* Posts by John Robson

5173 publicly visible posts • joined 19 May 2008

iPhone XR caught fire after getting trapped in airline passenger's seat

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The fact that we hear about this suggests that it is fairly rare

Which is good.

God bless this mess: Study says UK's Christian beliefs had 'important' role in Brexit

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Re: I find myself saying...

"yes we have the same rules, but do they try to tax the uneaten meals of truckers from anywhere else?"

Yes - any third country is subject the same meat import regulations - but they already know that and so don't try to illegally smuggle goods across a border.

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Re: I find myself saying...

"Which is daft, and just shows that the new rules are designed solely to punish the UK, not to benefit people in the EU.

Erm, what new rules?

We have apparently "chosen" to move outside the EU, and therefore the rules we must follow are those we helped write for third countries, they aren't new - they are just what we "chose".

'There was no one driving that vehicle': Texas cops suspect Autopilot involved after two men killed in Tesla crash

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Re: Tesla boss Elon Musk has not explicitly responded to the incident

Or, crazy thinking I know, disable all driver aids and let the person with a license drive the damned car. If it goes off the road, we know who to blame.

We know anyway - it was the driver who had decided to leave their seat.

I rely on driver aids, disability is a bitch, but driver aids make it possible for me to achieve the required level of concentration for safe drive for enough time to cover useful distances.

Note - they *enable* concentration, not replace it.

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Re: "more of a super-cruise-control"

"it has absolutely no business calling itself autopilot or anything else that implies autonomous driving."

Your misunderstanding of what an autopilot does shouldn't affect the use of that term. It is also fairly well described when you activate it.

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Re: "more of a super-cruise-control"

"I'd suggest that if shouting at you didn't get you back where you belong it should pull over and park safely and refuse to restart until the system has been reset by the civil authorities after they've arrested you."

Great - my car can't do that, it can hold lane and maintain speed and distance to the vehicle in front.

How do you propose it pulls over and parks?

For autopilot that would seem to be a possibility, but it isn't always.

I might have lifted my backside off the seat to adjust position, I might have become incapacitated... there isn't really a "good" option for driver aids in that scenario - hazard lights and gently slow to a halt is probably a "least bad" option in many ways (because the driver needs medical attention or arresting).

But at the weekend I was driving home with hands on the wheel and it asked me twice to put my hands back on the wheel (they already were) - so there has to be some checking of the driver's actual status before doing anything other than "continue with the traffic".

If, as Elon has tweeted, AP wasn't even installed.... then what capability is there to pull over, park and phone the police?

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Re: "more of a super-cruise-control"

My car isn't anywhere near autonomous, but it will do lane keeping and adaptive cruise control...

So it will carry on driving quite happily on a motorway if I leave the driver's seat.

Should it cut out and slam the brakes on if I lift my backside off the seat (or unclip the seatbelt)?

I'd suggest it should loudly complain at me, but continue in the safest possible manner.

If they just put cruise control on and tried to drive from the passenger seat (reach over to the wheel) then at least they didn't kill anyone else.

On a dusty red planet almost 290 million km away... NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flies

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Re: Pretty sure Linux in space isn't new...

Both deep space and space are mentioned...

but the article (rather than quotes within) says:

"NASA’s Mars 2020 mission is the first one to use an open source OS like Linux in space."

Or at least it did when I first read it, and when I just checked.

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Pretty sure Linux in space isn't new...

Isn't there is a Pi on the ISS, and I'm pretty sure that's in space.

One could reasonably argue that on mars isn't in space as well...

</pedant>

Beer's all round - other beverages available on request.

Elon Musk's SpaceX bags $3bn NASA contract to, fingers crossed, land first woman on the Moon

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Re: To do list

But now they have some funds to help make that happen, and fast.

Might even be able to do a couple of test landings on the moon first, not like the pilots would be able to see the surface anyway...

UK government opens vaccine floodgates to over-45s, NHS website predictably falls over

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Well, I had the text - the booking service was absolutely fine... I mean, it only offered me choices of one day, and when I chose one slot it said it had already been taken, but the next one worked fine.

Will have to make a call next week to see if it can be shifted, I've made it as close as possible to the gap between my regular jabs, but I'd rather it was a couple of days later.

