* Posts by Eddy Ito

4662 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2007

Sound and battery: 20 portable Bluetooth speakers

Eddy Ito

Re: Bolse

Oh no, yet another generic speaker brick. There are dozens of these on Amazon. I hope they are better than the ones we got as company x-mas gifts last year which were without NFC as they had an obnoxious wake-up tone when turned on.

Car hacker secrets revealed: Clutching up a tank engine in a classic motor

Eddy Ito

That depends, most aircraft engines are designed to go either way. To quote this site;

All these shafts run in roller bearings, the propeller shaft having, in addition, a thrustable ball bearing, enabling the engine to be used with tractor (pulling) or pusher propeller.

It's worth noting it's the engine case taking the load, not the crankshaft.

Eddy Ito

the Meteor is derived from an aircraft engine, so the engine block is an aluminium alloy and not designed to have a gearbox bolted to it. That doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t take the strain, but there is no direct evidence that it would.

A multi-speed gearbox no but certainly a single speed reducer gearbox. Merlin engines were generally good for 3000 rpm and that's not a speed you want to drive a propeller with a diameter over 10 feet that fast as that would result in a tip speed of 1.4 times the speed of sound and the efficiency of a propeller drops considerably as the tip speed approaches the sound barrier and it lends a rather unique sound to the aircraft.

Also, that big air screw attached to the front of airplanes tends to produce quite a bit of thrust which has to come out through the speed reducer and engine case and ultimately to the rest of the airframe. If you have a gander over here, it's a rather nice page I think you'll like. Anyway you'll see in this picture the airframe structure that provides the engine mount so all the thrust load from the prop has to come through the engine. You can see a similar frame in this Spitfire restoration where it's a painted a grayish color in contrast to the black cowling mounting structure. In short, I think you'll find the block won't mind the thrust from the clutch.

Careful - your helmet might get squashed by a Volvo

Eddy Ito

Re: What a stupid fucking idea....

There are plenty of cyclists who break the rules, but there are more car drivers who do.

There are more car drivers in general so you haven't said anything here. The biggest problem is the speed mismatch between cars, bicycles and pedestrians. Bicycles have the distinct disadvantage of having being roughly the same size as a pedestrian with a much higher speed. The advantage pedestrians have of being slower and thus easier to pick out their speed and direction gives operators of both bicycles and automobiles slightly more time to react. Yes, lights help but ultimately it's up to everyone to be aware of what's around them because you never know when a ball will come bouncing out from between two parked cars - with a child running after it.

As for that video, what kind of city doesn't have some form of traffic controls at intersections?

Staples comes clean: 1+ million bank cards at risk after hack

Eddy Ito

Re: Card cloning? What's that?

As far as I know all debit cards here in the US have four digit PINs associated with them. Even one of my credit cards has a PIN. None of them as of yet has a chip however. My only guess is that since many people have more cards than dollars in their wallet the assumption is that those folks won't remember all 37 PINs and that would hinder their ability to spend money once the first 20 odd cards were maxed out and rejected. Granted the worst I've personally been behind in line only had to go through, and I shit you not, 8 cards before finding one that was accepted.

Google sues Mississippi Attorney General 'for doing MPAA's dirty work'

Eddy Ito

Re: Only in America

A powerful multinational corporation doesn't like other people making the law. Hood is the most effective lawmaker it has encountered.

He's not a lawmaker, he's the enforcer. The people's attack dog if you will. I don't see how it matters if he was elected if it turns out he was acting at the behest of Sony or the MPAA as that makes him their attack dog not the people's. Yes, I certainly see a problem if that is the case. While Google's motivations may not be the purest of pure it is in the people's interest to know for whom the AG works.

I don't see why it matters what the source of the documents was as long as they are genuine and being genuine is key. Don't think the law won't come after you if you get ratted out by a thief who happened along the meth lab in your basement. Hell, even if he was lying about the meth lab in your basement you'll be lucky to escape with your life as not everyone does.

New fear: ISIS killers use 'digital AK-47' malware to hunt victims

Eddy Ito

Re: Fake beard jihadi chic

Fake!!! What are you saying? It's clear from the photo that what we've known all along is true. They carry M-16 type rifles instead of AKs because as we know AKs are so expensive and hard to get while M-16s are handed out like candy on Halloween. Wait, what?

Eddy Ito

Not exactly the hardest stuff to sidestep but I suppose it requires knowing it's there. Even using a virtual machine could defeat it assuming you have the host provide NAT services for the guests. It wouldn't even be too difficult to run a virtual network that could provide a traceroute that takes them from Argentina to Zaire in the event they eventually think they are getting wise and look for that. Sure, you might not be able to properly resolve hampsterdance.com but sometimes freedom from the zombie jihad sometimes has a price.

