Posts by BloggsyMaloan

Chip makers aren't all-in on metaverse hardware yet – we should know, we asked them

A few years back, when that weird Aussie Wikileaks bloke was hiding in an embassy with all the stuff about sex trials, extradition, etc., it seemed to some people that the propoganda master plan had worked: instead of all the shady government sneakery being the big international story that it was becoming attention had been diverted to stories about the weird bloke.

I wonder how Zuck-head's attempt to apply a similar strategy will play out. Until a month ago there were new stories every month about how Zuckbook was deliberately doing dastardly deeds that were even starting to piss off politicians of all parties. Now the press has been lured into stories about some VR omnishablesverse instead. Will people remember all the bad stuff that Zuck-head bases his business on? Or will they just think of the insignificant VR non-stories when his name is mentioned?

Apple seeks geniuses to work on 6G cellular modem before it's even shipped own 5G chip

Re: ?

'Is "productizing" a real word?'

Only to those who 'think different'.

"Apple seeks geniuses". Surely there are loads going spare in its Genius Bars?

Yep, 'sales assistants' as they're known elsewhere.

(Nothing wrong with sales assistants, only with up-its-own-jacksy marketing-waffle).

Re: Oberbranded G Generations.

"who knows what sort of AR/VR will be coming in a decade"

Mark knows, but people will still remember the damage he's done.

Re: Possible typo

"... and they're planning to make their own modems moving forwards they need to be current on the budging standards and maybe also involved in the development of them"

Wot?

"Re: Possible typo "

Ah. OK.

Latest Loongson chip is another step in China's long road to semiconductor freedom

Re: "CPU architectures as a means of control"

'Every declaration must contain some form of jab at The West, even if it is totally groundless.

And as for the "independant analysis" of the architecture, I'm sure it was made by a party member as well.'

Hmmm. I wonder whether they copied that approach from The West. (Well, parts of it).

A Windows 11 tsunami? No, more of a ripple as Microsoft's latest OS hits 5% PC market

Re: Ha, ha, the bias is showing

"At 5% of the PC market, in less than one month of the official launch Windows 11 has already grabbed twice what Linux desktop has managed in over 2 decades."

"Ha, ha, the bias is showing"

It certainly is. You've overlooked '4.8 per cent of "modern" PCs'.

Without knowing exactly what percentage of PCs are classified as "modern" you have no idea how many percent of actual PCs have upgraded - basic GCSE maths.

The bias might be intentional or it might be the result of not understanding simple arithmetic.

Unvaccinated and working at Apple? Prepare for COVID-19 testing 'every time' you step in the office

Re: Update : 2 shots = unvaccinated

"There is apparently a plan afoot that considers anyone that has not had a 6 month boostershot as 'unvaccinated'"

So the plan is to adjust policy to reflect scientific observation and analysis?

Quelle surprise.

Re: Vaccine misinformation

"Here's a peer-reviewed paper published in major medical journals:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7"

Having just skimmed a few of the 74,519 articles resulting from a search for 'covid' on the site I think you seem to have been very (un-?)lucky to find one that supports your view.

Perhaps you might trot on back to Facebook for more 'science' to support your claim that "there's simply nothing to suggest it helps with slowing or preventing the spread of COVID-19".

Re: where does it end ?

"either your vaccine is effective and then you don't have anything to fear, or it's not and then on what ground would you want other people to take an ineffective product"

A gross misunderstanding of vaccines (and most risk-related science). They are measured to have a certain percentage effectiveness.

Would you say either seat-belts are effective and then you don't have anything to fear, or they're not and then on what ground would you want people to wear an ineffective product"?

Ingest some knowledge and understanding before spouting ignorant rubbish.

(Hope I didn't put that too strongly...)

We're closing the gap with Arm and x86, claims SiFive: New RISC-V CPU core for PCs, servers, mobile incoming

Re: Perfect for the Commanding Controlling Communicating Centres of Core Computers

Subcontracting some work to Mechanical Turk?

Microsoft unveils Android apps for Windows 11 (for US users only)

"Microsoft has further teased the arrival of the Windows Subsystem for Android by..."

... tickling its little nubbin?

IBM US staff must be fully vaccinated by December – or go back to bed without pay

Re: The register comments

>Have gone like London, leftanistan

Interesting how much can be deduced about the reliability of certain comments from their inventive misuse of language, similar to much email spam.

Re: "PS This will probably get rejected"

"And the Israel example does kind of highlight that the vaccine is nowhere near as effective as they claim it to be

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/23/science/covid-vaccine-israel-pfizer.html

More like 39% effective at preventing transmission compared to the 93% originally claimed."

So you are only interested in its effectiveness against transmission? (A known possibility from the start, as with some vaccines and not others. Scientists said that time and statistics will show).

And that aspect (total effectiveness) makes you uninterested in good effects, such as reduced transmission and very substantially reduced hospitalisation and death rates?

You wouldn't be cherry picking by any chance?

Re: Hmmm

>In which case we should all be mandated to take every single

>vaccine that big pharma releases?

