* Posts by Dr. Mouse

2114 publicly visible posts • joined 22 May 2007

Rise of der Maschinen: Daimler trials ROBOT LORRY in Germany

Dr. Mouse

Wrong!

Also -as it's Germany- here's some advice from the rest of Europe: In most of Europe; when a lorry is indicating to come out and overtake; a driver behind flashing their lights means "It's safe mate, come on out"; whereas a German driver flashing means (apparently) "Fuck off peasant, I'm coming through".

While it is common practice to "flash someone out" of a junction, it should NEVER be relied upon by ANYONE. Do you remember your highway code?

Rule 110

Flashing headlights. Only flash your headlights to let other road users know that you are there. Do not flash your headlights to convey any other message or intimidate other road users.

[https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/general-rules-techniques-and-advice-for-all-drivers-and-riders-103-to-158]

You should always make sure that other indications are there (road positioning, change of speed, etc.) before deciding that the flash is inviting you to pull out. They could be flashing at another road user, or have caught the control by mistake, or be flashing to warn you that you have just edged forward but they are coming through. In the same way, you should never assume that an indicator being on is saying "I will be turning here". They could be intending to take the next and be indicating too soon, or intending to pull over just after the junction. Again, it could be a mistake, too, leaving it on and it not auto-cancelling, or just caught by accident.

It is up to you to judge what is happening, and signals cannot be relied upon. If that car had hit you, it would be 100% your fault.

Search engine can find the VPN that NUCLEAR PLANT boss DIDN'T KNOW was there - report

Dr. Mouse

"lack of executive-level awareness"

Is this not a fundamental global law? Executives are unaware of anything but the bottom line.

So, what's happening with LOHAN? Sweet FAA, that's what

Dr. Mouse

Re: Denmark?

What about moving the launch from New Mexico to (Old) Mexico?

Everything's legal in Mehico. It's the American way!

OnePlus 2: Disappointing Second Album syndrome strikes again

Dr. Mouse

I agree that there are issues, but I'm happy with mine.

I don't find the battery life bad (I get about a day and a half to two days on a charge). I would have liked fast charge but it's not a deal breaker for me (I've never had it). And, right now, NFC has little use in the UK. I have only every used it to mess around (reading my passport and using a few stick-on tags).

However, once Android Pay launches in the UK, I may regret it. I hadn't heard about the lack of NFC before I bought it, and it may have affected my decision. I don't quite understand why they omitted it just as the tech is about to become useful...

NOxious Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal: Chief falls on sword

Dr. Mouse

Re: Not all need to be recalled.

and the price would be set JUST before the scandal broke

Unfortunately I doubt this would happen.

I have a friend who bought a house in a little area surrounded by farmers fields. Planning permission went in, and was granted, for a warehouse to be built, basically around the house. The company building the warehouse have now offered to buy the house, but at the current market rate. This is over £100k less than it was before they got planning permission, and will leave them significantly out of pocket.

If they do offer to buy back the cars, it will likely be at the current market value, significantly reduced from the value pre-scandal.

11 MILLION VW cars used Dieselgate cheatware – what the clutch, Volkswagen?

Dr. Mouse

Re: "Wide Open Throttle"

One other thing: diesel fuel is taxed less than it should be in comparison to petrol. If the tax reflected the energy content of the fuels, then modern petrol-engined cars would look better value even to long-distance motorists.

I think you'll find the tax per MJ is not too different.

ULS diesel & petrol are both taxed at 58p/l. For petrol, this gives about 1.7p/MJ, and diesel approx 1.5p/MJ. To increase diesel to petrol levels would be approx 7.5p/l increase to diesel tax.

While this is a fair increase (12% in tax, or about 7% in the total current cost of fuel), for long distance running most would get a much larger increase in fuel efficiency over a petrol engine. They would still be paying much less per mile than the equivalent petrol car.

CHEAT! Volkswagen chief 'deeply sorry' over diesel emission test dodge

Dr. Mouse

Re: Hmm...

If I drive making 'effective progress' I get a pretty reasonable (for the performance) high 40s / low 50s mpg. However, if I really back off on the throttle (keeping the same sort of top speeds, but really accelerating slowly and coasting to decelerate) it jumps straight to low or even mid 60s.

I experienced very different behaviour in my Bora 1.9TDi (130PS). If I drove how I normally had on my standard route to work, I got around 55mpg (it was mostly motorway). I tried the method you suggest, and got a tiny improvement, pretty much negligible.

I then really got down to it. The end result was using full throttle acceleration, up to 2.5-3k RPM, except on my main acceleration up to motorway speeds where I pushed the revs further (better for the turbo, as long as the engine was hot by then). As soon as I got to my cruising speed, I went into pulse & glide in 6th (where safe to do so).