Scrooges rejoice! Beancounters find formula for perfect Xmas party

Eddy Ito

Re: I'm no statistician but....

Funny, on the US side of the pond crackers get put out on a serving plate with cheese, pâté and/or fruit. Typically they crackers are spread out so it's easy enough to pick one off the top with no need to pull it. Although I have seen a few folks plowing through the entire plate as quickly as possible.

Nork-ribbing flick The Interview AXED: Sony caves under hack terror 'menace'

Eddy Ito
Black Helicopters

Tin foil

You know the lead lined tin foil hat brigade would say the hack and subsequent threats were done by the NSA because the movie plot was too close to their current plans for North Korea.

Microsoft whips out real-time translator for Skype calls

Eddy Ito

Finally something to help in those conferences with the groups in Noo Yawk and Noo Juysee.

Unlock your mobe by STROKING it with your PEARL

Eddy Ito

Re: Hmmm cheesy bollocks!

I'm guessing they picked NFC because they couldn't get the battery life they wanted with IrDA.

Brit gun nut builds working sniper rifle at home out of scrap metal

Eddy Ito

Re: Scrap metal?

Agreed, a fine bit of metal destined for the smelter was salvaged into a fine work of art. The veracity of it being a sniper rifle will be determined at the range.

To the author, you have a hunting season to take it to the range and improve your group to minute of angle with handloads. Two minutes of angle is acceptable for a service rifle but sniper rifles have a higher standard.

Edit: I take it back; assuming iron sights you're right on. I'd love to see the results with proper telescopic or laser sights.

It seems a fine piece. Carry on.

FCC says taxpayer-bankrolled bumpkin broadband must be at least 10Mbps

Eddy Ito

Re: Let's hope

I don't think it will matter much. Verizon and AT&T have largely pulled out of bumpkin land. Their concern is in that middle ground that has just the right population density for them to make large profits with crap service. It's that group of people who if they find out that the average hayseed has two or three times the service they do at similar rates that will be storming the gates with pitchforks raised demanding equal service.

As it is, in the past five years I've lived in two places with population densities about 150 people per square mile and one over 8,000/sq. mi. and my internet speeds in those low population density areas were better than what it is currently in the higher density region (shockingly today is exceptionally good at 4 Mbps down 0.25 Mbps up which is a considerable improvement over the typical 2.5-3Mbps/150-190kbps). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Verizon only sold wireless services in those two rural areas and are my current provider (yes, believe it or not the other option, TWC, is even slower).

QEMU, FFMPEG guru unleashes JPEG-slaying graphics compressor

Eddy Ito

Re: Adoption

If the porn industry adopts it then it will be everywhere shortly thereafter. If porn peddlers don't, it's going to be a long slog.

Eddy Ito

Re: Prety cool demo

I don't know on the several I tried it seems to me that BPG was consistently a bit better than WebP. I thought the Eaglefairy example was one of the most obvious as some stars simply vanish from the WebP version.

Mom and daughter SUE Comcast for 'smuggling' public Wi-Fi hotspot into their home

Eddy Ito

Re: Hope they win.

Its not as open as you think, i think you are still required to login with your comcast account to use those hotspots.

I don't think that's quite true. I have an uncle who has Concast at his summer cottage where he only pays for internet 4-1/2 months a year but the Xfinity is up all year round. If memory serves from the too much turkey holiday weekend you only have to login to get your Comcast email and such but I was able to surf the net while I was there and I don't recall having to do anything special. Actually, I think even his TV uses it for some damn thing or another. Of course I may be wrong as it's all a bit fuzzy, you understand that side of the family actually goes through far more wine than turkey on the holiday.

Eddy Ito

Re: Hope they win.

I think you'll find Comcast has been on the slimy corp. cork board for a long time. See, look there, it's right next to Time Warner, why they're even touching.

Mars was a WET mistress: Curiosity probes once-moist bottom

Eddy Ito

"colder than a witches tit"

I dated a witch once, her tits weren't especially cold and were rather warm actually. Well except during those outdoor Yule rituals but I guess that's to be expected.

Eddy Ito

Re: Rocks.

Seriously Grikath, I don't know where you get that kind of bullshit but someone has to call you on it. The Alps or Rockies don't have a daily temperature fluctuation of 180 °F between day and night on a nice spring day. Sure it gets up to 35 °C/ 95 °F on Mars but that swing means it's going to get real damn cold. Granted, that's on the equator but it isn't like the poles are a pleasant day at the beach either. As for pressure, you're a bit clueless if you think 7.5 millibars is the pressure halfway up. Unless of course you think roughly 43 km (140,000 ft) is halfway up and the folks who claim Everest's 8.8 km is the highest peak on the planet are way off.

