* Posts by John Brown (no body)

25255 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2010

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Non-binary DDR5 is finally coming to save your wallet

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"I would think "non-binary" would be tri-state memory, right?"

I opened the article expecting to find some fairly major leap in RAM technology and all I got a was some non-standard RAM packages :-(

With Mastodon, decentralization strikes back

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Standards

Yep, something I've talked about many times over the years. Imagine if you needed to subscribe to a different service or even a buy a different TV for each channel. Oh, wait. we're rapidly heading that way now :-(

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"Personally I'd argue that Usenet fits the bill perfectly, but you're right."

Even Usenet has sorta been borged into a few very large providers. Few, if any, ISPs run a news server these days, something they pretty much all used to do. Many ISPs don't even offer email nowadays, and if they do it's often a branded gmail or similar. Likewise, webspace. ISPs aren't real;y "service" providers any more. The are ICPs or Internet Connection Providers.

Should open source sniff the geopolitical wind and ban itself in China and Russia?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"If releasing a piece of software to the bad guys would make the situation worse for someone, then that could be weighed against the benefit to the good guys before a decision is taken about releasing source code."

Not enough "experts in the field" to do that, so it will be politicians and civil servants wielding the rubber stamps, so most likely it will inconvenience honest and "good" people while the "bad" people will still obtain what they need one way or another.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Keep politics out of open source

I have memories of certain encryption methods on the banned from export listed as "munitions" from the USA. They were, of course, easy to get a hold of and s/w which had optional dependencies on it simply asked you if you were allowed to use it and, naturally, happily compiled and ran with the "banned" encryption included, no matter where in the world you lived.

Miniature nuclear reactors could be the answer to sustainable datacenter growth

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Happy

Re: Whoa whoa whoa

"Anon, because you don't need to know."

:-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Whoa whoa whoa

"After COVID, nobody is laughing at Preppers anymore."

Yes, we are. We really are :-)

The vast majority of "preppers" are just wannabes playing at it. They are the ones with targets on their backs if it ever comes to "the apocalypse"

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: What about the operational costs?

"So having the power generation at the point of demand, with any extra being fed into the grid does seem like a serious option."

I wonder what the security costs of having an SMR on site would be compared to putting multiple ones on a single site and upgrading, where required, the local power lines and having only one security problem and one set of Nimbys to deal with? In an over populated country like the UK, I'd imagine it might be better to simply add them to existing nuclear sites already secured by Civil Nuclear Constabulary

Computing's big question for 2023: How many more questions can we endure?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: With every Amazon order:

"50 Try Amazon Prime free for X days."

My wife does that every 3-4 months or so. She (and sometimes me) binge-watch anything new and interesting that might have shown up since the last one and she has a carefully curated calendar/reminder set up to cancel before any payments are taken. She also saves up her shopping basket to get the free/next day delivery options while the free Prime trial runs. She's very good and now well practised at cancelling it. It's a just learned skill like with any other problem. She says it's a bit like playing an adventure game :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Coat

Re: A depressing list

"That was a very accurate and depressing article on the state of play."

I do like Edgy humour :-)

New York gets right-to-repair law – after some industry-friendly repairs to the rules

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Perspective

"A simple security fix should not slow a phone down."

Unless it's "fixing" predictive branching, rowhammer or whatever hardware CPU vulns have been discovered over the last few years that apply to ARM etc. Other than that, yes, those "slow down security fixes" do seem to coincide with when the OEM decides it's time for us to upgrade.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Oops, I missed a word out there.

"is about 60% to 100% MORE than just buying a new laptop."

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

In some cases, parts cost is already silly. You can buy all the "spares" required to repair anything on a particular brand of laptop. So many part that you can actully buy everything you need to build an entirely new laptop. The total cost of all those spares, bearing in mind it's now a self-assemble device with pretty much no warranty, is about 60% to 100% than just buying a new laptop.

