Re: The compensation culture at work!
How many motorists have hit it since:
a) Highway act of 1980?
b) In cars since 1896?
c) In horse drawn carriages since existence of road/village?
Posts by Mage
9270 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Nov 2007
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Furious English villagers force council climbdown over Satan's stone booty
Ofcom puts aside a little bit of spectrum for Internet of Things things
Thursday 31st March 2016 10:01 GMT 
Spectrum Theft?
Where is the consultation with ITU?
With existing spectrum users?
With neighbouring countries?
Ofcom intends to allocate 10MHz of VHF spectrum in the 55-68MHz, 70.5-71.5MHz and 80.5-81.5MHz bands.
Those bands (55 to 68 and 70.5 to 71.5Mhz at least) are already in use in UK.
The propagation at those frequencies is very variable, from 1 mile to 1000 miles depending on conditions. IoT should be limited to 400MHz and above. There are two "licence free" bands already in UHF and many licenced bands from 300MHz to 10.6GHz possible.
This is typical Ofcom stupidity and arrogance. Though I'm surprised it's not being sold to Mobile Operators for IoT, as Ofcom cares more for them than any other spectrum user / consumer.
NFC / Wireless Chargers and some security tags* etc use "Licence free" ISM bands below 300MHz as they are supposed to be really induction loop rather that real transmission.
[*Some tags use microwave bands, the security tags are energised by and FM loop transmitter at a doorway and the tag causes a peak or dip on the receiver]
Bash on Windows. Repeat, Microsoft demos Bash on Windows
Wednesday 30th March 2016 19:30 GMT 
Hardly entirely new ...
1999 I was running X applications and Unix Shells seemlessly on NT 4.0 Desktop
Windows Services for UNIX (Wikipedia)
MS Unix SFW 3.0 (Win2K era, I think it was 3.5 for XP?)
Really MS should scrap Windows 10 and either give people a MS Linux distro and properly port all their applications as Linux native, or give people what they want, an updated less buggy windows similar to best of NT3.5 / XP with a Win9x Explorer (without the bugs).
Speaking in Tech: Batman vs Superman... absolutely sucked
Apple's fruitless rootless security broken by code that fits in a tweet
Wednesday 30th March 2016 15:17 GMT
Those who do not understand Windows
That would be Microsoft, progressively breaking NT since NT4.0 stupidly put graphics and printer drivers in Kernel to get 10% more performance in a era when performance WAS doubling annually.
They then added al the worst features of Win98 and Win ME.
(Win2K & XP Era)
Then they fell off a cliff after Server 2003 and produced NT5.x series (Vista and then you have to pay for it "service pack fix" called Windows 7.). After the slight upward blip of Win7 they studied how office users hated Ribbon and put Zune GUI as Win 8.x
Then decided to out do Google & Facebook at creepymess to produce pointless Win 10 (for free to newer users), when what people really want is NT3.5 + Explorer and drivers for all new hardware (Basically a new improved XP). People DON'T want a 15" to 22" Windows Phone. Actually hardly anyone wants one. It's getting as popular as MS Watch, Zune/Plays for Sure and Kin.
Sick to death of mighty rocket launches? Avoid these dates
Wednesday 30th March 2016 13:58 GMT 
Hypothetically
Amazing! That's as much launches as we used to have in a year, not long ago. I think though Arianespace is still leader? Over 50% of operational satellites have been launched by them.
Say we had a reason* to put all world wide military expenditure into building something in space ... urgently.
How many launches a month could we manage?
I think we could have more than 20 launch sites operational fairly quickly.
(*Say an Alien Civilisation gives us plans for a Starship, or whatever scenario you fancy).
CNES, ESA and Arianspace might not get as much publicity as NASA, but do a lot. How many Europeans that know about NASA know that there is a European Space Port in South America (started by French in 1960s) with now a pad for the Russians (as their main Cosmodrome is now in Kazakhstan. I think the Russians are building a replacement in far South East Asian "Russia").
Whatever happened to ... Nest?
Tuesday 29th March 2016 17:19 GMT
Re: Homeplug
They don't even need mains from the same source, they are RF Spectrum polluting illegal radio transmitters that only achieve CE mark by misleading not-real-world testing.
The newer faster models still can't compete with 1Gbps on swtich with Cat5e for speed and interfere even with VHF.
Tuesday 29th March 2016 11:54 GMT 
Nest
It's badly designed HW. Ought to be isolated contacts for 5VDC to 240V AC.
It's badly designed SW. Not just the privacy and Security.
It's from WRONG company.
IoT is garbage hype. There has been better SW & HW to control your heating & do other stuff maybe 30 years ... even for ordinary homes. The issue is always unless good at DIY, retro-fitting is expensive labour.