P.S. you can have your book back as you might be able to trade it for a clue.

Eddy Ito

My aren't we acerbic today? It was an example, perhaps you've heard of them. Please note I didn't say it had to be methane. Also note I didn't say Mars was Titan. The temperature of liquid phases also depends on pressure not temperature alone and, as I'm neither a Marsologist nor a Titanologist, I don't know their habitat off the top of my head neither now nor half a million years ago as you obviously do. Then again, the temperature of Mars isn't really that high on my give a shite list.

Eddy Ito
Pint

Liquid water would not only require a higher temperature but also a higher atmospheric pressure. Without saying it absolutely wasn't water, I do think it would be easier to have had lakes of some other fluid like methane much the same as Titan has which would create similar sedimentary layers. Hopefully India's Mars Orbiter Mission will give some answers in the short term and the ExoMars TGO mission will provide more detail in the future. Whatever the answer is, it has that familiar feeling I had when a much younger me would study the news of earlier missions to the Moon.

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: The fantastical Francesinha

Eddy Ito

Tabasco? Chilli powder? You do know you could save yourself a bit of trouble and simply swap the linguiça for some nice Goan chouriço if it's available. If you're near New England, Emeril's home town of Fall River is a source of some rather nice hot chouriço which is quite fit for purpose. On a side note there's also a little shop to get pork pies while you're in the neighborhood, if you get there early enough of course.

#Gamergate folk load flamethrower, roast own feet over GTA V 'ban'

Eddy Ito

@Appropriate Coward

Did you read the article? You seem incapable of understanding the difference between a franchise and a license. Perhaps you should look it up. We'll be here when you get back, promise.

Oh, I see you're back.

People aren't calling for a boycott of the "WRONG Target Corp" as that implies there is a "RIGHT Target Corp" which there isn't. There is Target Corp in the US and Target Australia Pty Ltd in Australia and they are completely independent entities - one is not a franchise of the other. The only thing in common is the logo and the brand "Target" which are the only things the Australian entity licenses.

It's hardly the fault of regular blokes that confuse the two since they both use the same brand and logo. That's one reason why some companies defend their brand and logo and don't license it to other companies. Target Corp granted that license and now it gets to learn that it is often a mistake when you don't have control over it, which they would have had it been merely another franchise.

Class dismissed, run along.

Developers offering Mozilla-like experience will work on Firefox-like experience for iThings

Eddy Ito

I suggest the name of 'Firefux' for this Webkit based Firefox-like browser so normal folks won't get confused and think the behavior of Apple's Webkit is normal operation for Firefox proper.

Dead Steve Jobs accuses Real Networks of 'hacking' iPods

Eddy Ito

Re: Huh?

"My Sony, Nokia 6210 and Blackberry phones all came with propriety software interfaces, as did my Palms, and I don't ever remember anyone else demanding to write interfaces for them, I doubt anyone tried."

I think you'll see the Palm phones worked with iTunes and Apple did everything in their power to break that even though it could have helped their iTunes sales.

Gangnam Style BREAKS YouTube

Eddy Ito

If I had a nickel for every... hell, if I had a penny for each view I could retire in, well, Gangnam style. But I get the point, the dollar value even at minimum wage is almost obscene and if viewed by different people that's over a quarter of all people on the planet. Clearly this is what Apple should have pushed out to iTuners instead of U2.

LA schools math quiz: $500 Chromebooks or $700 iPads for students?

Eddy Ito

Re: Why am I thinking the school budgeteers will pick door #3?

Nah, this is LA. They'll try to get the iPads gold plated. Of course they'll then turn off access to the network to prevent the kids from getting into mischief.

Eddy Ito

Re: Ok

Considering both an iPad and Chromebook require net connectivity to be complete, other than the keyboard replacing the touchscreen, how are they really different? A dumb terminal is still a dumb terminal regardless of the UI. They both offer web and email access as well as some form of OaaS (office as a service) and media playing ability. The apps are about even (no, it really doesn't matter if one platform has 10 times as many fart apps since the functionality is fairly equal) so really it's little more than price, form factor and UI.

