* Posts by John Brown (no body)

25246 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2010

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System at the heart of scaled-back £30m Sheffield University project runs on end-of-life Oracle database

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: At Ian 55, re: expensive upgrade...

The age of the database and its support status really ought to have little to no bearing on something like that. You build that kind of security around your crown jewels. Just look at what is still running in the bowels of most banks!

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Other RDBMS are available

"And these people are educating students?"

No, they are business managers. The people educating the students would make an even bigger hash of it because every single one of them would refuse to change how they work and insist on not only their own long-standing and familiar processes be accommodated, but also every little whim and edge case they can think of :-)

Still reeling from the Great Facebook Blackout of 2021? Turns out Zuck is not the worst offender

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: "consumers are not so fortunate"

Yeah but, if there's no one to see an advert, does it really exist? (and get paid for?)

International Space Station fires rockets to dodge chunk of destroyed Chinese satellite

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Misleading headline!

Except, of course, that is the precise reason this (and many other) bit of space junk is there in the first place.

Google loses appeal against $2.7bn EU antitrust fine for distorting competition in price comparison websites

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: More balls

From what I read, the judge has disallowed the group action based on how that works in the UK because they can't show evidence of actual damage. But he did say that he thought individuals would be likely to be able to go ahead. I guess the bar must by higher for group actions.

As System76 starts work on its own Linux desktop world, GNOME guy opens blog, engages flame mode

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Desktops must be multiplied beyond necessity

So, are they building this to work on an unfinished Wayland base or an ancient X base? :-)

Swiss lab's rooftop demo shows sunlight and air can make fuel

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Ethanol

On the other hand, no need for fields of barley being used to make fuel instead of feeding people :-)

And anyway, we need somewhere for ex-PMs to run through.

NASA delays crewed Moon landing until 2025, citing technical infeasibility

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: So NASA will *never* make it to the Moon

"With that said, once Starship (and Moonship) get going, Congress will have less of a reason for politics to dictate funding directions where space is concerned (subject to military dictates"

By then, they'll be throwing money at Musk to bring his production facilities to their States. Except Musk is never going to go with geographically widespread production and launch facilities. On the other hand, Bezos might have reached orbit by then, so they can try for him to. Maybe others will also be in the cheap launch, recover, re-use business by then too. But it's only ever going to to be the southern States, ideally with an Eastern coastline for wet aborts. The pork is no longer going to be spread thin across many States. That probably means less Govt. funding for space and more into defence and infrastructure.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Happy

Re: So NASA will *never* make it to the Moon

"Given the rate of progress that SpaceX has shown it can pull off, I'm not exactly certain that they won't pull off a manned lunar mission before NASA."

I must admit, it'd be quite funny for SpaceX to provide NASAs moon lander to them, fully tested by actually landing it on the Moon :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Dust off Apollo

And in the middle, if you are an astronaut with access only to a broken toilet.

It started at Pixar. Now it's the Apple-backed 3D file format viewed as HTML of metaverse

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Jpeg

"If, at contrario, it ends up in a format war, ala HTML, Betamax/VHS etc, not much will really happen."

Something will happen. Most likely, the least technically useful format will win because there's more ways to make money from it.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: A question

Not to mention all the SF films showing people waving their arms around to move files and stuff in a virtual 3D interface. It looks like a boring old file management task could become a decent upper body workout :-)

Attach a treadmill and you can run down the length of your backup looking for that file yet another user managed to accidentally delete. The nerds and geeks can be the new bodybuilders of the future! Beef and brains! Get the girls! What's not to like?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: A question

"As it is looking like VR metaverses are the latest bandwagon that everyone, his dog, cat and budgie is jumping into, I assume that if the world's users fall for the hype, there will be a huge increase necessary in processing power and servers to run this/these new universe/s."

If this had been hyped 2 years ago, we'd all be accusing NVidia of trying to create a new and more volatile market for their products. Looking at the GFX card market at the moment, getting into a 3D VR Metaverse could be expensive. Oh wait....

