Posts by that one in the corner

Peekaboo: Once-hidden galaxy revealed to be window into cosmic history

> For example, we've observed effects ascribed to Dark Matter, but does anyone actually know what it is or even whether it actually exists?

No. Not at all. That is the whole point of giving it the moniker "Dark Matter".

Whatever is causing the observable effects, it is behaving as though there is a lot of matter around that we have not been able to observe, at all.

No matter what the eventual cause is found to be, even if it turns out to be modified Newtonian gravity (MOND or its relatives) it will still behave like there is Dark Matter and will very likely keep that moniker forever. Ditto Dark Energy.

Compare with the Big Bang - which was neither big nor a bang, indeed the name was deliberate British sarcasm - the moniker will likely remain even after its actual mechanism has been determined, replicated[1] and " properly" named (something sensibly polysyllabic).

[1] I recommend wearing a tin hat and ducking.

San Francisco investigates Hotel Twitter, Musk might pack up and leave

Re: Net Worth - down about $70bn

"Elon Musk Starts And Ends Thursday As World's Second Richest Person"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/12/08/elon-musk-no-longer-worlds-richest-again-as-stock-hit-by-report-of-personal-margin-loan/

"The Tesla chief was overtaken for the third time in two days by Bernard Arnault of French luxury conglomerate LVMH"

Raspberry Pi hires former spy gadget-maker who baked devices into surveillance ops

Facist: some one who is using fashion - a facist movement that propagates either one has the face or shame.

> I have removed all my Pi's

Ok, this is one thing that always confuses me. You see it as a response to any company/group X that has misbehaved in someone eyes:

You don't like what X has *just* done - fine - so you decide to cancel unfulfilled orders and not give the "New Bad X" any more funding - again, fine, your choice; presumably hoping that enough other people will follow your lead, X will feel the pinch and revert.

But, what is the point of removing all your *existing* paid-for items? Doing that isn't going to hurt X, they have had your money. If the items were actually of *use* to you (which is implied by the existence of unfulfilled orders) then the only person hurt by that - is yourself.

Really doesn't matter who/what X is - I simply don't understand why getting rid of something that is functional is seen as a valid response.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

Re: you missed half the story

> The blocks I've seen concerned people being utter arseholes.

Hopefully (as I've given up reading that Mastodon thread) that included the - personage - whose immediate reaction to a normal Brit self-deprecating joke was to start dropping f-words.

States label TikTok 'a malicious and menacing threat'

> the other First World countries problably don't want to Invade/Control/Dominate the USA

If only the USA would stop trying to Invade/Control/Dominate the rest of the world...

Re: Comparison

> Is it just because TikTok is Chinese?

Is it just because TikTok isn't USAsian?

Chinese just makes it easier to rouse the rabble.

Taiwan bans state-owned devices from running Chinese platform TikTok

Re: PS

Thank you for that clear explanation.

I am clearly on the naughty list at the moment :-(

I'll admit I did *try* to post a "correction", with a " funny" reason for why it happened, but that was well after I'd already been listed (it got denied - my first denial!). Maybe it was when an entire long thread got deleted on the "in memoriam" for Kathleen Booth (I was about halfway down the thread, defending Ada Lovelace against charges that she didn't do anything useful - a total sidetrack from poor Ms Booth)? Who knows <shrug>.

But now I can add it to my list headed "Yes, I *am* a Bad Boy Rebel, The Man has it in for me"; on with the leather jacket, just have to serve my time.

Got any snout?

Re: PS

Huh? Clearly I've missed something in your reply.

After nearly 20 years on The Register (under various logins) it is only in the last couple of weeks that I've noticed any comments being held for moderation before they appear to thr public. So previously either the moderators were all *incredibly* quick to vet posts before they appeared or there has been a change. In the latter case, for obvious reasons, I can only see that my comments are being affected - unless, you know, I ask here what other people are experiencing. I have absolutely no idea what your mention of paranoia is meant to represent: I can clearly see that moderation is delaying my posts, sometimes by many hours!

The effect of an increase in moderation is to markedly slow down the rate at which posts appear - which reduces/removes the ability to have a snappy conversation in the comments and also produces the effect of a story being ignored as no or very few comments appear, especially in the first few hours.

What other way of finding out if this is something that is now widespread on The Register than by asking the question?[1]

So, once more: is anyone else seeing their posts in these articles being (increasingly) delayed by being moderated before they appear?