My results were: at 80mph cruise, I maintained the 55mpg I had been getting at 70 before. At 70mph, I got ITRO 60mpg. At 60mph, I never got less than 65mpg, often reaching 70.

I clocked the time difference, too: Less than 5mins for my journey, next to nothing. I was also much more relaxed when I reached my destination. As soon as I realised, my journeys stuck to 60mph, with occasional overtaking blasts up to 70 (so as not to be inconsiderate), with P&G where safe to do so in a range of approx +/-3mph.

You want the poor to have more money? Well, doh! Splash the cash

Dr. Mouse

Re: Need to tax fun

Let the time of each be valued equally - sufficient for life, and let all contribute.

Interesting. However, if you value everyone's time equally, there is little incentive for a person to better themselves.

Let us take 2 people. A is highly intelligent, B is near the bottom end of the intelligence scale. A could be a scientists, or a mathematician, or an engineer. B can only do "menial" work, labouring or stacking shelves. In our system, A would go to university and get a good, well paid job. B would work for a supermarket. They would both do their best, to achieve the best wages and/or quality of life they possibly can.

Now, move to a world where all time is valued equally. While going to university, getting a good education and getting a good job can be their own rewards, they often come with a great deal of stress. As all jobs are valued equally, what is to stop A from taking a job which does not tax him? He could work as a low-end office worker, pushing papers. Boring, yes, but easy and stress free. He can coast through life, getting paid exactly the same as someone of the same intelligence who chooses to work hard. He is also depriving the world of his contribution. Meanwhile, B is in the same position as before, albeit with possibly a little more pay.

So, to make this fair, we would need to grade people on their abilities, and pay them in relation to the "effort" they put in, and how close to their maximum potential they are working. But how would one objectively measure this?

So, as you can see, this is not a simple system to administer fairly. It would be easier to administer it fairly than the current system, but is more likely to create an unfair system where effort is not rewarded.

BOFH: Press 1. Press 2. Press whatever you damn well LIKE

Dr. Mouse

Brilliant, as per usual!

Instead of the most effective solution – jumping off the balcony...

Amen to that! As for the rest in that block, be glad you don't work here. Every time I suggest to the boss that we get standardised, supported kit, I get told it's too expensive. We now support 4 different OS's on around 10 makes of machine across several sites, all with different specs, drivers etc. We have no installation media, no idea which machine is which, and to top it all off he wants to get rid of the one AD DC we have (serving only one site, the rest using local accounts because having servers there is "a waste of money").

Burn all the coal, oil – No danger of sea level rise this century from Antarctic ice melt

Dr. Mouse

Re: Someone tell the government then

You might want to think about that when you see hauliers agitating for higher road masses.

BUT, if we increase the taxes on haulage, the cost of all our goods increases.

Of course, this neglects the simple fact that more freight should be carried by train, which is a much more efficient and effective method of transportation. This would require huge investment, though, both in the infrastructure and in new warehouses closer to railways, as the rail infrastructure has been run into the ground already, and warehouses are currently located for easy road access, not rail.

Dr. Mouse

Re: Someone tell the government then

Tax fuel directly - higher mpg cars will pay less anyway because they are more efficient and high-milers will pay more as they produce more pollution.

So many people have been calling for exactly that for so many years. Reassign the tax onto fuel in a collection-neutral manner (i.e. equal tax take) and you will see more of the money, as there is less admin.

The only real issues I see come from haulage and similar. I'm pretty sure that haulage co's would go out of business if the tax was just put on fuel, as they would end up paying a higher proportion, so this would need some form of rebate.

Ahmed's clock wasn't a bomb, but it blew up the 'net and Zuckerberg, Obama want to meet him

Dr. Mouse
Joke

the police arrested him for hoax bomb, when he wouldn't tell them what it was for other than "it is a clock".

And rightly so! Who the heck knows what this "clock" thing is? He should have explained what it was for in words simple enough to understand, not rant about this fancy schmancy "clock" thing, whatever that is.

Dr. Mouse

Re: @Neil Barnes

I think it is the school and police response that seems to be very unbalanced...

I completely agree. To arrest him, given that they could obviously see it was NOT a bomb (the fact that they didn't evacuate the school proves this), was overreaction in the extreme. Similarly, for the school to call the cops without evacuating seems OTT.

It does not matter what, how, who and where. If there is no ongoing incident of the "dead bodies" variety, you are _OBLIGED_ to call the parents first even if you also call the police. Anything else aside, the law requires them to be present if the minor is to be interrogated outside of an "active shooter" context.

I always thought so, too, although I'm no expert on US law (all I know comes from TV shows and the media). I suspect they (ab)used the "terr'ism" laws to justify this...