Back in the day, I was given a broken Commodore Vic 20. I then bought a "spare part" replacement '64 system board for about 1/10th the price a Commodore 64 full system. It made upgrading a Vic20 to '64 highly economic at the time. Yes, the PSU, case and keyboard was fully compatible between the Vic20 and '64 :-) Nowadays, spares are an income stream and often unique to model,

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Perspective

My car came with a 7 year warranty. Unfortunately it was also limited to 100,000 miles so expired in a little over 2 years :-(

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Narp

Actually, no. The only two items I remember failing during a warranty period are a bread maker about 10 years ago and a filter/espresso coffee machine about 5 years ago. Both were no longer available from the retailer and I got a full refund in both cases, no questions asked, well within the two warranty period. Neither,, of course, were IT related or even electronics as such. The heating element failed in the coffee machine and the drive mechanism for the mixing paddles in the bread maker. All actual IT or electronics equipment I've bought in the last 10 years or so is either still working or replaced because I needed something better.

Oh, just remembered. My Rasberry Pi 4 died on me. It still seems to boot, but keeps corrupting the filesystem. And no, it's the microSD card. I tried a couple of others. I'm currently running Kodi on an ancient laptop plugged into the TV via VGA and it's sort of limping along, dropping video frames 'cos it can't quite keep up. Better under Linux than Windows, I tried both. Most likely because the CPU/GPU can't quite cope of X265.

Nexperia calls in the lawyers to save Welsh chip fab deal

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: What about Japan?

Vague memories of an earthquake and the sudden realisation that the only company making the special glue to stick the chip to the substrate was no longer producing that vital part of the process seems to ring a bell.

India sets USB-C charging deadline for smartphones

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: So much for "Brexit freedoms" eh ?

Not really, because future changes in standards is already embedded in the EU mandate on USB-C charging. It's actually one of the better examples of a good standard with future proofing and poor example of the "slow bureaucracy" so often exhibited by government of all types.

Risk-averse Kyocera gambles nearly $10b of own shares on semiconductor growth

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: While many know Kyocera for its ruggedized smartphones

I did have a nagging sense of that, but wasn't sure enough to mention in.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

While many know Kyocera for its ruggedized smartphones, tablets, or perhaps its office equipment,

Um...wot? I must admit to never having really thought about it, and it's common for these big far eastern conglomerates to have their fingers in all sorts of pies, but I can, with hand on heart, say I've never associated the brand Kyocera with anything other than printers.

Intel settles to escape $4b patent suit with VLSI

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: "investigate the validity of the company's patents"

Isn't that why superstring and gluons where invented?

Southwest Airlines blames IT breakdown for stranding holiday travelers

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Facepalm

Who, me?

"chief operating officer Andrew Watterson...blamed the extended delays and cancellations on outdated scheduling software,"

Who, if not the COO, would be the final sign off on keeping the systems up to date?

See title.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Outdated scheduling software?

Have you done it yet? I know an airline that might be interested :-)

University students recruit AI to write essays for them. Now what?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: ChatGPT - Hmm -- and spell checkers

I saw a good one the other day. Someone was writing about having enough money to tied him over to the weekend :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: ChatGPT - Hmm -- and spell checkers

"To often"

Deliberate to make the point? Or just that every post about spelling must have it's own spelling misteak 'cos it's the law?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Marvelous

Bullshit Bingo will become too easy. We'll need a new game :-(

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: What is not on the Internet cannot be used as AI/ML input to produce "scholarly" papers

IIRC, there was a big hoo-hah over Google scanning stuff and making it or excerpts available that was in copyright. I very much doubt they deleted everything. They will have complied with the law in public, but what they are doing behind closed door is possibly another matter with regard to using datasets for training.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: ChatGPT - Hmm

"Lack of learning: Using AI to generate essays does not allow students to develop their own skills and knowledge. Instead, it promotes a reliance on technology and shortcuts, rather than encouraging students to think critically and engage with the material."

Yes, that was my thought too. It's all well and good saying students can learn to write better essays by revising and editing an AI generated one, but will they really learn the subject better if they don;t write the original before reaching the revising and editing stage? Most subjects are not actually about the writing unless they are studying the language or literature or the "arts" in general in the first place. The act of planning it out and actually writing/typing it out helps set the facts and other information in the brain and allows for processing the information at a lower rate, revising and editing internally as you go along. Being a good communicator is, of course, part of most subjects where essays or presentations are required, but that is subsidiary to the actual course content.