Labour or lack of DIY skill is why useless, insecure "wireless" burglar alarms and cameras are sold instead of cheaper and secure wired ones.
X-ray scanners, CCTV cams, hefty machinery ... let's play: VNC Roulette!
Saturday 26th March 2016 10:10 GMT
Re: Thanks Chris.
MS RDP is the "Windows Thing", VNC is cross platform and often on Linux by default, you have to add it to Windows.
It's usually a connection to an existing running local desktop*, unlike running X over a network, nothing is "lost" if connection is dropped, you just reconnect. So unlike X the desktop resolution is what ever it is on your target machine, the client opens a window to it, so having higher "resolution" client than remote helps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing
Using a VPN to the VNC server is another idea.
[*No, I don't know how to set up a VNC server on a computer with no graphics card, though the target's keyboard, screen and mouse could be disconnected (or off), I suppose.]
Microsoft did Nazi that coming: Teen girl chatbot turns into Hitler-loving sex troll in hours
Thursday 24th March 2016 18:52 GMT 
Well it proves ...
That if you edit the ancient Eliza chat bot (which wasn't AI) to add to database automatically from other humans (and probably other Twitter bots), you'll end up with something even less useful.
How did they imagine that
(a) The SW is good enough (Siri, Cortana, Alexis and your local robotic script replacement of call centre support etc are garbage)
(b)That it wouldn't get worse. There is no real "learning" self awareness or sense of context to any such software. It's going to parrot back the nonsense that people give it without discrimination. Artificial Mynah bird or Parrot?
Microsoft introduces yet another Skype for Windows 10
Thursday 24th March 2016 16:08 GMT 
Single version?
No it's stupid.
The WHOLE idea of Windows 10 Universal is STUPID.
Java has been cross platform since forever, but you write different SORTS of app and GUI to suit TVs, Desktop / Laptop (keyboard /Mouse) and small touch screens (phone). Even though technically you could run practically the same Java app on Desktop, phone and TV. In practice you use the cross platform ability to run on different OS, not radically different form factors. Really UWP is a stupid, in a different angle, as 320 x 240 Windows CE having a Win9x desktop instead of Zune / Win Phone 7 style.
At best the Win10 Universal idea suits tablets 6" to 10" that might or might not have keyboard, but typically ends up only really suiting phones and small tablets.
MS have made a pig's breakfast of Skype updates ever since they bought it. The Adverts are an insult on a platform you have to buy (Windows), yet the Linux version Skype is Advert free. (though no idea if voice and video still work, I only use text,)
MS should look at QQ. Different version for mobile and Desktop (though sadly the Linux version is only in Chinese).
Really with Ribbon and Vista it was obvious MS had lost the plot. They added flat and tiles and phone centric to desktop, yet phones are a TINY percentage of their market. Are they determined to drive people to OS X, iOS, Android and Linux?
(Maybe the MS SQL on Linux is part of plan B if they manage to kill wildly successful for 25 years Windows and Office.)
Dodgy software will bork America's F-35 fighters until at least 2019
Thursday 24th March 2016 11:48 GMT
Re: May I be the first to say...
"...which are copies of RCA Nuvistors. I used to have some of these. EMP resistant before anybody needed it."
No they were not. The Nuvistor was much later and completely different construction. The Russians developed "Rod Pentodes", which are not even remotely similar to the USA "Pencil tubes" used in missiles and hearing aids.
http://www.radicalvalves.com/russian/
http://www.radicalvalves.com/russian/russian-rod-pentodes-1/
The Rod Pentodes used in Sputnik and MiG fighters as well as other early space stuff.
Superior to Germanium transistors. Much lower power and easier to make than the later RCA Nuvistors which were a last gasp dead end for USA tube industry (In Domestic products, only used in USA VHF & UHF tuner heads. Some Professional condenser microphones and hardly at all in Military).
also
www.radiomuseum.org/forum/russian_subminiature_tubes.html
Bristol boffins blast 1.59 Gbps down ONE 20 MHz channel
Thursday 24th March 2016 10:55 GMT
Interstellar Radio
Just needs a very big dish. The efficiency of dish goes up with cube of frequency, hence long distance UHF uses maybe an array 4, 8 or 16 yagi aerials, but microwaves use a dish (MMDS, Satellite TV etc).
Additionally the reasonable range for radio due to power constraints is maybe less than 100 LY. OTH using spectroscopic analysis we could be detected maybe 10,000 LY away due to unnatural signature of gasses in atmosphere.
