* Posts by Flocke Kroes

4532 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Oct 2007

How can you kill that which will not die? Windows XP is back (sorta... OK, not really)

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Re: bob

Have you tried the EFF's panopticlick? Caring about privacy puts you in a minority and doing so effectively can make your browser close enough to unique that you can be tracked.

statcounter does not say which websites they monitor. If the did, a small number of penguins would do some ballot box stuffing. I assume the tracked websites show a blank page or a "we require javascript" page to anyone who does not click on at least a dozen adverts per day.

statcounter shows a clear prejudice against robots. Robots must make up a significant proportion of the internet by now. Can anyone who has failed a Turing test tell me ... are there adverts targeted to robots yet?

Google tracks what you spend offline to prove its online ads work. And privacy folks are furious

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Passible advantage of Google's tracking

What if Google's data proves that adverts to not increase sales?

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Re: Google "security"

Judging by how many people recycle passwords Google must already have access to millions of bank accounts.

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Re: Gait recognition?

Walk this way ...

I thought they used free wifi to track how your phone moves through the shop.

Look out Silicon Valley, here comes Brit bruiser Amber Rudd to lay down the (cyber) law

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Re: Taxing terrorists

That would make terrorism into a revenue stream that needs to be protected.

Linus Torvalds pens vintage 'f*cking' rant at kernel dev's 'utter BS'

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Re: Counter argument

Where is respectfulkernel.org or politelinux.net? Show me a kernel fork making constructive progress without rants and the counter argument is made.

Clear August 21 in your diary: It's a total solar eclipse for the smart

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In the UK at 7.35pm BST on August 21 ...

... people will be able to see clouds as usual.

BBC’s Micro:bit turns out to be an excellent drone hijacking tool

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You do not get a whole python2

The usual (arm) python2.7 executable weighs in at 3.1M, plus another 800K of C libraries. I have another 60M python libraries, but that could easily get trimmed. The source code for your python script is not stored in the micro:bit at all. Some compiled and optimised binary gets stored in flash along with a drastically trimmed python run-time and some device driver libraries. The run-time and device drivers will eat into the 16K of ram but as you do not store any source code in ram, you have a chunky library and hefty CPU, you are still way better off than you were with a ZX81 and a wobbly ram pack.

Flash... Nu-uh! Tech folk champing at the bit to switch off life support

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Aren't all the flash based psychological studies invalid anyway?

They exclude everyone with a clue about security from the sample.

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Met office / javascript

The Met Office Mobile site works fine without javascript.

NASA lights humongous rocket that goes nowhere ... until 2019

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8 million pounds thrust

That is anything from 16 to 24 large blue whales, depending on how well fed they are.

I am more interested in what you could do with the expected cost of a launch: $1B. How about starting and cancelling two paperless NHS projects?

Want to visit your loved one in jail? How about Skype instead?

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They should need a different excuse

The excuse was that drugs were almost transferred because both visitors and prisoners can enter the visitor room (at different times).

Solution A) A video conference room cleaned by prisoners when not in use.

Solution B) Hire a cleaner for the old visitor room.

The world would be a slightly better place if extortionists were required to come up with and excuse that actually made sense.

Quad goals: Western Digital clambers aboard the 4bits/cell wagon

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Re: We've come a long way since Intel's first 1024bit RAM in 1970

The only thing I can think of that comes close is the amount of ignorance on the internet.

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Re: Cheaper, multilayer, SLC would be nicer for me

I have looked, and I wasn't shocked. The percentage of my flash drives written per month is utterly pathetic compared to what they are capable of in a day. My oldest two have been in use for nearly a decade and are still not giving SMART warnings. Recording video continuously gets close to the limit of a small SSD, and parts of a data centre can require the specs of a big SSD.

The point I was trying to make is that switching QLC does not make me nervous at all. A drop in the specs would catch my attention. I hope it would hit the news hard, just like I hope that shingled spinning drives sold without warning of the performance hit would also be major news.

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Re: Cheaper, multilayer, SLC would be nicer for me

If it is guaranteed (and achieves) several complete drive writes per day and retention for several years then I do not care.

I thought the 4th bit per cell would not be worth the required over provisioning. Anyone want to bet on 32-level cell? Perhaps we will go in steps: 21, 23 and 26 levels are 4⅓, 4½ and 4⅔ bits per cell.