Feds dig up law from 1789 to demand Apple, Google decrypt smartphones, slabs

Eddy Ito
Unhappy

They hardly went back 200+ years. The act in question has been hacked, patched, amended and some parts were even found unconstitutional way back when. It was amended at least six times before the 1900s and a few more since then. While I have no inclination to compare the original with the current form I will state that it was shortly after this bill was passed that the second President signed the Alien and Sedition Acts. One of which the U.S. used during WWII to take property belonging to US residents who were from Axis countries. I can't wait until they dig up that old chestnut again to go on another xenophobic stampede.

systemd row ends with Debian getting forked

Eddy Ito

Re: What is systemd

It seems to me that another solution is to derive/fork systemd and break down the dependency into smaller pieces that can be worked around more easily.

IETF takes rifle off wall, grabs RC4 cipher's collar, goes behind shed

Eddy Ito

Ok, put it down. Life's too short for bad wine and bad ciphers.

Go festive this year with Christmas carols, baby Jesus and CLITORAL STIMULATORS

Eddy Ito
Childcatcher

Re: Black Friday

Hey, I had a 50/50 chance but I'm with you on the kids these days as I wonder myself about all this newfangled synthpop silliness. Whatever happened to the likes of Ralph Vaughan Williams or you know, music?

Eddy Ito

Re: Black Friday

Hmm, let's see, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Goodshop Sunday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, WTF Wednesday, Trying Thursday, Fuck This Friday, ah yes, there it is, Blue Monday. Oh my, got a bit to wait don't we. No worries, time flies like a boomerang so it will hit you in the back of the head before you know it.

Under the Iron Sea: YES, tech and science could SAVE the planet

Eddy Ito

Re: molluscs?

Slug baits tend to be iron phosphate rather than sulphate. The reason for the cost is that iron phosphate is used in lots of other applications from rust inhibitor to bonding agent and is even used in some types of lithium batteries so it's unlikely to be landfill. Iron sulphate on the other hand doesn't seem particularly toxic to aquatic molluscs (pdf).

Star Wars: Episode VII trailer lands. You call that a lightsaber? THIS is a lightsaber

Eddy Ito
Meh

Re: I'm pretty sure it won't cut your hand off

We can only hope they will do something interesting with it in the movie. Perhaps some novel spinning along the axis of the saber with a thrust move to slice some extra thin pastrami or perhaps one of those fancy double helix spiral cut hams.

Holy sh*t! Amsterdam man in pop-up public toilet shock horror

Eddy Ito

Do they have a poop-up version with three seashells? I have a feeling it's going to be needed after Shax gets on with the Carolina Reaper omelette. Better make 'em rocket grade seashells, just in case.

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: Masala omelette

Eddy Ito

Re: 1,176,182 Scovilles?

Well, it is an average. It would be interesting to know things like the median and standard deviation so we could rate a particular crop or plant not only for heat but consistency. Seriously, in a dozen you could easily have anything from colon charring chilies to a few with all the heat of a candied bell pepper.

Tough Banana Pi: a Raspberry Pi for colour-blind diehards

Eddy Ito

Re: Trademark Breach?

Complicating the matter further is the matter of locale. We all know that different jurisdictions have different rules and a trademark applied and granted in one may not be recognized by another. Also raspberrypi.org has a trademark or word mark on "Raspberry Pi so if someone wanted to come along and call their board "Raspberry Piña Colada", "Raspberry Pinot Noir", "Piberry Colada" or, well you get the idea, it would become a rather arduous and expensive slog to take it through the courts especially for a charity foundation. No the best move is to keep the powder dry and hold your fire until they're really stepping on your toes with names like "Red Raspberry Pi", "Black Raspberry Pi" or "Razzleberry Pi" that are clearly capable of causing confusion.

DECT Bluetooth link to cell

Eddy Ito

DECT Bluetooth link to cell

I've been looking at the various DECT phones and gateways that feature Bluetooth that links to a mobile phone so that the house phones will work with the mobile connection allowing you to answer and place calls from any phone in the house.

What I'd like to know is whether this simply uses a hands-free, CTP, some other profile or a combination. Sparkfun had done a Bluetooth rotary phone that employed the hands-free profile (PDF) but I'm thinking the functionality of the 'link to cell' DECT phones and gateways is more than just hands-free and more along the lines of "3-in-1" but I'd like to get the opinion of folks who undoubtedly have more knowledge on the topic than I do. So, does anyone know what profiles and protocols are in use with the gateway type devices and is there any particular security concerns associated with using these devices?

BlackBerry will pay you $$$s to be its friend and dump that iPhone

Eddy Ito
Facepalm

Uhh, it encourages iPhone thieves in exactly the same way as Apple's trade-in program has in the past year and change. Their recycling program must also encourage iPod, iPad, Macbook and iMac thieves as well.

Save Thanksgiving! Get your turkey to text you when it's done

Eddy Ito
Pint

Wow, did you really make it through that with a straight face? If you did, that's impressive control and you deserve one of these.-->

Oh, does iDevice have something to text you when your glass is empty? I thought I remember seeing something of that nature hereabouts.