Latency also becomes an issue for Interstellar radio, with a RTT of maybe 150 years if we are lucky to have a sentient neighbour with radio (if even 100,000 planets with life in Milky Way, then chance is less than 1/4,000 roughly that a neighbour has life and tinier that they have civilisation, tinier still that they they are advanced enough to have radio, tinier still they point a dish at us. Terrestrial broadcasts are not likely to be receivable more than 10 LY distance.
Thursday 24th March 2016 10:45 GMT
“5G breakthrough”
No, 5G is about integrating infrastructures.
This is a just a development of MIMO. Likely not much relevant to the real world, where on average MIMO adds a LOT of cost (all those aerials, LNAs, PAs, cables, couplers, band & dublex filters etc) for very little or no extra revenue.
Wait! Where did you get that USB? Super-stealthy trojan only drives stick
Wednesday 23rd March 2016 21:57 GMT
Re: suppose you could have ...
suppose you could have some kind of special USB hub that only lets certain classes of device connect.
Except due to design of USB, currently that would need very powerful secure CPU to analyse and pass the USB messages.
I don't believe the retail market has such a device.
Wednesday 23rd March 2016 17:49 GMT
format before any use...
There is a big flaw in USB design.
It's called USB HID mode.
HOW do you insert and wipe a USB stick without it running evil HID mode software?
A USB charger, mouse, BT dongle, proprietary Wireless keyboard dongle, 3G Modem, keyboard, ANYTHING with USB can penitentially attack your gadget or PC. Not just a memory stick.
Microsoft files patent for 'PhonePad', hints at future Windows plans
How one developer just broke Node, Babel and thousands of projects in 11 lines of JavaScript
Wednesday 23rd March 2016 08:52 GMT
Bloody stupid!
"Left-pad was fetched 2,486,696 downloads in just the last month"
There are LOADS of reasons why the current dependence on 3rd party sites & domains of websites is stupid, not just this example.
Privacy
Security (not serving malware if someone hijacks a domain)
What's wrong with actually storing everything your webpage /site needs on your own server? If a site with a lot of transactions you can even cache whatever it is in RAM, or even on another server.
This is an example of what's wrong with programming and website development. As for people using google's content to make their site go ... Well just stupid and a poke in the eye privacy wise of their users.
Error checks? Eh? What could go wrong, really? (DoSing a US govt site)
Comms 'redlining' in Brussels as explosions kill up to 30 people
Tuesday 22nd March 2016 16:39 GMT
increased levels of physical searches on or near transportation hubs
Then they would blow up supermarkets (or shopping malls like in Africa).
It's "Security theatre". There are no easy answers, except the long term analysis of "why do they exist in the first place" and dealing (slowly) with the sources of the problem.
There is no quick fix, nor "Security Forces" solution as has been proven.
Tuesday 22nd March 2016 16:35 GMT
Re: Security expectations
It's of the nature of terrorism that any increased state "protection" is actually a win for the terrorists as they want to create terror and subjugation. They are not fighting a military war.
It's totally impossible to stop terror attacks.
If the State gets very militaristic it even breeds recruits. US reaction to 911 has made the world worse, not safer and created terrorists.
Hands on with the BBC's Micro:Bit computer. You know, for kids
Champagne supernova in the sky: Shockwaves seen breaking star
Apple stuns world with Donald Trump iPhone
Something useful from Cupertino?! Apple sees the light – finally
Monday 21st March 2016 22:27 GMT
Meh
Sigh
I hope they don't think they can patent or copyright this?
It MAY work for OLED screens, but LED lit LCD are violet/blue LEDs with yellow phosphor to provide the "white" backlight and this idea is poor on them compared to colour CRT, decent OLED, or eInk illuminated with a filament operated bedside lamp.
Ditch LED and CFL lamps in bedrooms and use long life filament (Halogen not so good) (less blue than high efficiency types)
'Contractual barriers' behind geo-blocking could breach EU rules
Monday 21st March 2016 17:53 GMT
Divide and Conquer
I think region locking DVDs, Games, BD & Geo blocking digital content funds piracy.
The books issue is two fold.
1) A hundred years ago, USA simply ignored copyright on English Language books. The USA and UK publishers more or less "divvy" up the world.
2) A book publisher doesn't usually have audio rights, no more than they have film or TV rights. Nor for worldwide unless not in English (see 1). A publisher of Audio needs to acquire these separately from author.
There is a separate issue that often the Publisher acquires books rights for life of copyright. It ought to be no more than 25 years and then revert to author (copyright would STILL exist and be unchanged from POV of public).
Copyright life is also now too long. Death of Author + 25 years is generous. The current death + 75 is simply a licence for people like Disney or Record companies to make money, as they will have acquired rights with a minimal up front and small royalty on sales (or in case of cinema, maybe profits which are mysteriously non-existent).
