* Posts by Dave 126

10643 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

First there were notebooks. Then tablets. And now ‘book tablets’

Dave 126 Silver badge

Three systems:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fuchsia

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Point?

Chrome OS is a more modern OS than Android which was rushed out the door. Chrome was designed to be updated easily, whereas Android until the very latest devices (Treble) requires blobs from the ODMs. Android's latency has always been a bit too high (compared to iOS), so handwriting and audio creation apps should work better on Chrome OS. There's not a huge number of great tablet-optimised Android apps, either.

India: Yeah, we would like to 3D-print igloos on the Moon

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: RE: ArrZarr

Wikipedia tells me that the US test fired a rail gun with a muzzle velocity of 2.5 km/s in 2008. When I was a little boy, a picture book suggested that a linear accelerator would be used to get Lunar material into orbit. IIRC, the same concept is present in Duncan Jones' film Moon.

Dave 126 Silver badge

What to use as a binder?

On Earth we would use cement, mud or adobe. I guess one could sinter (fuse) the powder material by aiming an array of mirrors at one spot (then spread more powder on top and repeat - effectively the same process as Selective Laser Sintering of titanium powder on earth).

The mirror array can be relatively lightweight, seeing as how it doesn't have to withstand any wind, and not too much gravity. However, it will require a mechanism to shed off lunar dust that settles on the mirrors - perhaps a rapid vibration such as is employed on DSLR sensors.

How does this 3D house printing compare with an inflatable structure which can be used as a former for polyurethane foam?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Being Whalers on the Moon, they will have bone, meat and sperm oil to trade for their rent!

https://theinfosphere.org/Whalers_on_the_Moon

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: igloo

Don't forget the square pigs!

http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/awfully-good-space-truckers-339-02

April FAIL as IETF's funny-but-dodgy draft doc arrives a week early

Dave 126 Silver badge

Yugoslavia was the first overseas country to buy Monty Python's Flying Circus, if you don't count Pakistan who bought it by mistake thinking there would be elephants and clowns.

Source: Micheal Palin

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/australia-day-monty-python-special/3285508

SpaceX blasted massive plasma hole in Earth's ionosphere

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Yawn

Space Elevators push the limits of what materials are theoretically capable of - and without a safety factor (typically 3x for bridges, 1.5 for aircraft).

It's pleasing that such structures were considered by Buckminster Fuller, and after his death his name was given to the class of materials that come closest to making Space Elevators possible. If we could get the materials, the construction would still require a lot of rocket launches - at least until we can gather and fabricate material in space.

Still, The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke is a good read (and the author's notes a good background on those who first conceived of the idea) and Feersum Enjinn by Iain M Banks is just staggering.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Yawn

The unusual trajectory was noted in the article.

The implications for the future come from a combination of more rocket launches and greater use of GPS.

Hip hop-eration: Hopless Franken-beer will bring you hoppiness

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Cognotive Dissonance

Where did it say this research was motivated by environmental concerns? Hops like any other crop are susceptable to good years and bad - a coupla of years back English fuggles had a poor harvest so French grown fuggles with a lower quantity of some compound were used instead, causing the beer to be less bitter.

It would appear that these researchers are attempting to make a beer independent of hops for consistancy reasons. It won't interest traditional brewers, but the big brands love consistancy - and cost savings.

The environment affects hops far more than hops affect the environment.

Now, where this sort of research can really aid the environment is if they could put the active parts of the coca leaf into yeast and render the result into cocaine without pouring tons of waste solvent into the Amazon. It would seem that making the stuff illegal has had little effect upon its consumption, but has blighted thousands of lives along its supply chain.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Brahms and Liszt

One of Terry Pratchett's lesser known books is called Real Cats, some parts of which are a thinly disguised dig at the committee in-fighting of self-appointed CAMRA blokes. Though they are much better behaved now than when the book was written, the dynamic of impassioned amateurs swaying decisions can still hold true.