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Right in the title

Unfortunately everyone else would think "Two Level Cell" is spelled "TLC".

House fire, walk with me: Kodipocalypse now includes conflagration

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Re: Will these boxes also....

You forgot: Funds terrorism.

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Re: youtube-dl

I think Google do not hunt down youtube-dl users and bury them in lawyers because people with the brains to use youtube-dl also have the brains to create links to interesting videos. The links bring in more advert watchers than there are youtube-dl users.

Microsoft tried to become the monopoly distributor of video. They selected patent encumbered codecs and promised unbreakable DRM to content creators. Kodi bashing indicates Microsoft believe their video plan is not yet as dead as Windows Phone. It also indicates who they believe their biggest rival is.

Alexa, why aren't you working? No – I didn't say twerking. I, oh God...

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@format C:

Wrong OS. I would go for SQL injection but you can find some other good ideas here.

US vending machine firm plans employee chip implant scheme

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Someone doesn't understand his own tech

"I'll hold my hand up, just like my cell phone, and it'll pay for my product"

He'll hold his hand up, just like his cell phone, and money will disappear from his bank account. Come back when there is a chip that really does pay for anything I want.

Microsoft hits new low: Threatens to axe classic Paint from Windows 10

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Re: Now just notepad, and we can write off builtin apps completely.

Did that when they removed minesweeper.

Q. What's today's top language? A. Python... no, wait, Java... no, C

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@Clive Galway

Could be worse. Imaging what could go wrong if a language allowed:

⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵if (is_elephant(animal))

⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵if (is_white(animal))

⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵white_elephant(animal);

⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵else

⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵⎵not_elephant(animal);

Flocke Kroes Silver badge

Re: OT. Way to get a C dev to fall in love with another language.

return_type (*array_name[])(parameter0_type, parameter1_type, ...) = {function0, function1};

Works fine. Eve's C compiler was limited to 8 letter variable names because of the limited storage capacity of flint chips. Ancient Greek clockwork compilers allowed arbitrary length identifiers, but only the first 63 bytes were significant.

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Re: I suspect there are quite a few Java devs out there

$ python3 -c 'print(5+1 == 6 or 51)'

True

$ echo | awk '{print "5"+"1"}'

6

Ten new tech terms I learnt this summer: Do you know them all?

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Re: Could be worse

Imagine how daft marketers would sound if they promised "up to 20 millibits per second!"

US Homeland Sec boss has snazzy new laptop bomb scanning tech – but admits he doesn't know what it's called

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Re: Built in Timer

Penguins can test for a usable wakeup timer with:

[ -a /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm ] && echo got one || echo not there

If one is there, cancel the detonation with:

echo 0 > /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm

If you can get clear in 4 minutes, type:

date '+%s' -d '+ 4 minutes' > /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm

You can then shut down you laptop and flee.

UK households hit by 1.8m computer misuse offences in a year

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Re: Eh?

No point even trying to report intrusion any more. Teresa May legalised it, criminalised reporting it and required contractors to do it for free when ordered by the state.

Why can't you install Windows 10 Creators Update on your old Atom netbook? Because Intel stopped loving you

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Re: CPU drivers?

Apparently the problem is GPU drivers. Intel put a PowerVR GPU in some of the cloverview chips.

As always, do the research first, then stick to a "No source code, no sale" policy or the vendor controls when you "upgrade".

.. ..-. / -.-- --- ..- / -.-. .- -. / .-. . .- -.. / - .... .. ... then a US Navy fondleslab just put you out of a job

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Re: Nothing wrong with sliderules

Before I was a PFY, I used sliderules and log tables. I could never get them to store equations and repeat a calculation with different inputs.

SQL Server 2017's first rc lands and – yes! – it runs on Linux

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cut the crap, Linux is UNIX?

I think you will find despite throwing millions of dollars at lawyers, The SCO Group could not prove that Linux was Unix. You are very welcome to try, but bear in mind that TSG went bankrupt because they dedicated their entire business to this false premise and had nothing left when the rest of the world caught on that they were lying.

Linux aims for Posix compliance. The compliance is sufficiently good that a great deal of software is source code compatible with other Posix compliant operating systems (with minimal porting effort).

I am sorry that you find Linux difficult to work with. Various educational resources understood by young children can be found here. If that is still too difficult for you, McDonalds are hiring.

Another Brexit cliff edge: UK.gov warned over data flows to EU

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Re: "cancellation of fishing rights for other countries in British waters"

Works both ways.