Always negotiate a percentage of retail sale, never "profit", accountants are too clever.
What to call a £200m 15,000-tonne polar vessel – how about Boaty McBoatface?
Mystery Kindle update will block readers from books after Wednesday
Monday 21st March 2016 14:55 GMT
Old versions ...
The "new" versions of software in some cases are out well over a year.
see link
Monday 21st March 2016 13:33 GMT
Re: I applied the big update to my Mk2 Paperwhite a couple of weeks ago.
Why had you no backup?
Changing account on a Kobo or a Kindle, for instance, wipes the content.
Amazon's "Cloud" mostly only has a backup of books bought from Amazon*. It's nothing to do with DRM!
[*If you are daft enough to send your OWN stuff via Amazon cloud instead of USB, then Amazon keeps a copy that's reloaded, of random DRM free content. I tested it.]
After a firmware update, you may need to reload any backup, this is common on many gadgets.
Monday 21st March 2016 13:05 GMT
Re: OTA vs USB
They are not too likely to have WiFi & Broadband and no PC of any kind?
If you have no PC at all*, then a 3G Kindle is worth while. Curiously I know of one person that managed to get PC World to connect his Kindle.
[ANY OS supporting USB storage and Web Downloads will work to put content on/off a Kindle, unlike Apple's iThings, possibly even some tablets]
Monday 21st March 2016 08:07 GMT
Re: 62 PAGEs of books
There are "Collections" on Kindle and Kobo.
Sadly not hierarchical. But a book can be in more than one (say Westerns and Romance).
It took me a while to figure out how to have a book in a collection on Calibre (best way to organise) automatically be in that on Kindle/Kobo. You need to make an extra column and change settings on Calibre.
Monday 21st March 2016 08:03 GMT
Re: Non-cloudy thinking
Kobo uses also DRM based ePub (evil Adobe)
Kindle also uses DRM free prc, mobi
Amazon AZW doesn't always have DRM, it's a publisher choice.
Smashwords sells DRM free for Kobo and Kindle.
I have a Kobo and Kindle, the Kobo is over priced, but I wanted the 6.8" with hi def for PDF manuals, marginally better than large 9.7" DXG for PDF. For books the paperwhite is best value at 1/2 the price.
Calibre (with a file import filter plugin) is your friend to buy DRM from Amazon or Kobo and read on you Kobo or Kindle and backup.
Never rely on a Cloud except for temporary collaboration.
Monday 21st March 2016 07:57 GMT 
OTA vs USB
USB based updating is safer and more reliable. It's not difficult.
Download update
Copy via USB
Disconnect and run menu option to update.
I almost never use OTA anyway, but download books I buy, import to Calibre, connect Reader to Calibre.
I back up my Calibre Library. This way my reading habits on Kobo or Kindle can't leak and I don't depend on anyone's Cloud. I do buy some books from Amazon, but most of my paper ones are from charity shops and eBooks from gutenberg.org and archive.org I buy as much books as I can afford.
The only update my Kindle DXG has had was in 2013 when it was bought, I doubt it's getting an update. The free 3G might be useful if I travelled (only Wikipedia & Amazon, all else is 60M limit a month), but I don't.
Microsoft will rest its jackboot on Windows 7, 8.1's throat on new Intel CPUs in 2018 – not 2017
Saturday 19th March 2016 22:55 GMT
Re: "One solution is to boot a Linux USB stick ..."
Years ago I slip-streamed a CD with added SATA drivers for XP.
But still, MS attitude to Win 10 smacks of desaturation. They developed USB for NT4.0 and then decided not to release the SP. I tested the beta USB stack on NT4.0 and it worked with Win2K drivers (if you made the OS report as if it was Win2K, stupid Driver designers looking for an OS version instead of a capability, at the time MS dev advice was to look for the capability you needed, not specific OS strings. I guess few people listened or they not have to skip Win 9 ...)
A Logic Named Joe: The 1946 sci-fi short that nailed modern tech
Saturday 19th March 2016 18:17 GMT
Re: Leinster
Link to Gutenberg for Murray Leinster (unlike Archive.org they are usually proof read).
A good reason to get an eInk Kindle or Kobo (you only need to connect once to register, then use USB only. Calibre + plug ins is friend to allow DRM ePub on Kindle, or DRM mobi/AZW on Kobo)
Saturday 19th March 2016 13:35 GMT
Re: *Remarkably* sharp prediction?
Misses the point. It's not about how amazing it is.
There are good and bad predictions. This one is about how people might use <random technology>
Rocket motors to power only ICBMs or space exploration?
See also "Shock Wave Rider". Far better than Toffler's book that inspired it.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