One such decision is the CAMRA ban on using a nitrogen blanket to replace the beer drawn from the cask. Nitrogen is inert. It does not enter the beer. Its only role is to prevent prevent oxygen from harming the beer. Now, in a busy pub with high turn over this is seldom an issue, but in the current climate pubs need all the help they can get.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: xkcd

To be fair, decent beer was probably harder to find where Randal Munroe grew up. Even those of us who were blessed enough to be surrounded by good beer and a good beer culture had to grow acclimatised to it as youths.

Note that the XKCD stickmen are drinking bottled beer from a fridge. A lot of cold things taste much the same.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Over-h(y/o)pped

To clarify, I'm writing from the UK. In the USA 'craft beer' is a legal term because it can only be used by breweries whose output is less than X gallons a year (where X is actually a fairly big number). Such beers used to be referred to as 'Regional Beers' since the sheer size of the US means that it is impractical to transport anything which isn't pasteurised and kegged. In the, 'craft beer' doesn't have any protected meaning, unlike 'Real Ale' which does.

In the UK this fashion for US style 'craft beer' started in London amongst those follow anything else to come out of Portland, Oregon.

Dave 126 Silver badge

If I wanted something that tasted of grapefruit, I'd drink grapefruit juice. Still, if it's to someone's taste, then they should be able to buy it in pubs. Just as I should be able to get a decent pint of best bitter.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Happy to be living near Germany

We used to have the same Beer Purity Laws in England a hundred odd years ago, but some brewers became so rich that they successfully lobbied to have the law repealed.

In Germany and the Czech Republic, the title of Brewmaster carries serious social standing, just as they respect proper Engineers. Shit, in the UK the title of Engineer is abused by applying it to the *technician* who fixed your photocopier. It's like calling a paramedic a Doctor.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Over-h(y/o)pped

I'd normally say each to their own, but sadly many pubs put on three or four overly hopped pale ales and neglect to offer a standard Best Bitter.

These so called 'craft beers' ( purely a meaningless marketing term) usually come from new inexperienced breweries and they all taste of grapefruit or elderflower due to the American variety of hop used.

It's the lack of choice masquerading as diversity that gets me. And the 'lets just whack a load of cascade hops in' masquerading as 'craft'.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Best Before Date?

Hops are also good for your bones, bring a source of dietary silicon.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/beer-can-strengthen-bones-study-suggests-1892261.html

Surprise UK raid of Cambridge Analytica delayed: Nobody expects the British information commissioner!

Dave 126 Silver badge

Obligatory Daily Mash:

Lib Dems harvested data from MySpace

THE Liberal Democrats harvested data from millions of MySpace accounts, it has emerged.

The party was found to have employed controversial tech company Humberside Analytica to comb through the data which they hope will give them an unfair advantage in the 2022 general election.

Investigative journalist Francesca Johnson said: “It’s not just MySpace. They’ve cross-referenced with Bebo and Friends Reunited.

“With that weight of data they’ve already run simulations which prove they could enter into a coalition with the Conservatives in the 2010 election, and after that apparently go from strength to strength.

AI software that can reproduce like a living thing? Yup, boffins have only gone and done it

Dave 126 Silver badge

"Life Will Find A Way"

Is the quote from Jurassic Park that is used in every episode of Rick and Morty.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Whilst mutation creates cancers it also, when harnessed to sexual reproduction, gives us the diversity needed survive pathogens.

Biology is dirty and messy... if you're doing it right.

Dave 126 Silver badge

XSSive Control

Information in genes, by mutation cut free, like the inches of magnetic tape cut up and shuffled by William Burroughs before being taped back together. The repitition of Invisible Litetature. Class 1 Laser Product. And Play.

Fog off! No more misty eyes for self-driving cars, declare MIT boffins

Dave 126 Silver badge

Another factor is urban planning:

The road in question in this Uber case has a huge paved pedestrian walkway across its central reservation at that spot, with a tiny sign saying 'Do Not Cross'.

Anyone who has seen a little book called The UK's 100 Most Stupid Cycle Paths will recognise this sloppy thinking.