One look at this kid and the cops nerd alerts should have been going off.

To be honest, this one is a straw man. Do you think that no "nerds" are ever recruited (or coerced/brainwashed/conned) by criminal elements? I still think it was all an insane overreaction, but the fact that a suspect "is a nerd" makes very little difference, just as it should make little difference that he has brown skin.

Bullshit FERPA now exists mostly to allow schools to hide how much they have covered up rape and other investigations.

It always makes me laugh (in a bad way) when I hear people and organisations using privacy laws to cover up wrong doing.

This is how this played out in the local news media: ...

That was a very interesting and informative comment, a rarity on El Reg's forums. Thank you.

It certainly wouldn't surprise me if Obama (or his team) called the local cops and told them to stop being idiots. This kind of response makes the USA look stupid and racist to the rest of the world (as if we need any more ammunition in that argument). I'm not saying all Americans are, but we get very regular news coverage showing at least what appears to be racist and idiotic behaviour. This is just the latest example.

Gauging public risk implies a certain degree of common sense. That seems to have been eliminated from the Gene pool of people that join the police forces in the USofA.

No offence meant to police officers out there, but I think law enforcement tends to attract the wrong people. Cops have a lot of power, but do not need the intelligence required by most positions which give people power, so it will attract power-hungry idiots. Again, no offence to police officers, I know not all are like this, but some are. These are the people who react like this. They are also the type of cop who assumes they know the law and will not budge, even given evidence to the contrary.

I site as a much tamer example the time I was harassed by my landlord and landlady. They tried to evict me with no good reason. When I refused, they started trying to force me out through intimidation. Eventually, it all came to a head when they let themselves in to the house and tried to remove "their property" (as they put it) in the form of all the appliances and furniture.

I called the police. The cops told me it was "a civil matter". I had been prepared for this by CAB. The lady I spoke to there said that she toured police stations letting them know about these laws. I showed them documentation on the laws involved and police guidance on the matter (what they were doing was a criminal offence). The police refused to even acknowledge this, although at least they got my landlords to leave.

The 'vampire squid' wants a bankers' blockchain

Dr. Mouse

Re: Questions?

Surely they would need to create their own, proprietory system and map their existing assets onto it?

If I am understanding correctly, they are not using the BTC blockchain, but using the BTC blockchain code, modified for their own purposes, to start their own blockchain to act as a ledger for their own transactions. Which actually makes sense, as the blockchain is just a distributed cryptographic ledger.

How green is your ROCKET FUEL?

Dr. Mouse

Re: Hmm... A new name...

Well, how about 'Up-Goer Juice'? ... Yes, I have been watching Idiocracy, how could you tell?

I thought you were awaiting the release of "Thing Explainer" with as much excitement as I am

How did jihadists hack into top UK ministerial emails if no security breach took place?

Dr. Mouse

Can I just say that this actually makes sense to me.

A person could very well hack a system, by my definition of the word, but not breach it. You do not need to successfully break in to a system to be hacking. A failed attempt to break in is still a hack.

In the same way, it would be a cyber attack, just as a bunch of enemy fighters raiding an encampment is an attack even if they do not manage to kill anyone or inflict any damage. The attack still occurred, whether it was successful or not.

Wileyfox smartphones: SD card, no bloatware, Cyanogen, big battery – yes to all!

Dr. Mouse

Re: QI charging and NFC?

You can't use OTG and charge your phone at the same time.

You can, if the manufacturer implements it. I've had a tablet which supported this, a cheapo thing I can't remember the details of.

The problem is it's outside the official specs, and most don't support it.

Does Linux need a new file system? Ex-Google engineer thinks so

Dr. Mouse

But helping debug some else's already 3 years overdue file system isn't nearly as fun as writing your own new one. And it's the *nix way to have 5 projects when you could have 1. I can't blame him.

This is the software equivalent of https://xkcd.com/927/

Also, I have in the recent past developed a new feature for existing software. The amount of work it took just to understand where it would fit in almost pushed me to rewrite from scratch. In the end I shoehorned the software in, but only for my own use as making it all fit with the project's guidelines was too much of a ball ache. It did the job I wanted, but writing my own from scratch would have been no more difficult and far more fun (at least for my own use). It would have been more restricted in it's use, but it would have done the job I needed at the time.

It's always the way, I find. Learning how to develop for an existing codebase is a lot of hard work. Once you know, great.

Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell: El Reg on the hydrogen highway

Dr. Mouse

Re: "... there is a dearth of renewable power."

Ignoring the whole issue of hydrogen supply for a moment, I LOVE having the Dictionary of Numbers installed. It really puts numbers into context.