Take a look at the EU fishing areas (PDF). Except for the Bristol Channel, every area that includes UK territorial waters includes territorial waters of at least one other state.

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Re: @TonyJ

Probably because the majority of vocal remainers were adamant that another referendum should be taken (presumably over and over ad infitium) until they got the result they wanted. Despite democracy not working like that"

The neverendum petition was created by a Brexit supporter. It is clearly one of the few things that Brexit/Bremains agree on.

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Re: Newsflash

Why all the down votes? Projecting an unreasonably high standard of mental capabilities onto others does not lead to a majority of satisfied customers.

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Re: @ codejunky

"But right now it is up to the EU how they want to interact with us outside the EU."

So, let the rest of the EU write the withdrawl and future relationship agreement? The UK does not need to send any negotiators? The UK just has to sign whatever they come up with?

Glad to see you have more faith in the EU than the UK government.

US border cops search cloud accounts? Ha ha, nope, negative, no way, siree – Homeland Sec

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Re: Sighs

Get your burner phone after going through customs and immigration, otherwise the device you get back could have spyware installed.

NAO: Customs union IT system may not be ready before Brexit

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Re: codejunky

"knock off brexit party"

Which one? Before the referendum, the remain/leave split among MPs was about 60/40 - independent of party. The Brexits handed responsibility for large complex important negotiations to a bunch of ignorant two-faced half wits. Even if trade deal were so simple that a single code monkey could handle them there is no way that a parliament of MPs could a good job even if they wanted to.

It is quite simple. If the government ask you what you want them to do say "nothing". It is what they are best at.

Blue Cross? Blue crass: Health insurer thought it would be a great idea to mail plans on USB sticks

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You are taking a risk

"ls -l" won't tell you very much. VFAT does not have the concept of permissions, so "ls -l" will show everything as executable. A more interesting test is "lsusb -v | grep bInterfaceClass" before and after inserting the suspicious device. If you see only an extra "Mass Storage" then you have something that might be honest. If you see an extra "Human Interface Device" then the device can start typing commands when it decides you are not looking. If you think your test computer is air gapped, think again. A USB device could contain a Wifi or GSM adaptor.

Even a plain mass storage device is risky. If the file system is corrupt it can crash the kernel. A carefully crafted corrupt file system could allow an attacker to modify the kernel.

Even if you have exceptional reasons not to be paranoid, wiping and formatting a random USB flash device does not give you a safe place to store data. Flash devices from the top layer of the crate contain more storage than advertised to handle sectors that wear out with use. The ones underneath contain less flash than advertised to save money. The firmware will crash when you run out of unallocated sectors and all your data will disappear.

Adult toy retailer slapped down for 'RES-ERECTI*N' ad over Easter

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Re: Jesus Christ!

When your only tool is a nail gun, every task looks like a messiah.

AI vans are real – but they'll make us suck at driving, warn boffins

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Re: That's only too true

I found the most popular type of accident for a manual driver in an automatic car was expecting the car to not move when releasing the brake.

Virgin Trains dodges smack from ICO: CCTV pics of Corbyn were OK

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Re: Corbyn solution

IAVO - old enough to remember nationalised railways. There is only one way I can think of that nationalising the railways again creates empty seats: the service becomes so unreliable that passengers have to find a different means of transport. The day after nationalisation the transport unions will demand a pay rise because it will make Corbyn look bad if there is a strike. Track maintenance will be cancelled because the prices will go up for a similar reason. Damaged track will be "fixed" by adding "temporary" speed limits (just like it was last time we had a nationalised rail service). Journey times will increase and the capacity of the network will decrease.

To add more capacity, you can run longer trains (requires building longer stations). You can try double-decker trains (increases the loading time and makes the journeys slower). There can only be one train between a pair of adjacent signals, so adding more signals can increase capacity. You can develop automatically refolding parachutes to reduce the trains' stopping distance and increase the maximum speed through yellow and double yellow signals.

There are (costly) ways to increase capacity or you can create empty seats by increasing prices. If Corbyn had promised to increase train capacity by investing in track, signal and station improvements then I would have had a hint of sympathy for him. As it is, I hope that he has difficulting finding a seat during the next election.

Talk about a hit and run: AA finally comes clean on security breakdown

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Re: Always simpler than you think

13GB/120000 accounts > 100K each

What other information do they keep about each customer?

