* Posts by Dave 126

10643 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

This Brit biz's seven-screen laptop is something to behold

Dave 126 Silver badge

And whilst we're waiting for the holographic display, the VR headset with an 8K per eye microLED display rumoured to be coming from a fruity company might serve as a reasonable stop-gap... if you can touch type!

Dave 126 Silver badge

Give it a year or so... Samsung Display is said to be ramping up production of laptop-size OLED screens for OEMs. OLED screens produce far less blue light than standard LED displays.

The potential for saving energy by using OLEDs (depends on drivers and colour scheme of desktop theme and applications) would be useful for this multiscreened machine.

Dave 126 Silver badge

> Would you want to try and unfold that on a train or in the car?

No, I wouldn't! It's clearly 'designed'* to be used with external power.

Outside film crews and military command types - folk who have a need for quickly deployable multiple screens and good ergonomics - tend to roll their own solutions from flight cases or Pelican cases.

*At the risk of denigrating the discipline of product 'design' by associating it with this laptop. I suspect it may have been designed to get attention, in which case it is successful.

Dave 126 Silver badge

ThinkPad W700DS dual screen

From 2008, the ThinkPad W700ds had a secondary portrait screen (same height as main screen ) that pulled out. It also had a Wacom digitiser built in to the left of the trackpad for good measure. (And a ThinkPad nipple, too!)

It was sold as a Mobile Workstation, and contained nVidia Quadra graphics.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Timber!

I'm with you, chivo243.

My first thoughts are that a flight case or Pelican case would be a better starting point for a multiscreened portable workstation.

This thing at 12 kilograms still has to be periodically stowed and removed from a protective bag (an awkward operation), whereas a flight case base design can just be 'unfolded'.

My other criticism of this design is that the ergonomics - as dicticated by the height of the keyboard above the desk, and the height of the main screen with respect to the keyboard - are not optimal. Again, a flight case design could use use a standalone keyboard.

So, flight case design advantages: quicker deployment, better ergonomics in use, more durable in transit, components such as keyboard easily swapped out.

How do we combat mass global misinformation? How about making the internet a little harder to use

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: That's the sort of thing

@illiad

It looks like you didn't even read @tiggity's first sentence in its entirety. He did not suggest that anyone trust Wikipedia.

I.e, use Wikipedia as a *starting point*, and explore the referenced sources.

Of course there is more to it than that, just as it can take experience to differentiate between a replicated science paper and one that is awaiting review.

No ports, no borders, no hope: Xiaomi's cool but impractical all-screen concept phone

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: No edge is a bad design

Weird, never had that issue on a curved screen S8... Maybe your grip sensor was malfunctioning? You can find the codes to enter the phones hardware test suite online

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: To quote the author it "looks cool"

It's extremely unlikely that Apple knowingly decided to go with poor reception in order to maintain an aesthetic - after all, the antenna issue was fixed in the iPhone 5, and that looked much the same as its predecessor.

Most likely, the radio antenna issue wasn't picked up in early user testing because the iPhone 4 test units were in a plastic case (to allow the test units to be used in public 'real world' situations without disclosing its appearance), a plastic case that mitigated the antenna issues just as the production bumper cases later would.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Reset hole?

> how do you reset something with no physical buttons when the OS crashes?

Hold a magnet to a specfic part of it for 5 seconds? True, you gotta go hunting, but no more so than when you needed a paperclip to get a floppy disc out if a Mac.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Specific use cases

Medical environments might benefit from devices that have no split lines or other crevices for bugs to hide in, and can be easily sterilised.

Shit, make the whole case from a transparent polymer or glass and build a suitable UV source inside it and the device can be self-sterilising.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Reset hole?

Capacitive buttons on the outside of the phone don't require an OS. More complex control circuitry than microswitches, for sure, but nothing that can't be made reliable enough for purpose (just as microswitches can be prone to failure if care isn't taken in their design.)

I've had a few phones or MP3 players suffer from dead microswitches over the years.

Ergonomically speaking, I'd take microswitches over capacitive soft keys - but that's a different issue.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Yes

The Sony Xperia Z phones had external charging pins, as did Moto Mod phones and the the old Nokias - much of the convenience of wireless charging, without the power efficiency issue (which is more of an issue for portable power banks than it is for mains charging). I guess wireless charging does have the advantage of interoperability between brands and models of phones.

Big data: Study suggests even a moderate gambling habit is linked to increased mortality and other bad stuff

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: increased mortality / likelihood of death

'Mortality Rate' by convention, "is a measure of the number of deaths in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time."