This is what I see:

Big whoop. 1GW [≈ electric power output of a CANDU nuclear reactor] continuous is 61.3TWh per year.

There simply aren't very many high capacity underwater cables. 2GW [≈ peak power generation of Aswan Dam] is about where they top out.

BOFH: Why, I LOVE work courses. Please tell me more, o wise one!

Dr. Mouse

Brilliant, as usual. Shame I'm a week late...

"No idea. As I usually choose Hitler or Mussolini – for the salutes – I get asked to leave around then."

This reminds me of an old friend (may he rest in pieces). He was a top notch programmer earlier in life, but had failed to keep his skills up to date and was unemployed. The job centre sent him on several courses, one of which was, basically, maths for idiots.

During this course, one lesson was on division with fractions. One answer came out as 8.5, and the teacher explained that you had to apply the result in context. "For example," she said, "you can't have half a child."

His answer, which prompted the teacher to ask him to leave and never return, was, "Tell Jamie Bulger's parents that."

Enjoy vaping while you still can, warns Public Health England

Dr. Mouse

Still unpleasant to smell though. Was in a restaurant in London a while back and some American guy (vapourizers weren't as known over here then) pulled out his e-cig and started puffing clouds of the stuff over to our table. Seemed to think that because it wasn't actually a cigarette it was suddenly fine to use indoors in a place filled with non-smokers.

Still an unpleasant smell though. Was in a restaurant a while back and some woman sat close to me reeking of cheap perfume. She seemed to think that because it was perfume it was acceptable to pollute the air with it, and splashed yet more of it all over herself every time she went to "powder her nose". She even got the bottle out at the table and sprayed yet more of the noxious substance on herself.

The second statement is as good an argument for banning women from wearing perfume in enclosed public spaces as the first is for banning vaping in enclosed public spaces. Would a restaurant ask a woman to leave if she was wearing a perfume that a couple of diners found it unpleasant? Or a man with cheap aftershave? If not (and most wouldn't) then why would you ask someone to stop vaping?

Smoking is a different case altogether, as there are health risks associated with second hand smoke.

In short, using the argument of "it smells" is no argument for the backing of a ban. Using it as such is an authoritarian approach, attempting to force your own will onto other people. Come up with some real evidence for a health risk and I will support such a ban.

Dr. Mouse

Tempering my comment towards the cautious side, E-Cigs are a relatively new product which require further study to assess and possible health concerns.

That said, they are inevitably* going to be many times less dangerous than smoking tobacco products. Every person who moves from smoking to e-cigs will be better off, health-wise, even if they keep using the e-cig indefinitely without reducing their nicotine content. These devices should be encouraged.

Also, they are not medical devices, were never designed to be and were never promoted as such. They are recreational products, a substitute for tobacco. Why the **** should they be treated and regulated as medical devices? It will destroy innovation in the sector and, likely, destroy the sector. Only Big Pharma will have the resources to make them and we have all seen how good the pharmaceutical industries NRT products are. They will go from a vibrant, innovative product to a clinical mess in no time flat, with people forced to either accept the inferior Big Pharma versions or go back to smoking.

The e-cig portions of the TPD are insanity on a bewildering scale. All I can think is that there was some serious lobbying from the Tobacco industry (loosing out due to people not buying as many cigs) and Big Pharma (loosing out due to lower sales of their inferior products). It's similar to the music industries recentish problem: They were loosing out to pirates, as pirates were offering what the consumers wanted (convenient access to music). Rather than improve their own game, they got the governments to crack down on the pirates. Only this time it's worse: Rather than illegal operations disrupting the market, it's legitimate, innovative businesses, and rather than the result being less convenience, it will be deaths.

Of course, the cynic in me can also see governments worrying about the loss of tax revenue...

*I recently watched Team America again for the first time in years. Now I can't hear or type the word 'inevitably' without hearing Kim Jong-Il saying 'inebitabry'...

Why do driverless car makers have this insatiable need for speed?

Dr. Mouse

Re: Mandatory

Does taking the Advanced Motoring qualification still get you lower premiums these days?

I am only an associate at the moment (working towards my IAM advanced motorcycle qualification) and have already saved a bundle on insurance. This is mostly down to using the IAM Surety insurance scheme after getting quotes elsewhere. They will beat a like-for-like quote by 10% on both my motorbike and car policies.

Dr. Mouse

Re: Automate the Pedestrians.

I think that one thing which has been overlooked by all this is continual analysis of possibilities. A self-driving car could be programmed such that it is always looking for escape routes from potential accidents. Think chess: computers are good (when programmed correctly) at multi-step thinking. At the point of the child stepping out into the road, they could have analysed 1000's of possibilities and 1000's of possible reactions, already calculated the appropriate action and be ready to respond instantly should that situation occur.