Whilst the jury is out on this case specially, and autonomous cars generally, I think there's scope for using their algorithms and data collection to identify and redesign dangerous road features by running simulations.

FBI raids home of spy sat techie over leak of secret comms source code on Facebook

Dave 126 Silver badge

Value Vs Cost

> Exactly my point - it may cost $XX,XXX but actually worth that?

If I'm stranded on sandbank with no fresh water, then a satellite radio that costs £5,000 would be worth a helluva lot more to me!

Google gives its $1m Turing prize to, er, top Google bods: RISC men Hennessy, Patterson

Dave 126 Silver badge

Lots of RISC in schools.

Primary school was BBC then Acorn Archimedes, big school was, after a couple of years of CISC Mac LC IIIs, PowerPC Macs.

I don't think we saw a normal Newton (ARM) in the flesh, but the Design and Technology teacher was given an Apple eMate (a clamshell Newton with a keyboard only sold in education market, the translucent curved design foreshadowing Sir Jony's first famous product, the iMac) to play with. He didn't bother.

Obviously being a schoolboy, it was the contrast in how these things ran video games that interested me. The Acorns ran games very well compared to the PC I had at home. Lots of sprites and colours and sound, loaded from the native WIMP GUI.

2 + 2 = 4, er, 4.1, no, 4.3... Nvidia's Titan V GPUs spit out 'wrong answers' in scientific simulations

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: This might be the best thing since sliced bread

Serious Bitcoin miners, and miners of many other crypto currencies, have switched to specialised hardware generically known as ASIC - silicon which can only do one thing (eg run the Bitcoin algorithm). The development cost of such dedicated silicon is high, so only bigger miners use it. Having only a few large players in the game runs contrary to the point of crypto currencies i.e the work on the ledger should be distributed amongst millions of users so that no one entity can influence over 50% of the work. Apparently having having fewer big players over many small players leads to fluctuations, too.

Ethereum - perhaps the largest CC after Bitcoin - uses an algorithm that is deliberately suited to GPUs over current ASIC designs because is requires a lot of memory. In addition, Ethereum keeps threatening to switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake in an effort to dissuade anyone making the investment in an Ethereum ASIC.

Ironically, it was the idea that millions of people already possessed powerful CPUs and GPUs for non-mining purposes - thus combined they had more power than any Bad Actor might hope to acquire - that was central to Bitcoin.

Samsung’s DeX dock clicks the second time around

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I have one on my desk

Just to report back - I've taken a fine nail file to the case bevels and can happily report a small improvement in comfort. However, the polycarbonate is hard stuff so I'm going to dig out some rougher grit sandpaper or an angle grinder.

I had been tempted to give it texture by damping a course cloth in acetone and placing against the case, but luckily I remembered it was polycarbonate (which will crack widely in contact with acetone) and not ABS (which melts more gracefully).

Dave 126 Silver badge

> There's no reason a type c mini usb hub with type c passthrough for power and hdmi/dp out couldn't become a standard.

Because USB C can carry HDMI/dp, you don't need a HDMI socket on the hub - just a USB C to HDMI cable. As noted above, USB C hubs play nice with Samsung Galaxy phones, Nintendo Switches and laptops.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I have one on my desk

It's the trouble with the Galaxy S8 - the curved screen makes finding a bomb-proof case and screen protector trickier than it could be. I'm using a glass screen protector by Tate - it's okay, but reduces the sensitivity of the screen a bit - though it's tolerable if you you turn off the 'hard press to home screen' feature for some reason. Apparently older Galaxy S phones had 'glove mode' to up the sensitivity but Samsung doesn't give it any more.

My Spigen Tough Armour case so works with the screen protector (not all do) but it's uncomfortable in the hand - I might take some sandpaper to the case and round off the sharp bevels. The extra height of the phone over my Nexus 5 doesn't help much.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: re. Docks tend to not work well

> Docks tend to not work well

or happen to be incompatible with last year's dock model / next year's mobile model / both.