European MPs push for right to repair rules

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"... software should be easier to repair and update"

Does this mean Windows 10 GPL?

Bonkers call to boycott Raspberry Pi Foundation over 'gay agenda'

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Proof, where it doesn't matter

The Pibow has been around for five years, and is available from Adafruit. Somehow, hundreds of millions of children did not instantly become LGBT. Instead of attempting a boycott, both people with iridophobia could fund space exploration so they can find out what is really happening on Mars.

Skynet? More like Night-sky-net. AI hunts for Milky Way's turbo stars

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Re: Galaxy screen saver

My mom chose a galaxy collision screen saver for her rPi. It is part of the minimal bunch of screen savers you get if you do not install the extras. Is that the same software?

Concorde without the cacophony: NASA thinks it's cracked quiet supersonic flight

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Re: Let's just hope....

Concorde could dip the nose down so the pilot could see the ground during landing. Does anyone know why they didn't add a window near the pilot's feet?

(This project hit the news over a year ago. It probably started well before that so a chunk of development time has already happened.)

Northern Ireland bags £150m for broadband pipes in £1bn Tory bribe

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Re: option to stay in the EU?

What option? I did not see one in article 50. The options are:

1) Negotiate an exit treaty and a new trade treaty.

2) Beg every other EU state to extend the deadline (requires a unanimous vote).

3) Fart about for 2 years, do not agree a new trade treaty, suddenly discover eligibility for the WTO treaty depends on human rights May promised to revoke as soon as leaving the EU allows. The next fallback trade treaty is GATT. GATT allows bigger tariffs on imports into the UK, but also allow everyone else to tax UK exports. If a tariff war starts, locally manufactured goods increase in price to match taxed imports, but economies of scale die from lack of exports: higher prices without higher profits. The higher prices increase the cost of manufacture and the lack of foreign competition creates local monopoly prices.

May triggered article 50 so the Libdems could not put "remain" in their manifesto. The only options are whether the UK leaves a little bit or a lot. So far, May has spent lots of time and resources on the farting about option. I have confidence in her ability to vastly increase the amount of money spent on farting about until the deadline passes.

UK Parliament hack: Really, a brute-force attack? Really?

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@Andrew Commons

This is for remote logins. I found dropping all connection attempts from the source IP address for only ten minutes was sufficient for the attacker try somewhere else. The attacker stood no chance as I disable password authentication before making a machine accessible over the internet. (The number of attempts to brute force user names and passwords was an annoying waste of bandwidth.)

Good news! When May makes public key cryptography illegal I will have to go back to allowing password authentication. Come to think of it, the ban will include ssh and we will all have to go back to using telnet.

AES-256 keys sniffed in seconds using €200 of kit a few inches away

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Re: obviously...

Have you listened to our government recently? If May finds out, she will make software defined radios mandatory along with software to make them accessible by anyone over the internet.

Intel: Joule's burned, Edison switched off, and Galileo – Galileo is no more

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rPi was never the competitor

Intel's cut down chips had to compete against Intel's server chips. In Intel's place, would you have your Fab's working flat out making big server chips that you could sell with a huge margin, or cut the number of server chips so you can make some embedded system chips that might sell at near cost?

Elon Musk reveals Mars colony rocket capable of bringing pizza joints to the red planet

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Re: How about - slow boat to Mars

You need an enormous lump of fuel to get to out of Earth's atmosphere and pick up some of the speed needed for orbit. That is what the BFR booster is for. You need a large lump of fuel to get from the speed that the BFR provides to orbital velocity. A full tank in the colony ship should do it. Getting to Earth orbit is hard. Mars is much easier. The colony rocket has enough fuel capacity to get the surface of Mars back to Earth orbit. Most of that fuel is required to get to Mars orbit. Refuelling in at Mars orbit to get to Earth orbit would not require anything like a full tank.

Let's try plan B. Miss out the nuclear reactor and the chemical plants required to convert CO₂ and ice into O₂ and methane. Instead, pack some of the fuel required to get to Mars orbit. Throw out all the colonists and supplies and you might have space for the fuel required to get to orbit (the colony rocket looks about half fuel tanks and half cargo space by volume - if fuel is heavier than cargo then plan B cannot work).

The second wave of colonists will be absolutely furious because there will not be a source of fuel on Mars waiting for them so they will have to pack their own.