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I *can't* book it now.... I have to wait for the next text.

Daft as a brush the system seems to be.

I don't have a particular issue with not being able to book until invited, but the change to booking your second jab at the same time as the first, should have been rolled backwards as well, so those who had already had one jab would be able to book their second jab as soon as the general process was to book both together.

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The system is different for those of use who were booked in early - I got a text inviting me to book my first spot, which I did - scheduling it between two of my regular jabs - and I can’t book the second until I get a text for it.

My wife booked both appointments at the same time when invited as a carer just a handful of days later - which would have been much more sensible.

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Re: NHS England <> "The UK's National Health Service"

Thanks for the correction - it’s still non obvious to the casual observer.

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Re: NHS England <> "The UK's National Health Service"

Some of us do get it, although we are mostly unaware because there is no English devolved parliament, and the other nation's MPs still vote on devolved English issues.

John Robson Silver badge

No - my issue is that if the load is such that the system can't cope then I, and others who are clinically extremely vulnerable, won't be able to book to have our second shot in an appropriate timeframe.

My timeframe is limited by the fact that I won't even get invited to book until eleven weeks after the first injection, and I have medication that is taken every other week which is specifically counter indicated by the vaccine documentation, so I need to schedule it to fall basically directly between those regular injections (the rest of my medications don't have counter indications).

So it's not an "I won't be able to book for a convenient time", and more an "I might not be able book a second shot at all", and certainly not within the recommended timeframe (which is already way outside the tested regime).

Those living 300 miles away from me won't likely affect my local vaccination centres, but they will affect clinically vulnerable people in their local areas, and everyone affects the booking system.

John Robson Silver badge
Facepalm

Good thing that it's not going to be needed by those of us who are clinically vulnerable to book our second jabs (since you could only book one when we were invited to book, and we won't be able to book the second until a few days before it's due, and I have to get it on a specific day to fall between other medications which would have a significant impact on the chance of the vaccine doing anything useful anyway).

University of Hertfordshire pulls the plug on, well, everything after cyber attack

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Re: TurnItIn keeps copies of work

"so our students' work is not used for comparisons"

so our students work is flagged as "don't publically say this was where the plagiarism was detected".

There is a very strong chance that the work is stored anyway.

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The september that never ended still hasn't ended.

They have a *very* high turnover, but it should be a high turnover of the least privileged users.

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Re: Learning without a computer

Old fart - I heartily agree that pen and paper has a good place.

But to be honest the amount of stuff that is made easier, and more like the outside world, by being done on computer is quite large.

I had a Psion 5mx at uni, that was a really nice note taking device - I imagine I would be using a tablet and bluetooth keyboard now though - the ability to grab a stylus and write equations or draw quick sketches is nice.

A Remarkable might even be a good choice.

Pigeon fanciers in a flap over Brexit quarantine flock-up, seek exemption from EU laws

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Re: Brexit.

"Brexit voting 'expats' about being thrown out of EU countries for not meeting clear and simple residency requirements ?"

They're not "expats" they're immigrants, and should be called such.

OMG! New free speech social network won’t allow members to take the Lord’s name in vain

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Re: I wonder how well I could mention my holiday plans?

Fantastic musical, although that particular song does seem to be there purely to be offensive.

SpaceX's Starlink: Overhyped and underpowered to meet broadband needs of Rural America, say analysts

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Re: Limited resource

But where the plot, casting, acting and direction are good HD does enhance the enjoyment of the work put in by the set designers, lighting designers, props and makeup teams etc.

It also makes certain sports much easier to follow when the ball isn't a single pixel in size.

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Re: What's the problem?

My first reply started from

“ The company I work for is even more excited, as our business is wildfire smoke detection, usually from currently unmanned forest fire lookout towers. (Can't get people to go spend time in a tower without their precious internet, and no there is no cell phone coverage, cable, or DSL (or in many cases utility power) out there. Currently we build long-haul microwave networks to link and serve the towers, which is expensive to build and to maintain, and any fault in a chain of towers can result in "blinding" the system over large areas - each tower covers up to 400 square miles. It will take a little work to run Starlink from an offline solar system, but the cost isn't prohibitive in light of reliability and bandwidth availability. I am sure there are many, many other applications that have similar requirements. Home users streaming 4K Netflix isn't the only user base out there.”