Must've missed that. Didn't realise I'd signed up to take every single vaccine that big pharma releases. Better get queueing...

Re: Hmmm

>I’m double vaccinated so certainly not anti-vax but I do believe

>in freedom of choice. This feels like some kind of breach of

>civil liberties to me.

Some countries have freedom of choice to have widespread gun-ownership and live in a society where self-culling helps to control the numbers. It's ironic that so many pro-lifers are simultaneously pro-deathers. Darwin would smile.

As one of their political heroes said, ''Dying Aint' Much of A Livin', Boy''

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLRlY46ttfE)

Re: Hmmm

>those denying COVID deaths

Covid deaths? Huh! It all went away by Easter 2020, like some sort of miracle.

Re: Hmmm

>if these vaccines are so SAFE why the non-liablity clause,

Hell, yes! Thin end of the wedge. Next thing, car manufacturers won't want to be held liable when you drive your hunk of metal into another road user!

>and secondly if the vaccines are so effective, why are people still having

>to wear masks, aprons, spit shields in environments where everyone is

>vaccinated.

And if seat belts and ABS and driving tests are so effective why do we still have speed limits and other driving laws?

Give the lawmakers an inch and they'll take all our freedoms away.

>None of it makes sense.

To some.

(Warning, there is irony above, for the few who might not have spotted it).

UK promises big data law shake-up... while also keeping the EU happy, of course. What could go wrong?

Re: Piss

"All our current problems stem from too many lorry drivers retraining as ballet dancers."

... and not enough politicians retraining as ballet dancers.

Can you point to the 'rule the EU came up with' that demands cookie pop-ups?

I have sites that do not try to track visitors and so do not present pop-ups to try to obtain tracking-cookie consent. I understand that this is fully compliant with EU rules, as well as being a much better experience for site visitors.

I rarely visit a site which 'needs' to save cookies, as most of my visits are for information only, which can be presented without tracking me.

I also object to the fashion for hiding so-called 'Legitimate interest' opt-outs on a second tab. I decide what interests are 'legitimate' concerning my data, not some surveillance-business / advertising site.

I think you'll find that 'cookie banners' (pop-ups) are actually the 'bread and circuses' of companies with surveillance-based business models. They display pop-ups to be able to claim they have consent. If they didn't snoop they wouldn't need to ask customers to give permission to snoop.

If companies stopped cookie-based snooping and provided an opt-in for those who wish to be snooped on most people would never see a pop-up.

Re: GDPR

Is the rule that sites must have such pop-ups?

Or that they must obtain consent before gathering tracking information?

I suspect the latter: that the pop-ups are actually the creation of companies trying to cover their backs whilst tricking site visitors into giving consent to continued tracking.

Re: A BASE jumping error

I expect that Boris, with all his science and technology know-how, would believe that gold is a good choice of material for making parachutes.

Go on, Boris, grab some ingots and jump!

Re: Seems to be a recurring theme here ...

"Ah, so you'll be one of those rabid rejoiners who feel the need for other people to do your thinking for you."

You seem to have lost your way back to a place where ad hominem insults substitute for reasoned argument and substantiated facts.

Let me try to help... Follow the signs for Fakebook and Twatter then keep walking till you hear the prattle getting louder.

Byeee...

Horizon Workrooms promises a virtual future of teal despair

Re: My experience is different

>people can talk at the same time without any of

>them becoming incomprehensible

So you're not used to business speak?

https://www.theguardian.com/careers/careers-blog/worst-office-jargon-phrases-staff-love-hate-management-speak

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7457287.stm

Lucky you.

Green hydrogen 'transitioning from a shed-based industry' says researcher as the UK hedges its H₂ strategy

Re: KABOOM!

>Hydrogen isn't even a molecule

Hmmmm....

Hydrogen atoms are atoms. Hydrogen molecules are molecules, comprising two hydrogen atoms. Or has something changed since O Level Chemistry days?

Re: Might be worse than burning coal

>you don't see many submariners with two heads or other radiation issues

PR containment fully operational, sir!

>Then we can talk about nuclear fission...

Haven't people been doing that for decades? Isn't talking the easy part?

LibreOffice 7.2 brings improved but still imperfect Microsoft Office compatibility

Re: Does "compatibility" mean having the same issues?

>Microsoft makes money by pushing obscure, non standardised document formats.

True. Upvote.

Similar to Apple making money by pushing obscure, non standardised everything formats and erecting Pay-Up-Before-You-Enter walls around all content, created outside Apple, that it possibly can.

Re: Does "compatibility" mean having the same issues?

>Fair enough, but has nobody ever used Microsoft Office

>and found incompatibility issues with their previous

>version of Microsoft Office.

Yes. Multiple times. And opening an MS Word document in LibreOffice, saving it in a different MS Word version and opening it again in Word has solved the problem a number of times,

Informal conclusion: LibreOffice is often more compatible with various versions of MS Word than MS Word is.

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

Re: Lovers or dolphins?

>To imply [sic] Apple are analysing all of the images on your phone is

>disingenuous. It is analysing the images you intend to upload to their

>servers. If you don’t upload them, they don’t get scanned

From the same anouncement...