So yeah, as you say, number over time.

No doubt the actual paper will have stated their units.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: "the study is silent on these factors"

> All that is true, although one large difference is there aren't any multimillionaire prostitutes "donating" to our politicians.

Donations no, but said madams may have other forms of influence over MPs. That said, any wealthy prostitutes have, by definition, become wealthy under the current legislation, so don't have any financial reason to seek change (though they may of course have moral reasons to change the status quo).

And of course, successful madams or freelancers who service politicians aren't representing of the majority of sex workers.

Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit used by police

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Repeatable experiment

> The one in a billion is an ideal conditions number that prosecutors use to bamboozle the technically illiterate.

Given the world's population of 7 billion plus change, if I'm accused based solely on 'one in a billion chance of it not being my DNA on the dagger', I'd say that actually means there's a 6/7ths chance it was somebody else.

Japan’s COVID-19 contact-tracing app hasn't warned users of encounters with carriers since September

Dave 126 Silver badge

'World-beating' was the term the UK government used for their mate's tracing app - the one that didn't work. It's a different beast to the one currently deployed, which is built atop a joint Google and Apple effort.

Still, for some reason the current app won't work without 'location' turned on, and since this canes my phone's battery, I usually have location turned off. This is daft, because the core of the Google Apple system is Bluetooth proximity based, generating and storing tokens - location isn't needed for this to work.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Sociologists refer to cultures such as Japan's as being 'tight' - rule-abiding, culturally homogenous, community focused. Such cultures correlate with - and are suited to dealing - external threats such as likelihood of natural disasters or belligerent neighbours. On the flip side, 'loose' cultures which are more individualistic and diverse can be drivers of economic drivers.

Dave 126 Silver badge

> Is there any proof that contact tracing apps are useful in whatever country they are deployed?

You shouldn't be be looking for 'proof', but for 'evidence that strongly suggests that...'. There are too many variables between countries for proof.

Technology-based contact tracing alone is not a silver bullet, but it can be a very useful part of a wider, coordinated contact tracing effort, an effort that includes more old-scool techniques such as knocking on doors and asking questions. See recent issues of Private Eye for what a balls-up the UKs wider contact tracing effort has been. The issue goes back about a decade and the cut in funding to local health authorities meaning the local knowledge isn't on hand.

Even without an app, mobile phones give good population-level data to epidemiologists and policy makers - such as: How many people flee Paris for the country after restrictions are announced.

Apple offends devs by asking for Developer Transition Kits back early, then offering them a measly $200 off an M1 Mac

Dave 126 Silver badge

Any particular reason to use 'landfill' as a verb, instead of the more common 'scrap'?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: An M1 Mac Mini isn't going to break the bank

I'm not voting either way - it seems a dig into the agreement between the devs and Apple would be a prerequisite, along with a look at statutory rights in the relevant territories. Sales of Goods wouldn't cover a loaned device, and as I'm not a lawyer I don't know if the 500 dollar fee was for a service (which requires the device kit to actually work) or what.

I would imagine any serious Mac OS dev would want to have an M1 machine for testing, and this testing would be better on an actual Mac and not a dev kit.

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can do that: Microsoft unveils Custom Neural Voice – synthetic, but human-sounding speech

Dave 126 Silver badge

The magician (and technology first adopter, friend of Silicon Valley types like Gates and Jobs) Penn Juliette was presented with a magic trick where the contestant had trained an artificial voice on hundreds of hours of Penn Juliette speaking (from TV shows and podcasts). After performing the trick, the contestant told Penn that for erhical reasons he would delete the artificial voice - unless Penn would like a copy for himself.

Penn pointed out that he was the only person on Earth who had zero conceivable use for an artificial voice that sounded like Penn Juliette.

Nearly 70 years after America made einsteinium in its first full-scale thermo-nuke experiment, mystery element yields secrets of its chemistry

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: “It was discovered by accident in the debris in the first hydrogen bomb”

Well someone is channeling General MacArthur. Whilst nukes weren't used against Korea, it turned out napalm did a thorough job of razing the country to burnt earth.

Dave 126 Silver badge

I'm not convinced that the universe cares about which labels we stuck on each other.

Dave 126 Silver badge

They say Lemmium can't be killed by.. er, *created by* conventional weapons.

Nespresso smart cards hacked to provide infinite coffee after someone wasn't too perky about security

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: To be perfectly fair ...

In the States, the output of smaller, independant breweries used to be known as 'Regional Beers' before the Craft Beer tag was adopted to distinguish them from the big corporate players. Craft Beer is a legally defined term in the US, but has no meaning in the UK (though it often serves as a warning to the drinker). As jake notes, US craft beer isn't all overly hopped IPAs.