I know that good drivers do this already, although they do so subconsciously for the most part, just as the best chess players think many moves ahead. However, the car has been programmed to do so, and doesn't stop doing so because they are tired, or have had an argument with their wife, or are trying to solve that problem they were stumped by at work. The car is also more likely to have spotted that kid before he runs out into the road, analysed it's actions and prepared appropriate reactions.

How to respond comes down to the software writers. In a purely logical view, they need to minimise the damage done. A child's life would have a value, as would the life of the occupants of the vehicles, and the lowest cost action available would be implemented. The real question is how things would be weighted in the algorithm. That's the hard part, with interesting and conflicting moral and social dilemmas involved.

Dr. Mouse

Re: Mandatory

@werdsmith

"Yep, risk minimisation."

Yes, keeping the risks down to a minimum is the entire point of driving safely. The only way to completely eliminate the risk of being involved in an RTC is to stay away from roads completely.

Taking that as not being a viable option, and given that we are going to drive a vehicle on the road, one must keep risks as low as possible. Methods to do so include the aforementioned "Observation, anticipation, and correct and timely reaction", but include other things, too. One I have noticed is behaving as expected by other road users.

As pointed out by lucrelout, none of this precludes driving quickly. You can drive quickly and safely, and driving slowly doesn't automatically make you safe. On the contrary, driving too slowly can be dangerous in it's own right (you are not behaving as expected by other road users, and they are therefore more likely to make a mistake which lands you in bother).

What matters most, IMHO, is driving appropriately for the situation, good observational skills, experience and training. The other important factor is that you take driving seriously. I know many people who think they are a good driver with no need to learn any more, yet routinely make basic mistakes: driving too close, driving in a manner which makes them hard to predict, not observing/anticipating and then acting outraged when someone pulls out in front of them when it was obvious they were about to do so. If you take driving seriously, you will know that there is always more to learn, and you can always become a better driver, even if you are already the worlds best driver.

Microsoft kicks off 'Windows as a service' with new Insider build

Dr. Mouse

Re: Compressing and decompressing pages

I have this nagging thing about trying to decompress a needed page when the memory is already full.

How is this any different to swap?

With swap (in simple terms) when a process needs more memory but there is none available, some is written to disk to free up space. When the original process needs that memory back, something else is written to disk and the page recalled.

With the memory compression system (already implemented on Linux and several other OSes) when a process needs memory but there is none available, a section of memory is compressed and written to another area of memory (some will need to be reserved for writing this). When the original is required, another area is compressed and the page decompressed to the freed area. The only difference is the storage mechanism and the fact that, instead of needing some space on disk reserved for "swap", it needs some space in RAM reserved for the swapping process.

I think this is aimed more at desktop PCs than servers: A server will generally be specced to have enough RAM for the job it's doing (if the team responsible are doing their job correctly) and will rarely rely on swap. Desktops get given enough for day-to-day running, and will often rely on swap for peak load (often due to bean counters not allowing the small extra amount of cash to be spent).

Assange™ is 'upset' that he WON'T be prosecuted for rape, giggles lawyer

Dr. Mouse

Re: Name clearing

are you suggesting that the things that Assange stand accused of doing in Sweden, only a man should have to accept responsibility for, and a boy should not, as a matter of course?

When you are born, you are not responsible for your own actions. If a baby somehow managed to fire a gun and kill someone, you wouldn't say that baby should be locked up for murder.

As we grow up, we are steadily expected to accept more responsibility for our actions. This is not really a case of age, but of mental capability, understanding, and emotional maturity. It is also why there are different legal procedures for minors compared to adults, and why (AFAIK) it is possible for a minor to be prosecuted as an adult: If it can be shown that the person is capable of understanding what he did at the same level as an adult (in simplistic terms) then he should be treated as an adult.

So, yes, a "boy" who raped someone should not be treated the same as an "adult" who raped someone. They may well be locked up still, but they should be treated differently. Basically, they should be "locked up" to prevent them from being a danger to others, and to allow for rehabilitation. It should not be about punishment. IMHO as soon as they are no longer a danger to society, and it can be shown that they understand that what they did was wrong and will not do it again, they should be released (including if it can be shown that they have already reached this point by the end of the trial).

Want Edward Snowden pardoned? You're in the minority, say pollsters

Dr. Mouse

Re: @Esme - AC If you only watch Faux News and CNN....

In the end, there are times when you must break the law, because the law is unjust.

I can't say for certain that what Snowden did was altruistic, but the fact is that the NSA was (and probably still is) invading privacy on a horrendous scale. Yes, he broke the law, but in doing so he shined a light onto the dubious practices* involved. The world now knows what the NSA (and other, similar, organisations) get up to. This is a good thing.

