Posts by Tom 13

Re: "Anxiety" isn't an incident

I think in context, the 200 mile stretch being "the scariest" is because it's right at the limit of the battery capacity. If for some reason the car only goes 180 miles, you are SOL.

Re: practically to deny the idea of Moore's Law

Moore's Law applies specifically to transistors. Battery storage density shows no such inclination to improve. There are plenty of mission critical uses for batteries that would benefit greatly from increased life. The sorts of mission critical uses that cause governments to throw tens of millions at research on the off chance it might work. So far it hasn't yielded the kind of increases you assume will just happen automagically.

Re: Electric generation is far more efficient in extracting power from fuels such as gasoline

Citation of working gasoline powered electric plant required.

Re: Two freakin' days to go just 440 miles?!

Well, that actually makes OUR point rather better than rebutting us as you claim. The whole reason it took 2 WHOLE DAYS to make the 440 mile trip is precisely because the car requires the recharge after going 200 miles. My moderate mileage gas car gets 360-380 on one tank and is completely refueled in under 10 minutes, including bathroom break, and a death dog snack if I'm inclined to buy one from the gas (petrol to Brits) vendor. And assuming he was traveling at speed limits with no delays for traffic, that would be an 8 hour trip without recharge and lunch. So yeah if you were headed out in the afternoon, there would be a layover in the middle, which would conveniently also test holding the battery charge overnight.

Re: Who cares?

I didn't trust the NYT on this. However, given Musk's reaction, I'm inclined to believe the article is spot on.

@/dev/null: let me fix that for you:

...for the old PC BIOS, something which is still WELL overdue.

On the other hand, at the BIOS level you're pretty much coding by hand and error testing is tricky. Worst part is what assumptions do you get to make about your inputs, because you don't have a lot of room to maneuver. I don't even write sloppy .Net code let alone the sort of really well though through machine code that goes into a BIOS. It may be crap, but when I really think about it, those guys have actually done pretty well by us through the last 30 years.

Re: It's Forth based, right?

So what you're saying is that Intel said:

Go Forth and conquer

and they did?

Re: This is Samdungs fault.

I believe the Kipling line is something approximating:

but the sins that you do two by two you shall pay for one by one.

Yes Samsung is primarily at fault for a very faulty BIOS/UEFI implementation. But the Linux distro was also at fault for sloppy coding and failure to test. Posters who weren't shilling for one side or the other appropriately beat up on both of them. We did give points to Linux guys for at least admitting they'd written sloppy code and rapidly posting defenses and fixes. And now it seems the Linux guys have done some solid research which indicates Samsung REALLY needs to fix their crap.

Re: using a pseudonym is just as AC as using AC

But if I used my real name here, how would you know it wasn't a pseudonym?

Re: Bo11ocks, BIOS was a part of the PC

You're way too deep in the 7 layer model for people who can't tell an app from the OS.

Re: Not sure if the systems are bricked enough...

I didn't look into the reports, but if they were recoverable I expect there wouldn't have been as many complaints.

A couple years back Gigabyte released a series of MBs that had a flashable BIOS with a hard ROM backup. If you buggered the flash memory, you could still revert to the ROM which would then reprogram the flash. I thought they were rather handy. Haven't seen anything like them in a while though. Seems like rather inexpensive protection to me.

Give an automatic rifle and

No, as the recipient was not of age that would be prohibited by the Firearms Act of 1934 also. Owning automatic weapons in the US is a highly regulated thing. (http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/fact-sheets/1999/fully-automatic-firearms.aspx)

But I suppose we wouldn't want facts to get in the way of your one minute hate.

Re: can install a proxy server locally without their knowledge

Fixing that requires one pop-up or an additional privilege setting that is required to install the app. Not routing around to an 8 step process to fix it.

I don't use Ad Block and this whole thing reeks of sulfur dioxide as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Can someone explain to me ....

For the same reason a problem in IE is an OS issue at MS: they built it that way. As in 'the user has no ability to fix the problem' absent a patch from the relevant OS vendor.

Yes, they have belatedly realized that made a mistake worthy of Balmer and reversed course, but given that it was obvious to everyone who wasn't a fanboi, it's not helping them.

@LDS

No, all old java code, possibly new stuff too although hopefully Oracle fixed it. The attack detailed here is specific to the Mac, and the Macs had a particular affinity for it since Apple hadn't updated the code. But the vulnerability itself was in Java. Once you've got the Java exploit worked out, you can engineer other attacks on other systems. Put those attacks at different locations and you get multiple feeders. Then people going 'it's just a Mac attack' or 'it's just a Windows attack' will ignore their own vulnerabilities allowing your malware to spread further. If I were a State sponsor of cyber attacks, it's certainly the route I'd go. Thankfully for the world I'm just a help desk monkey and slightly dyslexic so math and I don't get along as well as I'd like.

Re: Where's my popcorn?

Yeah I poke a sharp stick at the fanbois about this on another page, but in general Macs really are more secure than Windows. Which is what makes this such a complete clusterfuck - it was an obvious hole even Windows fanbois saw it coming.

The bigger problem now is, Apple's a big company and it took them too long to find this. Given that the kernel is built on an OSS *nix core, have the hackers also been able to penetrate other *nix distributions/installs which have so far gone undetected? Given that we know neither what changes Apple made to the core nor enough details of the attack for your typical admin to check for the malware on his systems (beyond: are you running Java, which like it or not most business do) it's a bit unsettling. Gut says most of those systems are still secure (greater variety, admins tend to be more security aware, lower desktop distribution), but the brain wants proof and it can't get it.

Re: To further calms the nerves

And remember, "Scientists say this morning's unprecedented solar eclipse is no cause for alarm."

Re: big enough battery you'd never need to stop en-route.

You need to lay of the pharmaceuticals. The car in the article couldn't manage 200 miles let alone 500. As it notes, not so much of a problem in more temperate areas, but in cold regions (more than half the day below the freezing point for water) batteries are crap for holding charge. It's a well established known scientific fact. Sort of like gravity. And trying to ignore it is sort of like trying to ignore gravity when you jump of the top of Big Ben: it will mess you up something fierce.

Re: stuck in jams on the M25

Never been to Old Blighty so I've never been on the M25, but you could substitute just about any road that intersects one of the big city beltways in the northeast US and your description would still be apt. Except I think you mostly get rain in London and not much snow. We get a lot of snow for several months of the year.

Re: unless I keep my garage heated

And that's assuming you have a garage. I mean, where I live, we're glad when we can find a curb we can park our car next to.

Re: Vaguely reminds me

What do you mean 'in the 80s'?

My understanding is if you own a Jag, you still need a second car for the days when the Jag is in the shop. And if you were planning for the second car to be your other Jag, you'll need at least 2 more.

Re: Estimates of how much oil, coal and gas is left vary wildly

Only if you're still wet behind the ears.

I'm pushing half a decade now and those projections have been steady at '50-70 years left' since I was old enough to read books without pictures. And my parents always told me I was a precocious young thing.

Re: I haven't driven more than a hundred miles in a go for about five years!

And you Brits accuse us 'Merkins of being provincial?

Re: highway milage

For petrol vehicles, yes. For battery powered beasties all the articles I've read say city mileage per charge is higher because you get to stop it more frequently and it can use some of the braking to recharge the battery.

I'll admit I have no experimental data, as it's always sounded entirely too much like a Brooklyn Bridge/Tower of London investment opportunity to me.