ThinkPad T14s AMD Gen 1: Workhorse that does the business – and dares you to push that red button

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Red pointy thing

The latest version of the Logitech MX mouse charges via its USB C port, but gives you the choice of a dongle or Bluetooth to connect.

Musk see: Watch SpaceX's latest Starship rocket explode while trying to touch down

Dave 126 Silver badge

"We don't like the term 'meltdown'. We prefer 'unrequested fission surplus'. " - Mr Burns

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Billionaire rocketman

Iscaacman will be the commander of the vessel, which in this case mostly means he has authority over the other occupants. The craft itself is controlled from the ground or by its computers.

The only real control the commander has is the big red lever which will, in the event of Something Bad happening during the launch, blast the Dragon capsule safely away from the launcher.

In wake of Apple privacy controls, Facebook mulls just begging its iOS app users to let it track them over the web

Dave 126 Silver badge

> Pollute your Faecesbook account with inaccurate information first

The metadata - your network of contacts - is likely of more value to Facebook than false data about your birthday or where you went on holiday.

It might take a bit longer to pollute your Facebook data *properly*, just saying.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: There is no choice

And how exactly does Apple monetise this supposed FB-level data slurp of theirs? Remember, they are doing very nicely from selling hardware and services, differentiated from competitors in part by their privacy policies.

Your chief logical fallacy is 'false equivalence', with touches of letting best be the enemy of good.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Shameless

> I'm still on Android, which is a massive info hoover of its own, I hope they will follow Apple's example in this though

Well, Google's business model is built around advertising. Apple's is built around hardware sales and paid-for services. You pays yer money and takes yer choice. You don't pay yer money, and yer choice looks more limited.

(You can of course substitute time and learning for money)

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: "...a unique per-user ID..."

> Whatever happened with those red phone booths at the corner of the street?

These days they tend to contain either a defibrillator, or else some books.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: the benefits of personalized ads

I mean, if I'm reading EastCheamGazette.com then the chances are that I live in or near East Cheam, and therefore the adverts for East Cheam Skip Hire or East Cheam Hairdressers won't be wasted on me.

The wonderful thing is, the East Cheam Gazette doesn't have to know a single thing about me in order to serve 'targetted' advertising. Just as a Guitar Player Weekly doesn't need to know anything about me in order for Fender to buy advertising space from them.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: the benefits of personalized ads

Likely the reverse. The likes of Facebook have taken advertising revenue that otherwise would have gone to local newspaper's online editions, but Facebook et al have refused to take on the responsibilities of a news publisher (journalistic standards, right of redress, fact checking etc).

So, if less targeted advertisements on Facebook make Facebook a less attractive place to advertise, one assumes that some advertiser's will spend a bit of their advertising budget elsewhere (including local news outlets).

i.e depriving Facebook of power probably helps more small businesses than it harms, and helps local democracy (you can't make a meaningful choice about councilors if you don't know their policies and local issues) into the bargain.

The Fat iPhone, 11 years on: The iPad's over a decade old and we're still not sure what it's for

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: ipad uses

Yeah it looked like porn, but porn with uncommonly high production values. Your fellow passengers might have thought you a pervert, but a sophisticated pervert.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Very little pro audio software is available for Android - the issue was originally due to the high latency in Android, which was appalling (around 80ms) until Android Marshmallow, and has been merely serviceable since. The first iPhone had a low latency of around 10ms from the get go (as well as wireless MIDI.)

https://superpowered.com/superpowered-android-media-server

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: It's for

It's for playing Civ VI on the sofa. Nuff said.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Phone for the living room

> Work? Maybe to replace a notepad. Couldn't imagine any other use case.

Can't you imagine use cases where multitouch is the best basis for the UI? Mixing desks, for starters. There's many more, if you stretch your imagination or keep your eyes open.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: It's for...

It's better than a laptop if your application is better suited to a touch interface. For example, many bands use the iPad as the control for a mixing desk. Why? Because the sound technician can stand amongst the audience during the gig (all iOS devices have wireless MIDI baked in since the first iPhone). Other musicians use it to display sheet music. Leica site survey gear only works with iOS/iPadOS (indeed, the only time I ever saw a pre-ipad Win XP TE tablet in the wild was in the arm of a surveyor)

Anyone looking for a single 'killer app' is seeking in vain since their premises is faulty. However, there are hundreds of damned useful applications that people use.