Yes, I understand that the "government"** must sometimes act in secret to do it's job. However, they must act responsibly, and there must be oversight. There must also be a way for anyone who uncovers something wrong to report that and have it investigated in an impartial manner.

If what I read about Snowden is true, he uncovered those dubious practises, tried to raise it with his superiors and was ignored. This may or may not be true. No matter the true reason behind the leak, as long as he had done his utmost to raise the matter internally, it was justified to leak the material. AFAIK if he had been an employee, he would have been protected by whistleblower laws. He should be in this case.

I have seen comments on here saying that Snowden intended to leak info when he started the contract. As far as I am concerned, this is irrelevant: He uncovered something wrong, tried to report it, was ignored, so leaked. This course of action was the right course of action, and he should be honoured, not vilified.

* I think I am being generous, there. I would say illegal and morally reprehensible.

** I include police, security services, armed forces etc. under that umbrella term.

Intel left a fascinating security flaw in its chips for 16 years – here's how to exploit it

Dr. Mouse

Re: Require root or administrator access ...

"If a miscreant has root or administrator access, then you are stuffed anyway."

If you perform regular audits, system monitoring, and other checks you can pick up malware installed in the OS. If all else fails, you can wipe everything... "Bang! And the malware's gone!"

If this bug is exploited, the code lives in the CPU's firmware. Virus scanner? Nope, can't see it. Reformat and reinstall? Nope, still there. As with love, our "normal approach is useless here".

Beaming boffins feel the rhythm as neutrinos oscillate over 500 miles

Dr. Mouse

Re: ice melting in a bucket?

We used t' dream o' measurin' string wi't wooden ruler. We 'ad t' watch paint dry on't walls, makin' a note o't time on't big clock. Then teacher'd thrash us wi't cat 'o nine tails.

Sengled lightbulb speakers: The best worst stereo on Earth

Dr. Mouse

Re: inside out

Only as long as the wall switch is on.

It would only take for them to include a small adapter box to get around this. Granted, they don't right now, but a small box fitted behind the light switch could supply constant power to the "bulb" and send it the command to turn on/off.

Dr. Mouse

Re: inside out

I can't help but feel that it would have been better to add light output to loudspeakers, rather than vice versa.

It's not about the combination of light and sound, it's about the universal form factor. Everywhere has a light socket, the light socket supplies power. So building devices into lightbulbs is a good idea.

Unfortunately, it seems building a speaker into a lightbulb is not such a good idea (which most people with a minimal understanding of audio could probably have guessed)

We can give servers more memory, claims Diablo. Well, sort of

Dr. Mouse

Why volatile?

I think these are a great idea, but why are they not non-volatile? This just makes them a slower, cheaper RAM. Why not make them non-volatile and allow them to be used "as a disk"?

Radian ready to replace the flash translation layer

Dr. Mouse

Interesting

FTL's were implements so we could just plug in an SSD and it works like a HDD. Great for simplicity, bad for extracting the best from the device. Filesystems are optimised for HDD-like access, but the FTL has to do a load of work to present flash like that, and will not be able to produce optimal results.

What would be much better is a virtually raw interface to the flash, with a filesystem optimised for flash. This system looks to be attempting a half-way house. It's an interesting idea, although I still think an optimised FS would do a better job.

Microsoft's Windows 10 Torrent-U-Like updates GULP DOWN your precious bandwidth

Dr. Mouse

Re: Sharing such files over the LAN should help...

You are right, the LAN side of this is a good idea. It will help in homes with multiple PCs, as long as their bandwidth between each other is greater than their internet bandwidth (e.g. not WiFi on the other side of a well-built house). If it's smart enough to check and select the most appropriate connection, I see no downside. They should make the setting obvious and easy to find, though.

However, sharing back out on to the web is nothing more than MS trying to cut down on their bandwidth costs, pushing that cost on to their customers. It should be either off by default or asked for on installation/first use, with warnings about bandwidth charges and a per-network setting (for those who are happy to enable it at home, but not when out on the road using a limited mobile internet connection)

EDIT: it seems that there is an option for this, although from what people say it's not obvious.

Dr. Mouse

Re: +1 for Linux (And sharing malware in 5 4 3)

I'm pretty sure I remember a torrent-based apt, but it is not the default.

Automattic says spooks asked for something it can't reveal

Dr. Mouse

Re: Exposing Enemy Action?

posts seemingly intelligent comments based on parsing the text in the article and other comments, sometimes with more success than others

Isn't that what we all do? It also makes more sense than some "human" commenters on here at times...

Wi-Fi 'reflector' hooks you up at 0.1 per cent of current power budget

Dr. Mouse

Re: Science is just awesome

And anything that reduces power consumption should be greeted with open arms anyway.

