Posts by Roland6 10727 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Apr 2010
Funny how just recently we were discussing this,
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/08/securing_opensource_software_whose_job/
A concern has to be, how to turn this seeming negative publicity into positive publicity: we know about this because it’s open source, if it were closed source/proprietary things are less certain.
> for an experiment, I took an expired passport and was told it wasn't a valid ID document. Why not?
Someone probably didn’t read the rules…
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/voter-id/accepted-forms-photo-id?gad_source=1&gclsrc=aw.ds
For financial transactions involving old people (who tend not to maintain their passports), I’ve used old passports endorsed by a solicitor as proof of id and that the person actually exists and is alive!
> 3) The intent is to at least somewhat cripple Chinese AI development.
A policy that worked so well with Russia… remember whilst we were able to throw cpu power at problems, the Russians applied their brains and came up with much more efficient approaches and algorithms that worked on the hardware we permitted them to have…
I hope allied governments demand the US match their words with money/investment and accept a ban on US companies taking over (either outright purchase or major stock holding) the now impoverished allied industries.
Otherwise expect companies such as ASML ring purchased for peanuts by US companies, relocated to the USA and then permitted to export to China et al.
> You wanted stability on the desktop back then, you used a Macintosh
Err no, for serious work, it was a Unix workstation: Sun, SGI etc. namely the platforms NT was pitched to compete against.
Distributions like Sun’s Solaris for x86 were attempts at putting a serious alternative to SCO Unix desktop on the x86.
If you follow the science, we should be mounting the panels vertically and back to back; the panels are typically 5% more performant in this configuration than the pitched installation currently in favour. This permits the panels to be mounted several metres off the ground with fewer supports enabling the land to be used more productively.
With electric vehicles sheep can graze the road verges and the meat be fit for human consumption…
The interesting thing, was the MIT research applied science to the economic models and policies being promoted by the pseudo science of economics and being used by politicians to run economies. What is noticeable is how the economists have been totally unable to fault the MIT work and instead ignore it…
> If the climate scientists are correct, then the world is already doomed.
If MIT are correct (their research validated 1970s forecasts, and a circa 2021 review revalidated with current economic data) then our entire resource and energy hungry economic system falls apart in circa 2040…
Given the requirement is for data centres, and looking at the size of the major operators, I suggest the operators can easily afford to provide the capital needed to enhance the public infrastructure (yes you pay we own, it’s just a variation on the “ taxpayer pays private enterprise owns and taxpayer pays to again to use” paradigm).
> Linux systems very rarely require actual reboots whereas Windows is the defacto condition.
Windows has greatly improved over the years - WS2019 is a noticeable improvement over WS2012.
The problem has been Exchange where some updates have had to be correctly sequenced due to dependencies and others have required the (exchange server) to be offlined and best conducted over a weekend rather than on-the-fly overnight. I don’t know how other mail servers (Linux, windows or other hosted) have handled updates and thus whether they are actually any better in this respect.
The trouble is t that people are deploying new systems on obsolete unsupported software, it’s that the new shiny software will become obsolete due to the provider.deciding to cease providing updates etc…
Remember part of the problem with Exchange is that Microsoft themselves tripped up on their roadmap and time.y delivery of replacements to Echange server whilst at the same time sticking to their arbitrary EOL dates for their existing products.
Open Source wasn’t originally commercial, it had to become commercial to survive and prosper, just one small example many are now able to download executables with their associated installers, rather than download (open) source code and compile it themselves.
> I doubt that it will be found in staking territorial claims that result in more forks and re-implementations
Interesting in this respect, how RedHat are effectively removing forks to encourage people to use £RedHat.
Obviously, a key consideration is how far RedHat can shutdown forks before their actions create a market backlash…
> As time progressed, the landscape of open source software underwent a significant transformation.
One of the big changes, that happened relatively early on, was the availability of executables and installers for the popular platforms, specifically the x86 Linux/Windows, so people no longer had to compile the code themselves, so open source very quickly went from something developers could read and utilise to commodity off-the-shelf products available to all.
> Instead, it was rooted in a philosophy of sharing, collaboration, and mutual benefit.
This is the “hippy” academic counter-culture thinking that Stallman crystallised in his free software advocacy, whilst this may have worked well within early 1980s academia, I’m not so sure how well it works within modern academia, which has become more interested in the IP and the potential earnings from that it, that its staff create.