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Re: What's the problem?

It might be reported in a lot of places - I've already declared that the actual power draw isn't relevant to the calculations, it's clearly too high to be always on for an application such as we were discussing.

> If used for remote monitoring, or emergency situations, 2 minutes for bootup just might matter.

> Emergency use isn't the primary function, was just an example.

Whilst the two minutes might matter, the likelihood of the fire being within two minutes of destroying the tower when it's watching hundreds of square kilometres of forest is... probably more remote than the tower.

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Re: What's the problem?

Forgive me if I don't consider reddit to be that much more reliable than wikipedia - to be honest it really doesn't matter when or how often it uses 100W, far too much to be permanently on anyway.

But your own source says that Starlink is quite happy to have power cut...

So you turn it off, and It uses no power.... Then you apply power and probably get the ability to transmit data within two minutes?

That's not too arduous for a system which is only ever reporting on emergencies over a wide area (and maybe a daily check-in)

Of course traditional sat technology could do the same job, since I am assuming that latency doesn't really matter, and the bandwidth required isn't likely to be extreme (a few photos of smoke and a direction indicator?)

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Re: What's the problem?

Intrigued as to why this has been downvoted twice - I'm not saying the monitoring kit only needs to be powered for a few minutes a day, but the comms link, particularly if it's relatively power hungry (I've not looked at whether the quoted 100W is typical, average, maximum or whatever).

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Re: It does look promising

For anyone with good FTTP, FTTC or 5G coverage, Starlink is very pricey at the moment.

Well... why is that a surprise?

The trick here is extremely low latency for traders, and access to literally anywhere with a view of the sky.

No building out 150 miles of fibre to connect to anything meaning it's "not economically viable" to support this village, or that town.

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Re: Limited resource

Not that long ago that the US postal service had the highest daily bandwidth provision of anyone...

Remember the days of netflix posting DVDs? Apparently two million USians are still using that service!

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Re: What's the problem?

You're assuming that it needs to be continually powered, rather than powered when there is something to report... It might only need to be be powered for a few minutes each day usually.

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Re: What's the problem?

whoosh

Average convicted British computer criminal is young, male, not highly skilled, researcher finds

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It's like adding armour to planes based on the bullet holes of the survivors...

It's clearly places *other* than where you see bullet holes that the planes are vulnerable.

NHS COVID-19 app update blocked by Apple, Google over location privacy fears

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Re: Vaccination, vaccination, and, once more, vaccination!

We might be OK in June, mostly due to the weather, but September.... Who am I kidding, the response will be needed in September, it won't happen until November at the earliest.

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Re: Obviously...

Yes because the EU are one of the few organisations powerful enough to take on big tech, who came up with the whole "Governments shouldn't be using this to spy on their population" rule.

Of course the bigger problem is that the EU agree with that sentiment.

</sarcasm>

Ministry of Defence tells contractors not to answer certain UK census questions over security fears

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Re: Bootnote

Only if you asked just the one question.

Would you be able to confirm any of the following security clearances:

AWA - BRT - FSS - TSP - ERT.... have a reasonable list of acronyms and only one be valid.

Anyone knowing of higher levels which you might have accidentally included would of course be aware of the lower level as well.

'Chinese wall'? Who uses 'Chinese wall'? Well, IBM did, and it actually means 'firewall'

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No - the pins (on the male end) of an XLR clearly go into the female end, but the physical socket is defined by a ring on the male, and a solid plug on the female....

John Robson Silver badge

For a mains socket I agree, but there are plenty of other connectors where the physical socket can contain either male or female electrical contacts.

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Re: "I have no problem with evolution of the language to make it less prejudiced"

Language can be, and often is, prejudiced.

The language we speak at least partly defines how we view things, even down to things you wouldn't have thought would be affected, like colour vision.

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Except that you can have a cable with a male connector and one end and a female connector at the other that both go into what I would describe as sockets, recessed and chassis mounted ports for a cable.