But will it? I would think that the same amount of power would be used overall, at least, but the requirements are moved from one place to another. So in, say, a wearable, it means that device doesn't consume as much energy, but the access point (which could be a phone) will consume more.

Are you a Tory-voting IT contractor? Congrats! Osborne is hiking your taxes

Dr. Mouse

"The concept is that the income has already been taxed (when it was company profit) so to tax it again would be double taxation"

So how is it any different from a salary?

It is different from a salary because it has already been taxed (as corporate profits).

When a company pays your salary, they pay no corporation tax on that amount because it is an expense. When you take dividends from a company, it comes from the profits of that company, which are taxed.

So to make someone pay full income tax on dividends would mean that corporation tax is paid (at 20%), then income tax (at 20%+ above your personal allowance). You would be taxed twice.

Although, to be honest, I think they should do away with taxing companies completely. Make all tax payable by individuals at standard income tax rates. It would remove a lot of loopholes and simplify the tax system immeasurably.

Dr. Mouse

"Most contractors become contractors for the independence and extra cash, not the possibility of tax avoidance."

This is true, but misses one point: Tax them more and they have less extra cash.

The rule of thumb my father, and others, have always used is that take-home pay (so after taxes, expenses etc.) from contracting should be approximately double that from permanent work. This is to compensate for the uncertainty. This extra money should be put aside so that you have something to fall back on when you run into a time when you cannot find a contract.

Now, if the taxes are higher, the rates will have to increase to cover this. If clients are unwilling to pay the extra, some contractors will look for permanent employment instead. The extra pay compensates for the risk, and if they can't get as much money, will it still be worth the risk?

Gates: Renewable energy can't do the job. Gov should switch green subsidies into R&D

Dr. Mouse

Re: Stop proposing....

"People lived everywhere before aircon."

People also lived most places before central heating, electricity, cars, paper... That doesn't mean we should get rid of them.

It's easy for us Brits to slam people using air conditioning, as it rarely gets so hot that it is needed. But when you look at hot places, they would be much less comfortable and much less productive without it. There would also probably be more deaths.

Take a look at, for instance, Qatar. My friends just returned from an 18 month spell out there. In the middle of summer, it reached 50+ degrees C. Now, I know that the indigenous peoples survived without AC there for a long time, but they were a much smaller population, did not live as long, suffered much larger child and elderly mortality rates... Surely using a little electricity to reduce deaths and support a larger, more productive population is worth it?

BT: Let us scrap ordinary phone lines. You've all got great internet, right?

Dr. Mouse

Re: Great! Even more load on my overstretched

If they were to get rid of the USO to require a POTS line, they would have to replace it with one to require an internet connection capable of supporting voice. It would need to be a matter of "you must provide a voice connection to any property".

As for all the other arguments here, I don't see the issue. Getting rid of the POTS requirement would increase the available bandwidth for xDSL. They could make it a requirement that all DSL routers supplied have a VoIP connection and a battery backup capable of lasting 24h. All lines must include a VoIP connection tied to the property.

That's the only way I can see that they should be allowed to drop the POTS requirement from their USO.

Facebook frees Messenger from its gilded cage

Dr. Mouse

Still, it'd be great if these companies stopped trying to reinvent XMPP

And SIP, and 101 different open standards which would let people communicate with each other in a seamless manner.

Just imagine if Messenger/Whatsapp/iMessage/Skype all ran on open standards. They could all integrate with each other, and it wouldn't matter which platform you used. You could communicate from PC, Laptop, Tablet or Phone with anyone, no matter what software each decided to use.

OK, dreaming over...

Carbon nanotube memory tech gets great big cash dollop

Dr. Mouse

Re: Expect hibernation and shutdown times to be *loooong* on company laptops.

If this is used in place of DRAM, it will be necessary to zero all the memory prior to sleep or shutdown to prevent embarrassing data loss in the event of a stolen laptop... unless we start encrypting memory contents, that is.

I think, with this kind of tech, we would need to start thinking in a very different manner.

If it, or one of the alternatives, proves to be as good as claimed, we will no longer have RAM and storage. They will be the same thing. So yes, we would probably need to start putting encryption on RAM as we do on storage devices. There would need to be transparent decryption in hardware.

However, we already have the same vulnerability as you are talking about in current tech, just slightly different. As I understand it, if the contents of a disk is encrypted, it is read through a driver and stored in RAM in an unencrypted form, at least for a short time. Now think of the number of users who just put their laptop to sleep: This will keep the contents of the RAM. Someone can come along, swipe the laptop, "freeze" the SODIMMs, transplant them to another machine and read the data. It is not quite so simple, of course, but it can be done.