Samsung Galaxy S21: Lots of little downgrades, but this phone is more than the sum of its parts

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Well worth it?

> Dividing prices by large denominators so they look small is a frequent tactic

It wasn't meant as a disingenuous tactic, since I meant for the other side of the equation to be divided too. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear, because my whole point was to state my terms and process. Since I didn't come to any conclusion - just outlined an open process - it's odd that you should accuse me of using a 'tactic'.

Anyway, it just seems easier to estimate a phone's 'annoyingness' to an individual user over a week rather than over several years. It doesn't matter though. What does matter is the huge variability between people in potential values for the 'cost' and ' 'benefit' columns.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Well worth it?

>the difference in price is a few quid a week"

>>If you like being shackled to a contract, maybe..

Eh? The difference in price equates to the same amount per week, regardless of whether you buy it upfront or through finance.

I only used the timescale of a week because it was easier to visualise. Like 'how many times a week does your phone do that annoying thing, and what would pay to make it better?' sort of a question.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Quick charge devices DO charge quickly over USB PD

It's possible that Bernie's misunderstand has been caused by his using poor quality USB C cables (or a dodgy connection, or failing USB port on his phone). Not his fault - the market was awash with poor cables some time back.

Cables do fail. It's very possible for a USB cable to fail in such a way that the lines required for power delivery negotiation are broken, but the power lines are still good. In this circumstance the wall plug will still charge a phone, but only to the maximum of the older USB standard - 2.1A at 5v.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Storing your photos on an SD card only renders them salvageable in the event if your phone breaking - it does nothing to protect them against loss or theft. Are you asking us to believe that you've chosen to ascribe an arbitrary value of importance to your photos? They're either worth backing up properly or not at all, no?

'Ending up gawd knows where' is what can happen if your phone is lost or stolen and your photos are on an unencrypted SD card. Again, it seems arbitrary to care about bad actors getting your sensitive personal data via one vector but not another. In any case, its a moot point - you can wirelessly back up your phone's folders to a server of your choice, including your own.

Whatever. Samsung make a phone with SD card, swappable battery, 3.5mm socket and extra user-mappable hardware button called the XActive Pro, if you like that sort of thing. Still, it wouldn't hurt to re-examine your back-up strategy for holes.

Dave 126 Silver badge

I don't mind the downvote, but I should point out that it really doesn't count as a 'reasoned argument' in favour of SD card slots - it doesn't help express your thinking.

Bothering to upgrade the iPhone 12 over older models has proven to be worth its weight in gold for Apple

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: "The iPhone – Apple's hottest seller – brought in revenues of $65.597bn"

> I will never understand how people can throw so much money at something that doesn't allow a simple, user-accessible battery replacement.

Because the people with money aren't too fussed by spending £50 every couple of years to have Apple replace the battery. With the work guaranteed, and in a nice part of town. Samsung is much the same.

What's hard to understand? For anyone who values their as more than £X/ h it's a sound economic decision, if you choose to use an economic lens to discuss how people spend their money.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: So what's going to follow?

It's the sort of people who intend to look after one phone for several years that Apple is targeting with the 12 - they went some way to talk about the new Gorilla Glass on the new model.

What happens when the internet realizes the stock market is basically a casino? They go shopping at the Mall

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: The Strange Art of Moving the Goalposts to Score Losing Own Goals

Of course do bear in mind that RT will publish a string of words as a 'story' only if it fits in with their strategic mission. They will even publish the truth if it furthers their cause. Or the truth with heavy spin. Or mostly the truth and a few fibs. Or some total bollocks from time to time.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: The inevitable result

You make it a new form of typo squatting.

The Redditors are talking Blackberry and Nokia as their next potential projects... Are there any companies with similar stock market codes? Eg BBRL not BBRI?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: The biter bit

> They are skimming loadsamoney from the economic activity of people who make or do something that's wanted or needed.

The metaphor in my head is of all human productive effort as a big machine that gets people what they want (food, shelter, medical care, fork handles, potatoes) and financial systems as being part of the machine's (distributed) control system. Clearly a control system of some sort is needed - otherwise how to get enough people to plant potatoes months in advance of people wanting potatoes?

However - does this control system need to consume the fraction of the machine's power consumption as it does? Does the control mechanism makes things more efficient? Is the control system flexible enough?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Would you pay $100 to screw a hedge fund?

> It's far from ideal, but if the regulators are incapable of doing, or not permitted to do, their jobs, or there is continued fraud...

The excellent 'Against The Rules with Micheal Lewis' podcast series is all about the different ways that regulators and referees can become undermined, toothless, under-resouced or captured.