[1] btw, only asked first here 'cos this was the story I was reading at the time.

PS

Are we all being slowed by more moderation on Register forums these days, or is it just me being scrutinised as a potential dissident element?

Reiterating

> and inappropriate collection of sensitive personal information

is the MO of *all* the social media (and so many other) websites and apps. Why ban just a select few from state networks?

"Oh, the TikTok data goes to the CCP, but FB data is safe in the US". Leaving aside that *still* leaves the bulk of humanity at the mercy of both, what assurances are there that FB et al aren't sharing with the CCP (maybe via some indirect route)? After all, they have a duty to their shareholders to sell as much data for as much money to as many buyers as they can reach.

Let us not forget the FitBit story, where the yomping routes were found because of all the data showing up in those strangely empty areas of the map: no need for commie nackdoors needed.

Pentagon shares nine billion cloudy dollars between AWS, Google, Microsoft, Oracle

Re: new acronym

Vast Amounts of Defence Expenditure Released, demanding that the denizens of Cloud City provide service to the US Emperor.

Microsoft reportedly mulls a does-everything 'super app' to expand mobile search

Re: A "does-everything 'super app'"?

"Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping"

He probably has more than double 8MB :-)

Re: Editorial review required

> ????? competes with itself???

Well, yes, of course; hadn't you realised that?

That is why you get such superior features in all its software as MS continually tries to wrong foot its biggest competitor - itself!

Elon invented it first

x.com registered in 1999; wechat available from 2011; MS still playing catch up.

Clearly Musk should be given all the credit[1] for any and all "super apps", we need to make sure he is given his due. Maybe we ought to encourage him to sue Tencent?

[1] oops, typo - for "credit" read "blame"; sorry 'bout that.

Hmm, let's look at the existing super-app example and see:

> food delivery to car and bike rentals to a Venmo-like digital wallet

Yup, all things that can currently be done with one app, the web browser. Anything else that could be included?

> calling and messaging app, which also includes censored news, online shopping, and games

Those also sound really familiar. More?

> drive users to products including Bing and Teams

Aha, now we see the flaw in your suggestion, Mr AC. No mere web browser can manage that! This "driving" is *clearly* the USP that end-users are clamouring for. Microsoft have pulled another world-beating idea out of the bag!

San Francisco terminates explosive killer cop bots

Re: Article 5

Jape of the decade!

First Law

It was superceded by the Zeroth Law, as codified by Daneel Olivaw.

Hang on, what? Our air defence is now based upon arming zombies with shotguns?

Cisco unifies GUIs across security range

Re: Irony Alert!!!

But there have been many sentences with "Cisco" and "security" in them (ditto "privacy").

What is noteworthy is that these new sentences are *missing* words, such as "complete lack of" or "appalling approach to".

01:05 UTC

NASA's COLDArm robot limb can handle seriously cool science

Bring back ROTM

Great work, really hope this goes well.

But come on:

> McCormick referenced the film Terminator 2 where the machine is temprarily stopped when frozen in liquid nitrogen. "The bad guy can't work in those temperatures, but COLDArm could," he said.

So now we're telling them where to get better parts from? Is this wise?

Barge off: Nautilus to bring floating datacenters to two new sites in US, France

You remember when we said the DC was "down", well

Thus vividly demonstrating the meaning of a "sunk cost".

As we used to say, "Don't forget the diver".

Hopefully, the backups are working "I go - I come back".

Neuralink reportedly under investigation by Uncle Sam for 'animal welfare violations'

Re: In memoriam, Michael Crichton

> It's not even capitalism, Vladimir Demikhov famously left hordes of dogs disabled and dead because he wanted to generate impressive results for his communist masters.

Vladimir wanted to please his masters (and in that situation, doesn't matter if the masters are Communist, Capitalist or anything in between).

Neuralink wanted to please Musk and rush to market - "rush to market", pretty damn Capitalist motivation!

And doing it badly - because Capitalism also needs "good optics" and screwing over animals doesn't provide that.

Re: Modern Version of Pitchforks and Torches

> Its not as if Musk it personally...

From the article:

>> "In general, we are simply not moving fast enough. It is driving me nuts!" he said in a follow-up email.

Musk is the one encouraging them to do a rush job - and it is him who is making ludicrous public statements about his goals for the project.

In memoriam, Michael Crichton

Company wants to plant chips in our heads, then we find out that the work was rushed, the test animals died.

When does the report come out that the sole human test subject was given a nuclear battery to power his implant?