Rolls-Royce set for funding fillip to build nuclear power stations based on small modular reactor technology

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Strangely, my first job as a field service engineer involved a contract for PC and printer maintenance for a firm of quantity surveyors involved in building THORPE so I had a few trips over there myself. I wonder if it was the same one, F+G? (They seem to have grown a lot and diversified since then too)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Well, not quite "news". Although the article doesn't appear to be dated (maybe because I have scripts blocked), but from that article, "led by the US engineering firm URS, which is contracted to manage the LLWR to 2018,", so I suspect it's from at least a few years before that. I can't find anything more current, so can't tell if things have improved or nor yet.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Joke

Re: Low hanging fruit

"Still, as the ICE replacement is under way we'd better get the lead out "

We already did switch to unleaded, years ago :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Coat

Re: not so scalable

"hence a UK design will need to meet both UK and whatever-you-have-elsewhere regulations."

Yeahbut, isn't that the prime tenet of Brexit? Bring back our sovereignty, get rid of European rules blah, blah, blah.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: One million homes - I don't think so

"That's what facilities like Dinorwig are for."

You might need a few more of those if the articles numbers are used as the basis for future planning. You have to plan for peak usage, not just average daily usage.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Feels a bit late now...

"but it does at this point feel rather like something we should have started doing 25 years ago."

IIRC, it's been talked about for at least that long, but no one seems to have bothered so far. I suspect it's more about sweating assets, known tech and the incumbents only changing when being forced to do so. Likewise, as part of all of that, industry doesn't like to invest until it become urgent and they can say they need government grants to get started. The tech for small nuclear reactors has been around since the first nuclear powered submarines were launched.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"1. Process part-used fuel and extract the unused fuel from the fission products to make new fuel (i.e. concentrate it). This is a good thing and a bit of a no-brainer ... but some of those byproducts are toxic, dangerous to handle, and require careful (and costly) storage and disposal."

Isn't that what the now defunct THORPE at Sellafield was for? IIRC, much of the world was sending stuff there to be re-processed.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"far higher safety outcomes than any other type of plant."

IIRC, the "natural" radioactive emissions from coal plants into the environment was significantly higher than what was defined as "safe" for nuclear plants. Coal = safe, Nuclear = OMG DANGEROUS is part of why nuclear is vastly more expensive. As others have pointed out, newer technology can be a lot safer and a lot cheaper and I'd much prefer a nice, decent, reliable and constant base load. Wind and solar are not that. Cloudy calm days across almost the entire UK are not unheard off. And despite the promise of wave and tidal going back to the 1960's which the UK should be well ahead in, we really don't seem to be getting any further than a few very small scale prototypes, often, ironically, for environmental objections (remember the huge campaign against wind turbines lead by the RSPB "because kills birds" that seems to have gone away now?)

Oh, Comcast. An Xfinity customer and working from home? Maybe not this morning

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Facepalm

"Like McGuire, The Register has asked Comcast for an explanation for today's impressive outage..."

"If you fucking people would stop fucking interrupting me for fucking status updates, the fucking job will get done fucking faster. Now FUCK OFF and let me work!"

Truck, sweet truck: Volvo's Chinese owner unveils methanol/electric truck with bathroom and kitchen

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Just don't use it in Europe!

Thanks, that does make it more clear. I drive a car, and our company has a 2hr limit on driving, we have to take a 15 minute break. I usually find a services or roadside cafe, have a wander around, have a coffee. But finding somewhere to pull over and have a walk is much easier in a car, and the vast majority of the time, I'm sleeping in my own bed at night. On rare occasions, it might be a hotel.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Thanks, that was an interesting read. On the other hand, it seems local planning is part of the problem too, so, as I said, it's not ALL the Govts. fault. It's a large and wide ranging problem with multiple causes, including, according to that article, the profit-centric nature of the UK, which matches my comment about lorry park owners want their multiple international holidays :-)

Also, as a campaigning website, there was no mention of successful or new lorry park planning applications. It'd be interesting to see if that is a smaller or larger number than the rejected ones.