There was also a point made in the article about spelling. It's not taught so much because people have spell checkers. Yeah, that's blindingly obvious from many writings on the internet in general and "social media" in particular where people either don't have a spell checker or don't bother to take the time to use one.

Tesla driver blames full-self-driving software for eight-car Thanksgiving Day pile up

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: FSD ≠ Autonomous

I think he's referring to the "rope/chaser light" or "Knight Rider" style indicators where instead of a light flashing on/off its a bar-like arrangement that lights in sequence from inside to outside to indicate which direction the car is turning. Pointless bling of course, because the location of the flashing light is legally mandated such that it already indicates the direction of turn. They are probably also hugely expensive to replace with OEM only parts too.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Appropriate use?

"there is zero chance I'd ever be using FSD in a tunnel. "

Yeah, that struck me as odd too. Also the suggestion the Tesla made one or more "unsafe" lane changes, which I'd not expect a Tesla on FSD to do (although I have no experience with the system). Part of Teslas automation includes GPS, which tends not work in tunnels and AIUI, this was a big, long tunnel.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"If necessary, tap the brakes to wake them up"

And if that doesn't work, wash their windscreen for them. After they get the overspray from my screen washers a few times, they almost always back off :-)

(not so useful on rainy days, of course :-))

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: FSD ≠ Autonomous

"The highway code is not the law."

Sort of true. It's a plain English interpretation of the law and generally accepted as "the law". If you have a dispute over it, you can go to the statute books for the definitive definition and if necessary, get lawyers and a judge involved if you feel really strongly about it. But odds are that a judge will point to The Highway Code and suggest you go read it again.

"Many of the rules in The Highway Code are legal requirements, and if you disobey these rules you are committing a criminal offence. You may be fined, given penalty points on your licence or be disqualified from driving. In the most serious cases you may be sent to prison. Such rules are identified by the use of the words ‘MUST/MUST NOT’. In addition, the rule includes an abbreviated reference to the legislation which creates the offence.

Although failure to comply with the other rules of The Highway Code will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, The Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts to establish liability. This includes rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’ or ‘do/do not’.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Rear end equals fault of car in back?

"is the blame really solely assigned to the car in the back in the UK?"

Absent any other evidence or offences, generally yes. Although if it's a no injury bump, odds are the Police will take no further action and write it up as "insurance companies to deal with it".

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: FSD ≠ Autonomous

That sounds like it could be fun drinving around the country roads of Cornwall :-)

Since humans can't manage fusion, the US puts millions into AI-powered creation

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Nothing new.

While I fully agree that this method is not likely to be the solution to cheap fusion power, taking the analogy to the extreme, we've just reached the stage of the first artillery cannon, ie a controlled explosion in a cylinder, a long way from the 1000's per minute needed to make a car work, let alone the fuel feed methods and chemical energy translation into motion :-)

On the other hand, other methods are being tried and there's a lot more money and brain power going into this research :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Nothing new.

"Magnetic confinement still seems to be the more scalable option."

Agreed. That's I left myself a get out clause with "Or whatever method is used" :-)

Merry Crimbo!

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Eliza has done that for decades!!

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

The only remaining problem is while the "sophisticated pattern matching" is analysing the fuckton of data, how do we tell if the AI is badly programmed and is missing some of the patterns we really need to know about? Designer/programmer bias is a real issue in cases like this.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Nothing new.

"What everybody seems to have ignored about that gain of about enough energy to boil 3 kettles is the single use fuel capsules are hand made in gold and cost about $10,000 each."

True, but then the early internal combustion engines were hand made, didn't work all that well and only the very, very rich could afford to build a car around them. Fusion isn't even at that stage yet, but cars are affordable for many, many people these days. If and/or when sustained fusion reactions become possible, the infrastructure for making the fuel pellets or whatever method is used then will become a mass production problem, not a hand crafted, one at a time operation.

