Posts by John D'oh!

Smartphone gyroscopes threaten air-gapped systems, researcher finds

I'm pretty sure I read about this very thing on the reg over 20 years ago. I thought it was well known and that is why the LEDs just blink on and off and aren't driven by the actual data signal.

My smartphone has wiped my microSD card again: Is it a conspiracy?

I had this happen to me just last week and every website I went to told me to take it out clean it reinsert it and it that doesn't work reformat it. Not one mentioned that reformatting it will wipe the contents FFS. I backed up all my photos before I copied them to the SD so nothing was lost, but I still have a nagging feeling there was something else of inportance on there, so it is currently sitting on the sidewaiitng for me to make an image and start trying to recover it.

Let there be ambient light sensing, without fear of data theft

I understand it was a proof of concept. Just not sure how it can be used to extract anything useful.

What nobody mentions is that although it is theoretically possible nobody is going to sit there while their phone screen flashes different colours as it iterates through a list of websites they may or may not have visited.

Google tells Apple to 'fix text messaging' in bid to promote RCS protocol

Re: Children, Please!

EE have the best network around my way but they are stupidly expensive. I did use Virgin Mobile who are a VMNO piggybacking on EEs network but they wanted to play the "put your (sim-only) contract cost up by RPI each year" game so now I'm on Smarty. The network is just about good enough and they don't play any silly games.

Report slams UK plan to become 'science superpower' by 2030

Better an empty one than one that requires effort to deliver on.

"Brexit means Brexit".

"Get Brexit done".

Apple's secret car team tosses keys to Lamborghini lead

Re: Exclusive Apple features

It will only be available in midnight black and space grey to begin with. They only add the other colour options once they have run out of genuine innovations.

I expect they will reduce the top speed as the battery wears out in order to stop it conking out in the fast lane of the motorway.

Also, where current cars, including automatics, have 2 pedals, iCars will only have one.

Cruise self-driving cars stopped and clogged up San Francisco for hours

Looks to me like they were getting ready for a race condition.

Remember the humanoid Tesla robot? It's ready for September reveal, says Musk

The key word is...

'relatively'

Microsoft to blockheads: NFTs and blockchains aren't welcome in Minecraft

Re: Good

Yes it's good to see somebody taking a stand against this bullshit rather than just looking to see how they can profit at every turn.

After 40 years in tech, I see every innovation contains its dark opposite

Weed-filled pasture??? ;-)

Russia fines Google $374 million for letting the truth about Ukraine be told

Having had a look back through sed gawk's previous posts he's clearly not a Russian troll, and I share his mistrust of the Western media and governments. I just wish he would apply that same scepticism to all sides of the argument.

Someone may be prepping an NPM crypto-mining spree

I always felt that the correct approach was to develop your own libraries, either personally or as part of a larger organisation. Just reusing code from some random guy on the Internet is just inviting disaster.

FFS wasn't there a library that just leftpads a number with 0s or something that hosed loads of people's apps when the author had a hissy fit recently? It seems to me that it would take no more effort to write that function than it would to search for it and include it in your build.

Bogus cryptocurrency apps steal millions in mere months

"legitimate cryptocurrency investments"

There's your problem right there.

If you can find and fix this subtle Chromium bug that breaks some extensions, there's $8k waiting for you

Cosmic Ray

I used to go to school with him. Of course, he wasn't so cosmic then just plain old Ray.

Intel's net positive water use only tells part of the story

Re: Obviously

"Massive pre-shift consumption of American beer ?"

I thought that was turning water into piss, or maybe piss into water? Not sure which.

Crypto lender Celsius in Chapter 11 deep freeze

I imagine they will be up and running again once the 'crypto winter' is over, just under another name, and with all outstanding debts wiped out. Classic tactic used by double glazing companies in the UK, and former US presidents I believe.

These centrifugal moon towers could be key to life off-planet

Did you know

Isaac Arthur's half-brother is Clarke Asimov.

Re: Dealing with two "down" directions might be tough

Dammit you beat me to it, although I wasn't going say "wine glass". You are obviously feeling a bit more inspired than I.

First-ever James Webb Space Telescope image revealed

Re: Larger still

I was about to say "Of course, there is intelligent life in the universe, it's us!" but then I had to stop myself when I realised...

Elon Musk had secret twins in 2021 with Neuralink exec

it's in the name...

Pheromones obviously!!

Elon Musk considering 'drastic action' as Twitter takeover in 'jeopardy'

Re: what that "drastic action" may be is unknown

"Space rocks have to be a fair bit bigger than a marble..."

What about a dobber?

Re: what that "drastic action" may be is unknown

"Would a near EoL battery pack make a reasonable warhead?"

A brand new fully charged one would have more stored energy.

Re: Where is the ROI?

It wouldn't have cost him that tho. Most of it was being funded by VCs I believe and the bit he ponied up was all imaginary magic money.

This is the military – you can't just delete your history like you're 15

My old company had a copy of Office 2000 Professional, but the activation key scribbled on the label on the front was obviously fake, particularly as it was the same one I had downloaded!

The USB/DVD couldn't be disabled because it was occasionally needed to download stuff, and the computers were never updated as they were offline, yet when he found the hidden folder he was then able to set the USB/DVD to download only. So, why wasn't that done in the first place?