Your PHONE is slowly KILLING YOU

Eddy Ito

Re: He must be several tera-furlongs out of his skull

How can you say they aren't scientific? They enter the symptoms into their iPad and it tells them what the problem is, how to treat it and write you a prescription for the most expensive appropriate pharmacological remedy just like the nice sales rep told them to do. If that doesn't work they move to the second problem shown on the iPad and give you a piece of paper for a different medication. They proceed likewise until either you are either cured or dead but they test every single possible problem the iPad app came up with all scienterrorific like.

Google's Chrome to pull plug on plugins next September

Eddy Ito

Re: Wow, I'm way out of touch...

I'd imagine Office 365 uses a bit of Silverlight. I know when I log in to my work email from home the browser is always looking for the Silverlight plugin. Seems to work well enough without it so I don't bother.

Reuse the Force, Luke: SpaceX's Elon Musk reveals X-WING designs

Eddy Ito

Re: Sir!

Not exactly a tarted up oil rig. More like a barge with a few outdrives hung off the sides. The only relation is that oil rigs use similar station keeping equipment.

iPhone sales set to PLUMMET: Bleak times ahead for Apple

Eddy Ito

Re: Why Are Apple DOOM Analysts Worth Quoting?

Did you read the article? Better yet, did you read the linked article? Let me save you the time of hitting the back button and sum it up for you. 'Holiday season sales not likely to be sustainable after the holidays'. That's it. Alternately you could read it as 'Holiday season sales set to surge before Xmas then normalize after the holidays'.

I'll play analyst and make a prediction: US whole turkey sales set to plummet after the holidays as cranberry sales surge as holidays draw near.

See how that works? Go ahead, give it a try. You can pick almost anything from fruit cake to ugly sweaters. It's fun.

Bond villains lament as Wicked Lasers withdraw death ray

Eddy Ito

Re: Looking at those Prices...

My guess is those prices are exactly why the company changed hands. Those things are rather expensive and the folks who had to have one already do by now and the market quickly saturated.

If I could mount these on a cnc table and cut, well anything - cloth, neoprene or even paper then I'd likely find it useful as might many others and the market would be bigger. If I want to make a bright spot on the wall, pop a balloon and light a match I can do it for under $5 with a $3 laser pointer, a pin and, well, a match.

Ford's B-Max: Fiesta-based runaround that goes THUNK

Eddy Ito

That's exactly it. Minivans are classed as light trucks so they don't impact the fleet CAFE as much as a station wagon based on a car would. That gave the manufacturers an incentive to swap station wagons for minivans and the marketing machine convinced consumers that minivans were the next great thing.

The current shift to SUV type vehicles is also marketing pushing the more profitable SUV on the back of bigger = safer even in the light of the increased rollover risk. Remember it was a bunch of SUV rollovers several years ago that let to making tire pressure monitoring a standard feature in modern cars.

We still get a few imported station wagons precisely because they aren't classed as light trucks since light trucks carry a rather impressive import duty. That duty of course is the result of lobbying by the US "big 3" to maintain a nice margin on that market segment and is one reason why companies like Honda and Toyota make most of their US market SUVs and trucks in the US.

(edit) I need to check the current crop of CUVs to see if they are also light truck class as that would go a long way to explaining why every company seems to be pushing them harder than the local crack/meth dealer.

Eddy Ito

Part of the reason the barges have passed on is for the same reason the long station wagons of yesteryear went away, CAFE standards. Currently mpg (in US gallons) is a simple linear form based on 'footprint' (wheelbase x track) between simple min and max values which for 2015 are 41 sq. ft. (29 mpg sticker) and 55 sq. ft. (23 mpg sticker) respectively. To put those footprints into perspective a MB S550 has a 54.5 sq. ft. footprint and the car reviewed here, the B-Max has a footprint of 39.8 sq. ft. which is about half a square foot less than a Honda Fit for those in the US. Note the S550 just makes it under the gas guzzler tax.

I suppose that also answers the question of why we don't see B-Max like vehicles in the US. There isn't a great incentive to get better than 29 mpg other than selling to skinflints like me and getting the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) up.

Eddy Ito

I don't understand it, why do you folks get all the interesting cars? Obviously you've now figured that I'm of the "a car goes from A to B, that's its job" variety so what more can a guy like me ask for? Well for starters there is the available 1.6 l diesel. I do wish more car manufacturers would bring small diesels like this to the US but I suppose it would be only a niche product in this society where '250 HP isn't bad for a base model'.