Too big to live, too loved to die: Big Tech's billion dollar curse of the free

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Serves Google right

It's entirely possible that at some stage, one or more of those Google accounts, by default, has created a gmail account for you. It might be worth searching your archives as you would likely have been notified at some stage.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Advetising is grossly overestimated

"More of a mokapot and supermarket ground coffee to start the day myself."

Oh yes, to be clear, proper coffee at home. It's a bit more of a faff on the road though, so instant in those cases.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Advetising is grossly overestimated

"the drip of subscriptions,"

The funniest one is when marketing uses phrases like "less than the price of a cup of coffee per day" to equate to cheap. But they mean the price of a Starbucks "coffee" at £2+ per day. Well, no. My coffee costs a lot less than that because i make my own coffee. I take a flask of hot water and some instant for on the road. That's a saving to me in the order of £300 per year for each of those "less than the price of a coffee per day" deals. £60 per year for each of "less than the price of a coffee per week" subscriptions too. The steady drip of "low cost" subscriptions very quickly add up to a significant amount of money per year.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Serves Google right

Yes, it's all well and good saying that Google are operating 1.8B gmail accounts, but I wonder what proportion are actual used accounts? I have a gmail account because I have to have one on my phone. It's a work phone and the gmail account is only there because it's "essential" to the operation of Android and the play store. I don't think I ever use it as an actual email account, I've certainly never given it out as a point of contact to anyone. I'd have to go into the account settings just find out what the email address is, never mind what the password is. It may be written down in the little black book in the attic/computer room/man-cave :-) That's probably the same for a significant number of users.

Don't lock the datacenter door, said the boss. The builders need access and what could possibly go wrong?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"Although I do have some suitable stories..."

Well, don't forget to click the mailto: link and let El Reg know :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: rebooting the system

The most recent one I remember is "disable the WiFi system", which could mean about five different things but could not mean what they wanted to say, which was "disconnect this USB-C cable which connects to a dock which has an ethernet cable connected to it"

"Users" seem to be regressing in their understanding of technical terms. "WiFi" means any and all forms of network connection to so many these days, be that Ethernet, actual WiFi or a mobile phone data connection on 3/4/5G :-/

BOFH and the office security access upgrade

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Ah, time management systems

"What? Really? I know there isn't a universal definition of what love is, but I don't think anything to do with bureaucracy can be described with that concept."

Sale and Marketing have, for many, many years bastardised the meaning of "loved". How often have you seen sales or marketing literature telling you how much you are going to "love" their product? Feedback forms asking on a scale of 1 to 5 how much you "love" some product or website? Personally, I'm always 100% honest on those sorts of things. I don't "love" anything inanimate. Hopefully it screws with their metrics.

LastPass admits attackers have a copy of customers’ password vaults

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: 2FA?

Exactly. Because who knows how well secured those sites are!

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: The all eggs in one basket problem...

in this instance, the sensitive data, ie the usernames/passwords, are only centralised if you choose that option. Otherwise that data is scattered across all the websites you use them on :-)

Except they are also centralised in your head/notebook/whatever :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: The cloud is just someone else's computer

"Very few of the outsourced HR sites are tied to your corporate login, for the excellent reason that they're legally obliged to give you access to your electronic payslips and the like for several years after you've left the company."

Are they? We changed providers for payroll a while back and were all sent repeated emails reminding us to download all our payslips and P60's etc before the switch as we'd no longer have access afterwards. I doubt anyone who had left the company in the meantime were told of that.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Someone Else's Password

Agreed, you don't need to fully understand how a tool works to use it. But having a least a basic understanding of the principles the tool is based on goes a long way to understanding how to use the tool properly and look after it. Like knowing the basics of clutch plates helps understand how not to burn out the clutch. Or how an LCD panel is made of layers and so realising just how delicate they can be, resulting in fewer broken laptop screens :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Someone Else's Password

I also did O level Computer Studies within a year or two of it first appearing as an official O level and the exam was a lot more than "colour in the the picture of the minicomputer". Maybe it was different exam boards, but what we did was proper Computer Studies with actual logic gate type questions and other real computer related stuff so long ago I don't remember now, a programming element completed as part of the course work in advance of the actual exam. Likewise the A level I did afterwards, the first year out school/exam board offered it. And that was hard too.

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