UK's National Cyber Security Centre recommends password generation idea suggested by El Reg commenter

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Re: Random words

Yes, they use dictionaries... do you know what you are protecting against when protecting against dictionary attacks?

The entropy available in three (or prefereably four) words is actually pretty impressive, assuming of course that you can generate reasonable random words from a large enough dataset.

The dictionary isn't a bad place to start, there are quite a few choices for each word...

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Re: Strong like this?

"Or write them down, but this creates new risks."

Humans are generally pretty good at keeping small pieces of paper (usually green in the US) safe.

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Re: Passwords?

It's much easier to remember four random words than it is to remember 10 random characters; and although longer to type, it's usually *easier* to type things that are correct words than line noise (perl coders may not find it difficult however).

That's the strength of the system, not the per letter randomness, but the per "memorable bit" randomness.

Else I'd run `openssl rand -base64 21`

mUBshJeBHZyBRFG0YbVnNsAj0Jx6

But this is easier to remember:

`sort -R /usr/share/dict/words | head -4 | tr '\n' ' '`

upcover jumprock glancing taglock

and with `$ wc -l /usr/share/dict/words` showing me 240k words available - that's ~e21 options, substantially less than the long base64 approach, but substantially better than a 10 character base64 password (~e18), which is still pretty hard to remember. (It's about equivalent to a 12 char base64 password)

Of course - remembering passwords is probably not the way to go anyway - a password manager can deal with even longer, genuinely random, passwords - then you only need the password for the manager. So we're down to remembering one password, that doesn't directly log you in to anything...

I still think that a handful of words is easier to remember... Maybe I could use five words instead of four, takes me up to ~e26 (i.e. about a 15.5 digit base64 code) - takes about 4 seconds on my machine for my massively inefficient abuse of `sort` to produce a result:

$ time sort -R /usr/share/dict/words | head -5 | tr '\n' ' '

Minoan drawling insufferably hyposthenia standardizer

real 0m3.771s

I usually get one word I don't recognise, which is fine - it means that noone will guess that I'm using it, and I can learn one word to protect my password manager.

UK's National Rail backs down from greyscale website tribute to Prince Phil after visually impaired users complain

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Coat

Re: OK so....

Most things that aren't irony aren't hard enough to use as rails....

Staff and students at Victoria University of Wellington learn the most important lesson of all: Keep your files backed up

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Re: Drag out the 'ol saw

Yep - your backup is only as good as your last restore.

The problem is when you have a genuinely large single system backup... it can be hard to test.

But you can at least try to read the files.

NASA's Mars helicopter spins up its blades ahead of hoped-for 12 April hover

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Re: Nothing there....

"All they will discover is more pictures of rocks."

Really - in the same way that if you break your arm they won't bother with an XRay, because "all they'll discover is more pictures of bones"

New systemd 248 feature 'extension images' updates immutable file systems without really updating them

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There are weaknesses with init scripts, but there are also strengths in the transparency.

Parallelism is a pretty minor issue in my experience, how often do you reboot?

The consistent handling of daemons is a good thing, I'm even getting used to the binary blob log management, and have some sympathy with that - although there is no reason why it should be tied to init.

As for the rest of the tendrils which it exudes... there may well be benefits to many of them, but they shouldn't be tied to a specific init system, and certainly shouldn't be forced on people who just want the init system.

Apple iPad torched this guy's home, lawsuit claims

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I suspect that the chassis strength of most modern devices is rather higher than days of old... and frankly if a battery is swelling, there isn't much that's going to constrain it - is constraining it even a good thing? might make fire more likely?

Ticker tape and a binary message: Bank of England's new Alan Turing £50 must be the nerdiest banknote ever

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And you really need a sufficienly large collection as well...

There are relatively few notes/coins etc... so it's quite hard to get anything approaching a representative sample of society.

Your hardware is end-of-life... and it's in space. Worry not, Anglo-Japanese sat to test new orbital cleanup method

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Re: Fuel?

"Not only that, you only need to give the debris enough of a nudge to intersect the atmosphere..."

Yeah - that's still quite alot of a nudge.

The shuttle was already in a very low orbit, the ISS requires regular reboosting.

Any higher than LEO and the energies get really significant really fast.....