Bit barns need (a few) workers and some customers demand low latency communications (eg. Stock brokers), so additional development will be required.
So the current practise of locating nuclear power stations in remote places is probably not sustainable, perhaps the time is to turn this on its head…
Given the UK is embarking on a programme of building new nuclear and the problems of getting grid connects into west London for all the bit barns people are wanting to build there. building a new nuclear power station amongst the west London bit barns is looking like a good idea…
> The UK acted much swifter in support of Ukraine.
It had to Brexit or not. NATO is effectively the UK and France backed up by the USA; as and when the US can gets its act together, put its ducks in a row and get a bill through both houses…
Ukraine is perhaps the first time NATO members are having to respond to a situation for which it was established…
> Not very reassuring, especially as I'd left my laptop in my room.
Back in the 1990s my company supplied a Kensington lock with the laptop, with the directive always lock the laptop to the radiator pipe work or other fixing when
leaving it in a hotel room. (The other directive was to never leave the laptop at a clients premises overnight.)
In recent years my children took their laptops to university, each with a laptop lock and similar directives…
> In the first (usually) 3 years nothing other than consumables - with a gentle right foot I might still be on the original tyres and brake blocks
Possible with very low mileage.
With 25k miles per annum, it’s effectively a new set of tyres every 12~18 months, new brake pads every 18~24 months and discs every couple of years.
> Buy an older car and there's a very good chance that twice a year there's something needing a costly repair or replacement.
Personally, I don’t regard replacing the battery as costly, there are other much more expensive parts that need to be replaced. Basically, I aim to run my cars for 250,000 miles. Over this duration, I expect to have a lot more money left in my pocket compared to purchasing/leasing a new car every ~3 years.
> I'm typing this on a laptop which is about 9 years old
I am typing this on a 2 year old laptop that was purchased to replace an 11 year old W7 laptop. I had hoped, this rather over spec laptop would last as long, but given the rush to “AI”, I expect it will need to be migrated to Linux if that is to be achieved.
So currently I love the power and ability to run VMs etc. but not looking forward to having to replace it etc in a year or so.
From what is in the public domain, these are more targeted at ensuring security management is taken seriously ie. The manufacturer needs to have policies and procedures, but no actual requirement for devices to be security hardened. Thus provided a vulnerable system has been assessed through a documented procedure and the results capatured, all is okay…
Note they stressed their software development was compliant, not the resulting product…
I was wonder what exactly the Trade Secrets were, as clearly the patent(s) are not sufficient to build a production line.
Suspect they are sorts of things that someone experienced in the building of continuous manufacturing systems would be familiar with, but have to be derived (trial and error?) for a specific process.
For example from the patents they talk about precision but don’t actually give exact numbers that a production engineer would dial in when setting up a new production line. I can see those details being regarded as Trade Secret..
Potentially both were employed when Hibar patented their “ Method for filling electrolyte into battery cell and apparatus for carrying out the method” patent.
The court filing is quite interesting and readable (!)
They formed a company in China that manufactures potentially patent infringing equipment, but this is being used as supporting evidence to the theft of Trade Secrets.
What is interesting and if fully backed by evidence highly incriminating, is the email quoted and discussed on page 6 of the court filing (PDF linked in article at “feds allege”)
“I wanted to mention that I do have a lot of original documents, but of course only from before 2009”
Obviously, the issue of NDAs is covered - see paragraph 8 starting on page 4.
> BT/EE has offered it for a while.
Not that long, during lockdown had to rig up my own router (draytek) to EE to provide this functionality.
For many (including myself) this failover is more a maintain a basic level of connectivity than totally transparent.
For myself it’s 40mpbs FTTP to a 4~10Mbps 4G connection, via the 4G antenna on the roof (4G dongle in back of router that’s a 1~3mbps connection).
(Nearest 4G mast 2+ miles away)
>” I think the figures are wrong though, £70 of (road) diesel is about 45 litres, or about 150kWh. … That's a really huge daily consumption!”
https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-pg3800a-euro-5-3kva-single-voltage-230v/
15 litre tank, 8.2hours running time. Hence 45 litres per day.
However, there are quieter and more fuel efficient generators available at a similar price.
The questions are: how long was it before the electricity was reconnected and how much did they pay for the installation of the FTTP…
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