As I'm not involved in the industry, the only new one I can comment on is the new Services on the M1 extension just outside Leeds. north of the M62 junction since I pass there frequently and occasionally stop there, Oh yes, and the relatively new one further up, on the A1(M) at Wetherby.

I believe there are or were plans for a services just north of Borobridge too, just off a Motorway junction, that some locals were opposed to for no obviously good reason since it's a few miles north of the town and literally just off the junction.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Methanol as a store of energy for a fuel cell

Yeah, but the energy used to create it will, eventually, be from green renewable, so it's easily transported and stored using existing infrastructure. Setting up charging stations everywhere could well be less efficient, especially in more rural areas.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Methanol as a store of energy for a fuel cell

extra weight = more fuel needed to move the truck, admittedly likely not that much to the overall mass of a lorry but it must be considered."

Just ban the drivers from eating Yorkies, weight problem solved.

(cue the outrage :-))

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"It's easy to improve the working conditions of HGV drivers, the British government just doesn't want to."

It's not all their fault. The truck stop owners have to shoulder some of the blame. But then truckers don't want to pay too much either. I've no idea of the economics of running a truck stop. Land prices? Taxes? General running costs? Owners assuming they are owed a couple of international holidays per year so won't invest in facilities?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: sorta like a motor home instead of a sleeper cab

"I would have included a diesel generator to at least partially re-charge while you sleep."

For the sort of trips you mentioned, which are also a thing in other parts of the world too, ie could be days between charging points, yes, some form of charging while parked up is going to be a must. Or, as per the article, hybrid rather than full electric. I wonder how much charge an over-day sleep break and driving at night would help? I'm thinking solar panels across the trailer roof too, where possible. Maybe in places like Oz with long, straight outback roads. I've no idea if that's a bad idea from either the drivers point of view or night-time animal hazards in the dark.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Just don't use it in Europe!

They don't make it explicitly clear, but the inference from the clues in the text seems to indicate that this only applies to long stops, eg overnight or proper 2-day breaks and even more specifically to doing so in, eg a lay-by. It's certainly about time truckers were treated better and this sounds like a good start. Clearly the employers are doing nothing, so it's well past time for legislation to force them. Another good start would be more and upgraded truck-stops with decent shower blocks and bogs.

As for this new truck, I know some trucks are already a little like a mine-flat/studio apartment, but most of the ones I've seen seem to be poor attempts to jam scaled down "furniture" into available spaces. When you look at some of the incredible engineering that goes into caravans and camper vans, it makes you wonder why the truck builders aren't hiring those designers.

Super-rare wooden Apple 1 hand built by Jobs and Wozniak goes to auction

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Thumb Up

No, it's white. The background is green. Look closer :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Coat

"I suppose for that price, the thing will rest inside a glass box for the rest of its life,"

Well, yes, of course. At that age, there'll be DANGEROUS LEAD in the solder. Elf'n'Safety dontcha know. There's probably a hint of CARCINOGENIC chemicals too! (Note the SCARY CAPITALS)

Coat, rather than Joke icon, since to some, it might not be a joke, especially if the buyer is in California.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Yes, when I read "koa wood", I was wondering where Jonny Ive was back then.

(Was he a 10 year old child prodigy design genius back then?)

Another 100 space tourists buy a ride from Virgin Galactic: $25k of that ticket deposit is 'non-refundable'

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Don't you have to go into space in order to be an astronaut?

And not forgetting the potential for high speed sub-orbital point to point travel for those who can afford it.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Don't you have to go into space in order to be an astronaut?

"The 1%ers" is a moveable target, depending on the persons stating it, their agenda and the context. It might mean people in a specific country, region or the whole world, wage earners only, adults only, working age only or all people, amongst other definitions, which vastly changes who they are.