"The Messages app will add new tools to warn children and their parents when receiving or sending sexually explicit photos."

https://www.apple.com/child-safety/

Such images would appear unlikely to be intended for uploading to Apple's servers but, rather, for (what was once thought of as) private use. It might be surmised that such images might be identified by scanning all sent or received images, i.e. a different, additional, type (*) of scanning from that involving matching hashes against a database.

(*) Which suggests that Apple is scanning images originating from non-Apple users, as well as those from its own disciples.

Who owns the phone? Who decides what software it runs?

Re: iPhone

>Just when I was starting to trust that actually, maybe Tim Apple really cared

Profit is Good. Capitalism is God.

I name you as a True Believer, a born-again consumer of Apple Pie and claim my prize.

Re: Lovers or dolphins?

>Just to be clear - the AI in this case... is about comparing images stored on devices

Just to be clear, the principle in this case is about Apple analysing an iPhone's content, which most users assume to be private, without explicit, informed consent, thus setting the scene for further abuse of privacy.

Privacy

You're thinking it wrong.

China starts testing tech to harvest solar energy from orbiting panels

>Solar power collected in space has the advantage of being unaffected by weather

Is transmission of energy back to Earth also unaffected by weather?

GOP lawmakers ask for former Huawei handset biz Honor to be placed the Entity List

Re: A seamless transition from Trump to Biden.

>>"benign and trustworthy phone manufacturer who makes

>>good design and security decisions and listens to users"

>Apple springs to mind.

It's a mind, Jim, but not as we know it.

England's controversial extraction of personal medical histories from GP systems is delayed for a second time

>Priti was on to something there: Executing innocent people to

>deter others is pure evil genius, People would be too scared

>to actually do anything at all!

Can't help wondering whether she is innocent...

Linux Mint 20.2 is a bit more insistent about updating but not as annoying as Windows or Mac, team promises

Re: Linux Bloatware

>It was slower than Windows on the same hardware, so I went back to XP.

Why stop there? Go back to DOS and it'll fly.

For souped-up input try the Sinclair Spectrum word-per-key programming shortcuts.

The past is a foreign country.

Richard Branson uses two planes to make 170km round trip

Politics or billionaires: choose your entertainment

>I assume that most people go into politics because they genuinely

> want to do good, but to get to any real position of power they have

>to spend so long fighting the machine that all sense of good is

>destroyed in them

Being a cynic, I assume that some start with a mild veneer of wanting to do good which is easily shed as the lure of imagined (*) power tempts them to trade fragile fragments of morality.

Others have no doubt from the start whose interest will direct their political careers.

(*) Imagined because once they've been assimilated into the swamp they find that they are controlled by the Borg mind and can influence, let alone control, very little indeed except whether to wear a jacket over an England shirt and whether to wear a hard hat as well as a hi-vis jacket. Thus the would-be mighty fall as the Ides of March grind the sausage-meat of politics.

Focus on the camera, mobile devs: 48MP shooters about to become the sweet spot

>It is surprising just how many commercial films are made using iPhones...

Whilst *you* might be surprised, *it* is not surprising.

I would hazard a guess, without trying to check, that a tiny, tiny proportion of commercial films are made using a mobile phone, so I am not at all surprised.

And most of those are probably made for perceived boasting rights: 'Look at what I just done with my £1,000 mobile. Isn't it good? Aren't I clever for using it? Don't you wich you had one?'

I really can't imagine the big film producers saying, 'Ditch your millions of pounds worth of top end camera equipment and get your mobile phones out'.

About 5 years ago I used a high-end photographic printer (paper rolls up to 42" by 100') to make a set of A0 prints for framing and display in an organisation. Most were taken by a professional using a decent SLR. A couple of employees wanted to submit their mobile phone pictures for consideration. (Latest iPhones of the time, so must be good). They weren't convinced when I said that it's unlikely that a smartphone would be up to the job so I printed A0 versions of a couple of their pictures and the difference in quality was laughable when compared with the other images, including a couple taken on a medium spec compact camera. Enlarged to over 1 metre on the long side the smartphone images showed conspicuous digital artifacts, such as blockiness on edges, areas with no subtle gradation of tone or colour. Pocket-sized poor relations to actual cameras.

A smartphone's limitations just don't show up on an itsy bitsy teeny weeny little screen, which is just fine for kittens, Tiktok or whatever current antisocial media wows the masses.

Taikonauts complete seven-hour spacewalk, the first for China since 2008

Re: Well done

Not to mention Gitmo.

British Medical Association calls for clarity on patient deadline for opting out of NHS Digital's GP data grab

I am not a number, I am a free man!

>if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer, you're the product being sold

Except that we are paying for NHS services, albeit not at the point of use, because most of us consider them worth paying for in a civilised society.

However, in spite of paying for it the government *still* feel entitled to sell data that Matt Hancock disingenuously and said we (the patients) own.

I wonder how he'd feel about the people selling intimate aspects of himself that he thinks he owns. Imagination can run free...