Killing test animals by rushing the procedures to get results faster? That isn't doing science, it isn't doing engineering, it is just doing capitalism - badly. Or deliberately creating the plot for the movie and novelisation.

Get ready for $10,000 apps in Apple's software souk

Re: 30%

> profiteering

Well, yes, isn't the entire point of the App Store? USA, USA, Big Capitalism etc etc.

Re: This content was not generated by a robot

I don't want to be seen as whinnying too much, but there is horseplay in that post:

> neigh Jobs-esque

Nigh (on) Jobsian

> (neigh: already bloody here too soon)

Nay, already bloody here to soon

I'll rein myself in and trot along to the next story now, don't want to make you lot canterankerous (sorry, oatso sorry for that one).

You get the internet you deserve

Re: Oh it's sarcasm you want

Many thanks.

I paused before re-reading that (what if I'd misremembered it and they were raising money for orphan kittens?) - but no, I'd forgotten that they were begging for places to sleep as well!

"When did you realise the war was lost, Daddy?"

The day I was convinced that IoS had truly arrived was when I read an article on The Register about someone who was looking for sponsors to fund him riding a Segway coast to coast across the US: he promised to make money for the sponsors by "generating content every day".

This was when it was brought home that even the people planning to write for the web considered that the fruits of their labour was nothing more than pablum. No desire to actually have his (for it was a he) own voice or even seem genuinely excited by the prospect of The Great Stand And Slightly Lean Forwards Across America; nope, just whatever guff the web wanted that day.

This being The Olden Days, El Reg was being gleefully sarcastic as well.

Re: To be honest

> Version 2 is always better ….

What? NO!

Have you never heard of the "Second System Effect"?

We were only mourning the passing of Fred Brooks a week ago and already his words are being forgotten!

Re: Wikipedia

Are you by chance referring to the comments about 5G, where you were making claims about the high frequencies causing problems with protein folding but:

1) dissed the whole 5G system on the basis of frequencies that are not (AFAIK - corrections accepted) not actually in use

and

2) the only citation you gave on this subject was to one paper about a simulation (so, not verified in an organism) which is behind a paywall - and then muttered darkly about people only bothering the abstract (which is all that I've done)?

Hate to say it, but with that amount of effort put into trying to convince people of you bona fides and the accuracy of your claims, at the moment you do rather sound like one of the Wikipedia editors being complained about here!

As for not wanting to doxx yourself - you do know that if you posted a link to your paper here no-one would actually know which author was you unless you told us? Unless you are thinking that ravening hoards of commentards will descend upon all of the authors of any paper you do cite, on which case I have to ask: what did poor old Singh, Burada and Roy do to deserve being so exposed by you?

Woman fakes pregnancy to smuggle hundreds of CPUs, iPhones into China

Re: Fish!

And slap the iPhones inside a parmo[1] - no wimpy x-ray is getting through a proper 'boro parmo

[1] that is a classic chicken parmesan with a NE England twist[2]

[2] in your stomach, best to keep the Rennies to hand, you Southern person[3]

[3] sorry, but I can't do the accent [4]

[4] actually, I can, but I won't

SpaceX chases government cash with Starshield satellites

Satellites with frickin' lasers strapped to their heads

Which all just accidentally pointed in the same direction one day ("Well, I did tell them there would be repercussions for stopping their ads on Twitter").

KmsdBot botnet is down after operator sends typo in command

Re: Phobos 1

> computer malfunction caused the end-of-mission order to be transmitted to the spacecraft

The malfunction was fully described by Comrade Chief Programmer Hank T. Picklehammerovitch The Third, shortly before his disappearance during a tour of the local borscht factory. "His departure was a mysterious as his arrival" a colleague was reported to say.

How do you solve the problem that is Twitter?

How do you solve the problem that is Twitter?

Many a thing you know you’d like to tell him

Many a thing he ought to understand

But how do you make him stay

And listen to all you say

Can we just ship Elon over to Austria and make him sing whilst walking across the Alps into Switzerland?

At the very least, can't make things any worse - except for the jokes, of course. "The Sound of Musk", does that work? "When the car sparks, when the bore stops, when I'm tweeting bad, I simply remember my Falcon in space, then I don't seem so mad".

Musk is arguably a software guy rather than a hardware guy

You have to remember that he "knows more about manufacturing than anyone else alive"

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

so either Musk doesn't agree with you or he is in the middle of re-coding Twitter from the ground up, to be released next Monday[1].