Why machine-learning chatbots find it difficult to respond to idioms, metaphors, rhetorical questions, sarcasm

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Thumb Up

Brilliant! Would you like a grant to develop your AI concept?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Gosh

You're comment is sick man! Or is it gay? Or maybe cool? Or hot? Or dope?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Chatbots' difficulty with cultural nuances is overrated

Just leave the cake out in the rain. Not sure how to deal with Bob. Maybe use him as a floating navigation aid?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: One word: DUH!

"(also why automatic translation of idiomatic language is likely to fail) because they rely on understanding."

Hence the often strange, sometimes funny, often just plain wrong auto-subtitles on YouTube videos. Not to mention the occasion outrage over some TV shows subtitles which in some instances have completely charged the whole meaning of the show and plot from the original language version.

Also why in diplomatic negotiations, both sides use their own translators and can spend months or years over fine details, and they still get it wrong.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Sarcasm

"Because nobody can accurately calculate humor."

Party because context is everything. Take a hilarious[1] line from a comedy show and drop it into a "straight" conversation, and odds are it won't be funny in the least. At a comedy show, you are expecting stuff to be funny and the line is mixed in with stuff that is also funny.

[1] for whatever your own measure of hilarious is.

Truckload of GPUs stolen on their way out of San Francisco

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: GPUs or Graphics cards?

I did, but clearly the author didn't.

After all, no one refers to the system board as a CPU, so why refer to a graphics card as a GPU?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Facepalm

GPUs or Graphics cards?

The headline and the constant references in the article to GPUs implies it was the chips on the way to the factory making graphics cards that were stolen, except for the quote by the NVidia guy who correctly refers to "graphics cards". I expect more from El Reg authors and editors.

You'll never guess who's been exploiting the ManageEngine service to steal passwords

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Out of curiosity...

Ah, OK, thanks. That's not something I was aware of and a Cert file being big enough that you can masquerade a web server as a cert seemed a bit odd :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Out of curiosity...

".zip files with a JavaServer Pages (JSP) webshell disguised as an x509 certificate"

...just how big is an x509 cert and how big are ".zip files with a JavaServer Pages (JSP) webshell ".

Angling (re)Direct: Criminals net website of Brit fishing tackle retailer, send users straight to smut site

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

currently directing 30,000 people a day to PornHub.

So, at the very least, Pornhub will see an uptick in their advertising revenue.

New year, new OS: OneDrive support axed for old versions of Windows from 1 Jan 2022

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Free cloud storage killed the home NAS companies

"however 4 500 gig sata drives later + 1 300 gig non raid HDD for booting"

With software RAID using ZFS, you can have root on that and boot from it. No need for the single point of failure of a separate boot drive.

Netflix shows South Korea a rerun of 'We Won't Pay Your Telcos For Bandwidth'

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Open Connect

"This will most likely be a caching server, I.e. first time someone watches a program it will take a copy then the next person who watches the same will be fed off the local server."

From looking into it, it seems that Netflix populate the caches off-peak and part of the requirement is a minimum speed rating for the cache server to talk to Netflix to guarantee Netflix data can get through. The type and size of caching server will depend on the ISP and their Netflix traffic levels. So I'd guess that Netflix must, at the very least, be tracking what is going through each ISPs caches and keeping them "topped up" with likely shows based on viewing habits. Of course, Netflix have precise details of what each customer watches and when and almost certainly know which ISP their customer is using so that may be moot anyway.

Pulling down a partition or knocking through a door does not necessarily make for a properly connected workspace

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Condemned

Joking aside, it would be det cord to be able to go with a bang, and that's non-conductive. It's a tube full of explosive :-) The NCB stuff that was half-inched would just be normal copper wire used to set off a remote electrical detonator.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Working on that..

"At that time it was just necessary to get it inspected and signed off."

It still works like that. Anything your side of the consumer unit is fair game, but you MUST have it checked and certified or you won't be able to sell the house or have valid insurance.

Calendars have gone backwards since the Bronze Age. It's time to evolve

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

The one in the West transept?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Hmm

"I don’t know what the answer is unless we go back to paper diaries….."

Bring back the Filo-fax!!!

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