So, if transparent encryption is baked in to the specification, there is actually a reduction in the vulnerability to data theft: All data on the non-volatile RAM is encrypted on write, decrypted on read. If they transplant the modules, they can only read encrypted data (assuming the key is stored elsewhere, preferably with a passcode of some kind to access it, and preferably in a secure element with a low probability of being hacked).

Therefore I humbly submit for your consideration that this could very well end up making our systems MORE secure.

Power your temperature sensor with this BONKERS router hack

Dr. Mouse

Re: Energy Efficiency @ dr. Mouse

"but the places you mention will mostly never fall below the traffic treshold mentioned in the article."

But what about the odd occasion when they do? Would they want the sensors to stop working just because, say, the fire alarm goes off in the warehouse or the airport has had to be cleared out because of a bomb scare? It may sound trivial in comparison to a bomb scare, but that tiny extra use of power over a short term stops there being a gap in the data.

I agree, in the vast majority of cases this is a waste of time and energy. But in a few niche cases, a simple modification to existing tech could prove incredibly useful, as well as efficient.

Dr. Mouse

Re: Energy Efficiency

OK, let's get one thing straight from the start: This will always be an inefficient way to power a device. You are sending out a signal in all directions, wasting most of the power, and receiving a fraction of it somewhere.

However, when the router is transmitting for other purposes (e.g. what it was designed for, providing a WiFi signal)), this power would be lost anyway. Therefore it is an improvement to capture and use it. The problem comes when it is being powered outside it's normal use.

Now, in a normal domestic setting, the transmitter probably remains off for the vast majority of the time. So this scheme would likely be very inefficient. However, think of busier places, like office blocks, retail premises, transport hubs, distribution centres. All of these tend to have WiFi, and they will be running a hell of a lot more than your average domestic set up. The overall efficiency of it as a power distribution system will increase a hell of a lot. I don't have numbers, but I suspect that in a 24/7 operation with WiFi "constantly" in use and many small sensors dotted around, it could exceed 100% (i.e. most of the power is captured from wasted power in WiFi signals transmitted anyway).

Google: Our self-driving cars would be tip-top if you meatheads didn’t crash into them

Dr. Mouse

Re: Yup...

As a biker, you develop a "sixth" sense as to the behaviour of other road users very quickly - either that or you become road-kill.

I agree. It is amazing how much the realisation of imminent pain/death can improve your perception.

My bike instructor put it this way: If you have an accident in a car, you'll dent the bodywork. If you have one on a bike, it's going to f*****g hurt! This is a great motivator to be aware of your surroundings, notice the guy on the roundabout who has not spotted you, back off approaching a blind bend, and beware of sheep who think that the best place to be on a foggy day is sat in the middle of the road.

Insurer tells hospitals: You let hackers in, we're not bailing you out

Dr. Mouse

Re: Hope this one sticks

I can't see licensing working. The tech changes far too rapidly.

It is not quite as fast, but the medical profession also advances at quite a rate. It is up to doctors to keep their skills and knowledge up to date with the latest advances in their field.

The same goes in IT. I spend vast amounts of my own time looking at new tech. Partly because I enjoy it, but mainly because it is necessary for me to do my job well. If we are starting a new project and I have missed a new, ideal piece of tech, I will not be able to do my job as well as I should.

Personal professional development should be part of every professional's schedule. The rapid advance of technology, in itself, does not rule out licensing and regulation.

Private cloud has a serious image problem

Dr. Mouse

Re: According to recent Gartner data,

I always thought the use case was about re-ordering the contents of your fridge and monitoring it's energy usage, as for the toaster who knows, perhaps it needs to express its feelings.

Toaster: Howdy doodly do. How's it going? I'm Talkie, Talkie Toaster, your chirpy breakfast companion. Talkie's the name, toasting's the game. Anyone like any toast?

Lister: Look, I don't want any toast, and he doesn't want any toast. In fact, no one around here wants any toast. Not now, not ever. No toast.

Toaster: How 'bout a muffin?

Lister: Or muffins. Or muffins. We don't like muffins around here. We want no muffins, no toast, no teacakes, no buns, baps, baguettes or bagels, no croissants, no crumpets, no pancakes, no potato cakes and no hot-cross buns and definitely no smegging flapjacks.

Toaster: Aah, so you're a waffle man.

Ofcom: Oi, BT! Don't be greedy – feed dark fibre to your rivals

Dr. Mouse

In addition, IIRC BT have favourable rules about business rates on fibre. I can't remember all the details, but I believe it was something along the lines of BT have preferential rates, along with only having to pay for lit fibre, where others have to pay for all fibre lit or not.

(Note as I say, I can't remember the details, but I do remember that there was an advantage along these lines)