Is computer vision the cure for school shootings? Likely not

Re: AI gives responders better intel

Don't you mean the wrong side of the corridor?

Well the second amendment was there to protect US citizens against the British Government, so in a sense you are both right.

Keeping a weapon at home for the purposes of being a member of your local defence militia and the out of ocntrol gun ownership culture that currently exists in the US are 2 completely different things, and I don't think anyone could argue legitimately that the latter is what was intended by the authors of the second amendment. It's still the wild west unfortunately.

Here's an idea tho, if you can't ban the weapons, why don't you ban the ammunition? I await your flames and downvotes!

Was there a massive increase? You need to cite your sources.

The stupid thing about the war on drugs is that the governments of the world created the whole problem with prohibition. If you legalise it and regulate it sensibly, everyone benefits (apart from the gang leaders of course).

Systemd supremo Lennart Poettering leaves Red Hat for Microsoft

Re: The Skunk

No I can't I'm too old!

What do you mean your exaflop is better than mine?

Re: What's the ElReg standard?

I think FP1 is the way forward. Followed by FP2, FP3, Q1, Q2, Q3, then the race (R1?) On Sunday.

Wash your mouth out with shape-shifting metal

Some knucklehead is gonna read this and then try to brush their teeth with a wire brush.

Re: Have they never heard of salted

How do you attach them to the handle?

Apple's latest security feature could literally save lives

All this stuff should come as standard if you ask me.

UK, South Korea strike data-sharing pact

I fail to understand how the free flow of personal data across borders protects personal data as they state? In fact how is this even beneficial to people the UK?

UK signs deal to share police biometric database with US border guards

Re: Do I care?

Don't worry, when they've criminalised everyone else, you'll be next.

I have no idea why the UK governmen think they have the right to pass my police records (if any) to a foreign country, regardless of who they are. I can see a legal challenge coming.

As another commentard has said, it's just another reason NOT to go there.

Google location tracking to forget you were ever at that medical clinic

Re: controls to delete all or part of those records, or switch it off

I once found a lost mobile phone because I had location tracking on. It was lost in a foreign country in a city of 25 mllion, so I initially thought it was gone for good, especially when I looked on Google maps and saw it was miles away from where we had been that day. When I checked later, it right outside the apartment we were staying in... Looking at the location history I worked out we had left it on the bus 12 hours earlier and it was still there going round and round the city. We went out and stopped every no 34 bus going past and asked if we could take a look and finally there it was!

In general tho, I don't have location tracking on, but it does have it's uses. On another note, do you use Google's keyboard or a third party's? Either way I would be much more concerned about the data that is potentially collecting that my location.

Everyone back to the office! Why? Because the decision has been made

Re: that jerk with the annoying voice and that other bastard who sniffs all day.

"If I had to guess, it will be something that comes out of either China or Africa."

Coronavirus and monkey pox... Coronapox?

Jacob Rees-Mogg

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_the_Softy

What more can I say?

You need to RTFM, but feel free to use your brain too

Never assume anything

At my previous company I was once called down to the test department because the poor guy had followed the documented procedure to the letter, but nothing was happening.

When I got there I could see that he had indeed typed the command in exactly as described in the documentation, so I pressed 'enter' and everything worked as expected.

I then went back to my office and added "and then press 'enter'." to the procedure in question.

Big Tech silent on data privacy in post-Roe America

Don't know if anyone posted this already, but as far as I am concerned, due to the intensely personal nature of pregnancy, this is an issue that only women should have the right to decide.

As an aside, I find it extremely strange that "pro-life" states seem to oppose any sort of meaningful gun control. Make your fucking minds up!

Samsung fined $14 million for misleading smartphone water resistance claims

Re: I propose a new law

You're gonna put millions of grifters/marketing people out of work. A few of them will become technical writers I suppose, but the majority of them are incorrigible.

A miserable work week spent toiling inside 'the metaverse'

Re: With this individual, how would one know the difference between "before" and "after"?

"I was hoping that someone would ask "what makes you think he's not a gibbering idiot already"?"

Sorry I was busy.

Re: Zuckerberg first

On the other hand maybe stop watching those videos

SpaceX reportedly fires staffers behind open letter criticising Elon Musk

Some of the crew are revolting

Just leave them on the side of your plate and eat the rest.

Re: Big tough snow flakes...

+1 for the FZ reference:-)

Will optics ever replace copper interconnects? We asked this silicon photonics startup

Re: For domestic customers?

That gives me an idea involving a certain Mr. Holmes...

“I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing Eamonn on the moon."

Thunderbird is coming to Android – in K-9 Mail form

Complete fail now

My dad also uses K9 on my recommendation. Recently he complained it wasn't sending emails; they would just sit in his outbox and there was no indication of what had gone wrong.

He asked me to take a look so I checked his settings which were 100% correct, enablrd the debug logs (which seem to mostly UI events).

No matter what I tried, it wouldn't send the emails. He has the latest version, thanks to Google Play updating it (even though it was installed from f-droid originally), so I downloaded 5.600 from GitHub and it now works perfectly.

I am starting to question the judgement of the guys at Mozilla tbh.