Posts by Charlie Clark

Re: Just close it

Spoilsport! We need quangos to justify budgets but also to blame when things go wrong.

I'm looking at a range of FreeBSD systems with very impressive uptimes…

Wot, no systemd?

Built by sysadmins, for sysadmins!

Re: Yes

No, it's about where savings can be most effectively achieved. Compared to things like poor building insulation, cars, air conditioning, etc. the amount that can be saved by not using wireless charging is negligible.

Re: you'll go blind

As usual, resolution is less important than the way the codec handles things like contrast, boundaries, gradients, etc. But resolution is much easier to sell to clueless consumers.

As much as I simply cannot do without it these days, back when it was barely available with a 56K modem, software makers had to get it right out of the door, because patching was inconcievable.

I don't know what planet you were on, but I don't remember bug-free software in the 1980s. Without a permanent connection, the vectors are different but exploits are as old as software itself.

Re: Charity costs

Nice research. I think the charity stuff is a bit of a red herring. The main focus should be on tightening up the scope of the charter and making clear what a public service is. Fees should be set to cover costs solely though, as this is difficult to predict, you need to allow for over and under fall of revenue with a floater designed to cover underfalls: 10% of profit isn't unusual. The rest can should either be handed over to the exchequer or donated to suitable nominated charities (educational, IT literacy, etc.).

Remuneration for QUANGOs is always tricky. On the one hand you want people with the right skills to be able to do the job, on the other hand it's a public service so some kind ethical investment can also be expected. The way around this is usually to remunerate the board for expenses only, though this can be at market rates, and pay staff market rates. Aside from pay, you need to make sure that board members are not beholden to invididuals or entities (such as member companies), are accountable and not in a position for empire building. Fixed term appointments can be useful here.

The current board has clearly failed on all fronts.

Re: Bit sad really

To be fair to the scientists, I think most enthusiasm was in the media focussing too heavily on the summary and one of the potential explanations for the observation, ignoring standard procedure of needing a separate, completely distinct observation required before drawing a conclusion. A similar thing happened with neutrinos in Italy, I believe. This is why we now have to completely distinct observatories for gravitational waves, because it's just too easy to be fooled by failures in the equipment, or increasingly the case, incorrect assumptions somewhere in the software.

Re: The car industry doesn't need more state aid

Where do you get your numbers from? If the conversion can be done catalytically then it should be energy neutral. Currently, it's above 50% and, thus, better than batteries, which only look good because they're charged with power that doesn't include fuel duties.

Re: And software

Interesting to note that Blockada is now officially available on the Samsung app store, so no need even to sideload it.

Re: I loved Perl so much...

I don't like perl much myself but I would have thought is should be possible to automate much of that: the languages are close enough in many ways, especially for procedural stuff. Of course, the whole thing becomes a lot easier if there are tests…

Re: Everybody is doing it

Netflix has for years had negative cashflow: it has borrowed massively to produce content and build out the network. 2020 looks like being the first year with positive cashflow and share buybacks have already been mentioned.

I would have thought that there might also be legal reasons attached to anything that stores data on Google's servers so disabling API key, while it might seem harsh, does make some sense.

I don't use Chrome myself, but if I wanted a non-Googley Chromium, I would want to keep it non-Googley.

Re: "Received a computer" "He also installed Dropbox"

True, but you might expect them to be required to set up dedicated accounts for personal stuff.

Re: To the author : Thank you

Wireless charging has to be the worst, most inefficient way anyone could have invented to charge a phone.

Not really. Given a reasonable surface area and low enough current the losses are not that much greater than with many power supplies, which often have shitty transformers. Good phones with good chargers are now very good at getting this right. This is one of the reasons I switched to extension cables with integrated USB ports. I don't have any scientific data, but given the number of 5V devices I could switch to using them, I'm pretty certain it's had an impact.

And, overall, in the lifecycle of a mobile phone, the energy used to charge it is tiny compared with production and decommissioning.

Re: Once the Genie is out of the bottle

While there is no doubt a risk of major open source projects being held hostage by a few major players, tinkering with the licences is unlikely to change anything. The open source principles have proved their worth time and again and many of the large companies have embraced them so much that they provide stewardship and resources for some projects. Companies that release their software under an open source licence should not be surprised if their competitors adopt it: it was their choice to do so. There is a risk that they can use such projects to dominate the market. If this is the case the regulation may be required, just as it would in any other case of market dominance.

Re: So..

I think the amendment was framed with something like a restoration in mind and citizens should be able to fight fire with fire… But, it's possible to argue that this threat has diminished over time or could be countered more effectively by limiting the powers of the executive branch.

But political reform always seems to need upheaval to be successful and, despite the many problems in US politics, it still looks a long way away from the kind of consensus needed for meaningful reform. In the meantime partisanship, gerrymandering and regulatory capture will no doubt continue.

Re: Linus Torvalds

Not having hardware acceleration is nowadays more than just a minor irritatiion, especially on ARM.

The best bet is to wait until another manufacturer sees the opportunity and releases their own ARM-based stuff. Though this would be easier if Microsoft or Google were keener on providing support.

Nah, that wouldn't be liabel. However, you could construe contempt of court, depending on the ruling.