[1] timescales may be changed without prior notice

Re: "How bad will its fall be?"

That would get it all over and relieve the slow-train-wreck-watchers on this side of The Pond from bad sleep patterns, trying to keep up:

The tweets mostly come out at night. Mostly.

Durham Uni and Dell co-design systems to help model the universe

Great bunch of lads

Before you-know-what Durham ran a great series of public Saturday morning science lectures.

Chatting to the guys who created and ran these cosmos models after their lecture (we got tea and biscuits, very civilised), I asked whether they collaborated with the Computer Science guys to help optimise the code and run a few more simulated millennia per week. Their answer: nah, the hardware just gets upgraded! Then articles like this one get written - everyone wins!

Then again, they did also demo a booth built for science fairs, school tours and so forth. You have a set of knobs and levers to set basic constants (amount of dark matter, strength of the nuclear forces, little things like that) and it shows you an animated simulation of how the cosmos would develop under those conditions - would galaxies form or would all the matter just sit around as cosmic smog? And that was running on nothing more than a Raspberry Pi [1](couldn't even have been a mk 3 Pi!)! If they can do *that*...

[1] okay, *maybe* the Pi was just selecting a pre-rendered video based upon the inputs selected, but what kind of misery guts wants to look behind the curtain like that?

Programming error created billion-dollar mistake that made the coder ... a hero?

Re: Worst code I ever saw...

How can you possibly make Not-Good-Code self-commenting?

Anyone (un)lucky enough to read my code will soon come across a comment that begins /*Wibble: ... */ which then goes on to indicate how this "could be done better" if there ever was the need (or you just have too much time on your hands).

For example "this does a linear scan through an array of strings 'cos it is one function call to do so and only gets called once per week; if this ever shows up over 1% of execution time in a profile run then the best thing is to use this search tree module that is already being linked into the app from over there."

I.e. I know it isn't perfect, today it doesn't need to be, it just needs to work - and, yes, I did consider the alternatives.

(The sub-optimal code is also self-commenting to the how and commented to the why as well, of course. Cough.)

Re: it was impossible for anyone to track down the idiot responsible

> If you are sure it is not necessary, no need to find them just to blame them for having it

Not finding them to blame them, but more than once, having spotted something that doesn't belong, it was worth discussing it because we found that a misunderstanding had led to multiple occurrences, which the perp (!) was able to quickly correct (he knew where the bodies were) and the commits went under their name, showing that they'd taken responsibility.

Re: Explosive demonstration

> I could reached the power switch and just flipped it off...

Something is just not quite right about that sentence.

Do we read it as "I could (and did) reach the power switch" OR "I could have reached the power switch (but was having too much fun laughing)".

Given the general attitudes of El Reg commentards, do we think John 110 was more likely to have been a gentlemanly hero or...?

Re: Worst code I ever saw...

And the whispering breeze replies

</parry></swing></swing></swing></leap></indented_block></parry></block></swing>

Square Kilometre Array Observatory construction commences

Re: Indigenous land

Yeah, but all the litter they left behind, we're still digging it up now!

Re: What’s that Skip?

The aliens have fallen into the water hole?

Crikey, how'd that happen, it's only 18 to 21 cm in length!

Re: Indigenous land

You forgot the Romans.

Coming over here, imposing peace!

A brand new Linux DRM display driver – for a 1992 computer

Re: "800 MIPS Amiga"

> Calling Australia circa 1993, from Swindon circa 2010

If you still want to make that call, by 2023 Swindon should have just caught up with 1993, so only a few weeks left to wait. Can't do much about the long-distance, but if you like I'm sure we can find enough volunteers to carry the town over to Oz for you.

Re: College Love

Old Moore's Law

Mine's the one with the almanac in the pocket.

Re: Falcon, ST, AmigaOS et al

Indeed, you can do pre-emptive multi-tasking on pretty much any processor with a timer interrupt (so long as you have the RAM for the stacks and process control list - and there aren't any weird bits of state you can't read and/or write in the switcher). Fun factor goes up if you want IPC and can't find any atomic instructions...

Having an MMU makes it robust(er).

Stack Overflow bans ChatGPT as 'substantially harmful' for coding issues

Re: It's like outrunning a bear

And the bear is limping.

US ends case against Huawei CFO who holed up in Canada for three years

Re: The view from Canada was a bit different.

Thanks, that has helped make sense of this.