is bliss..

Watt? You thought the wireless charging war was over? It ain't even begun

Efficient contactless charging using magnetic resonance at a few hundred kilohertz is safe and feasible but only with close coupling. I envisage a round ceramic container, possibly with a handle for easy positioning, (rather like a coffee mug), with an embedded resonant circuit in which you drop your mobile... oh... hang on...

OK Google: A stranger with stash of pirated films is spamming my Google Team Drive

They've developed this great new app to prevent you ever shutting down your computer, so there's no escape from the googleborg - resistance is futile, or fewtle as our colonial cousins say..

(Google "googledrivesync.exe shutdown problem")

Stop us if you've heard this one: Russian hacker thrown in US slammer for $59m bank fraud

Re: Stop me if you've heard this one: Casual racism is rife on the Internet

.. or a Guardian reader..

Re: Stop me if you've heard this one: Casual racism is rife on the Internet

Forgive me if I'm being overly suspicious, but it occurs to me that the only person likely to find the title "needlessly racist" would be a Russian troll factory employee..

I'm sure his father knew absolutely nothing about it...

The Quantum of Firefox: Why is this one unlike any other Firefox?

Won't work with my cctv plug-ins so no use to me. I'll stick with Palemoon, thanks.

No, the FCC can't shut down TV stations just because Donald Trump is mad at the news

Losing side?

@Terra

The only losing side under Trump is the USA..

Source required

@Herman

"If you can't squash them, square them, and if you can't square them, squash them." - Harold Wilson

and you have a source for that?

Dyson to build electric car that doesn't suck

Hype free zone

One thing's for sure - I won't believe any of his marketing hype...

UK industry mouthpiece wants 'near-universal' broadband speeds of 30Mbps by 2020

Re: Ultrafast

Ultrafast is 1Gbps symmetrical, today.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Agreed

Pinch points should always be avoided in any network. Where your LAN standard is 1Gbps then it seems to me that a WAN standard should also be 1Gbps - or at least that should be the aim point. All these other continuously varying 'universal standard' figures plucked from the aether, (2Mbps, 10Mbps, 20Mbps, 30Mbps etc etc), are frankly ALL irrational, ridiculous and short-sighted.

1Gbps definitively implies FTTP. It seems fairly obvious to me that FTTP is the ONLY sensible universal option for the future so it becomes a question of how we can get there in the fastest and most economical way and how great a percentage of the population can we extend it to? (In my opinion anyone who has a copper line).

BT/Openreach have continually avoided facing up the reality by installing FTTC in preference to FTTP and exploring evermore ways to try and extend the range and life of its frankly shoddy, unreliable and costly to maintain copper network.

I don't accept the arguments over need - you don't put a 1/2" water pipe or a 5KW maximum electricity supply into premises because "the pensioner who lives there doesn't need anything bigger" - premises change hands and requirements are continually changing - you plan ahead for all sensible eventualities, (such as multi-use, 'smart' TV's & IOT for example). FTTP should be part of the infrastructure of all new business and residential developments and the aim point for all such existing developments as FTTP is (relatively) future proof, copper is long past its use-by date. Having FTTP connected does not preclude the possibility of any individual being able to pay just for exactly what they use, i.e. a metered connection.

I accept there are problems to be solved over methods of providing 24/7 security services over FTTP, but FTTP is simply the transmission medium and the problems are solvable. There are also backup services such as 3G and 4G. There are also provisions for preferential electricity supply services for vulnerable people not to mention battery backup of security service equipment. All problems are solvable given the will to do it.

President Trump to his council of industry CEO buddies: You're fired!

Re: What happened to the many CEOs he had waiting?

"For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place." - Trump, 15th August."

Just another Trump 'Alt Truth' - the man turns lying into an art form without even realising it. I don't know why he still keeps banging on about the 'Fake News Media' when he keeps demonstrating his stupidity every time he tweets or opens his mouth in recorded public appearances..

People with a few brain cells stop digging when they've dug themselves into a hole. Hand Trump a shovel and he re-doubles his efforts..

Old Firefox add-ons get 'dead man walking' call

Grrr - all my cctv plugins stopped working in Firefox

1) Firefox uninstalled

2) Pale Moon installed

Result happiness..

Bye bye Firefox - it's been nice knowing you..

Nationwide’s online banking goes down again

I've had various Nationwide savings and current accounts for donkey's years - in fact I've migrated other accounts to them because they were the most reliable and helpful of all the bunch I've had over the years, Midland, First direct, Halifax, B&B etc etc. I've seen other banks come and go and watched numerous IT disasters with some amusement, but I've no complaint at all over my Nationwide service, (and no, I have no affiliation with them...).

Internet hygiene still stinks despite botnet and ransomware flood

Re: Oblivious of the Situation

I'm certainly talking about the ordinary 'uneducated user' - it is better that he/she is at least aware of the situation than blissfully ignorant of it, as it is better to know that you have cancer than to die of ignorance. In both instances if you are neither an IT expert or an oncologist, you can seek help.

However, in most cases the solutions are simple and require no expertise or button pushing. If you are using a modem to connect to your cable or ADSL/Fibre service then don't! Buy yourself a NAT enabled modem/router. If you cant afford a hardware firewall then at least use a reputable software firewall.

Vulnerable users are probably totally oblivious of the situation. Why couldn't the first action of a system virus scanner be to call a remote port scan of the user's IP followed by a vulnerability report?