Docks possibly, but the actual connectors - USB-C to video and USB - are generic; hubs that work for DEX also work for the Nintendo Switch.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: KDE Connect

No cables required. Just a PC.

Once that ststement would have raised an eyebrow, these days PCs seem more common than the right combo of cables.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: £129 competes..

It should be noted that many tech companies charge a lot for accessories. An official Samsung or Sony phone case might be forty quid, a third party case less than a tenner. The official case for my Lumix camera is upwards of 80 quid.

Even some official OnePlus cases, made for them by Evutec, can be pricey.

Apple aren't the only offenders here, nor were they the first, though I acknowledge their proprietary cable situation.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Shed computer.

I mentioned DEX to a friend. He thought that it would be handy setup for his shed - he can leave an old monitor, mouse and keyboard in his shed, and just plug his phone in.

This use case sounds more plausible than using a DEX dock as a laptop replacement for travelling, since one is dependent upon finding bits of hardware at one's destination.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: £129 competes..

Twenty quid dongles that work as DEX docks are available.

Dave 126 Silver badge

It runs Office well if you have 365 subscription, according to reviews. That, plus browser based stuff and the few full screen Android apps that have been optimised for mouse + keyboard, is enough for some people in some situations.

Dave 126 Silver badge

3rd party DEX docks (or rather hubs) can be had for about 20 quid on Amazon - they appear to be generic power / video / USB. Reviews suggest they work well, and the vendor quickly swaps out the 1 in 10 units thst don't work.

The official Samsung docks are upwards of 80 quid.

Oh bucket! Unpack the suitcases. TRAPPIST-1 planets too wet to support life

Dave 126 Silver badge

It really depends upon what you define as life. That goes for both of you! :)

Here's a discussion that was made earlier:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/35qtt7/does_the_ocean_have_more_biomass_than_the_land_or/

Dave 126 Silver badge

I've read that if the Earth was scaled down to the size of a squash ball, it would, for all its troughs and mountains, be smoother than a squash ball.

https://superbeefy.com/if-the-earth-was-shrunk-to-the-size-of-a-squash-ball-would-it-be-smoother-than-a-squash-ball-and-why/

Dave 126 Silver badge

Well, if we're to send a Generation Ship or Seed Ship to another system, it seems all we need is water, rock and energy to survive. We will have found some alternative to a magnetosphere,too, to protect us from those pesky waves and particles. A lush green planet is just a bonus.

Still, by the time we're in a position to do that, we'll have had plenty of experience living in domes* or caves on Mars so we'll know if spending your whole life in a giant Centre Parcs will drive you nuts or not.

*Buckminster Fuller on BBC's Horizon:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01z2ltf

We need to talk, Brit Parliamentary committee tells Mark Zuckerberg

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Just Close Your Facebook Accounts

> I just don't get the complaints from people or more recently MPs

Our democratic process has been perverted. That affects all of us, not just those with a Facebook account.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: About time

> Or do something he cares about, like a huge fine

Get there before the US gov does then - an amused Eddie Mair on Radio 4 noted that the US fine could be up to $40,000... per user who had data misused. That adds up to a coupla Trillion dollars.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: About time

> b) Said rip-off website has as much chance of delivering what you are looking for as official site as they often don't work right.

All they do is take 30 quid from you and enter the details you provide them into the official .gov website.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: About time

We can't jail him for contempt but we could possibly hurt his business operations in the UK - though I don't know how that works legally.

I'm amazed that our Government still allows Google to place rip-off websites above official .gov.uk sites when people search for European Health Cards and Driving Licence Renewals etc.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Background:

The above has an MP3 link.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Background:

The journalist who has been working on this story for a couple of years, Carole Cadwalladr of the Observer, being interviewed by Phillip Adams today. Covers the origins of CA from a private Psy-Ops firm called SEC, through Bannon and Facebook, to today's events.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/the-cambiridge-analytica-files/9567134

Addicts of Facebook and pals are easy prey for manipulative scumbags – thanks to tech giants' 'extraordinary reach'

Dave 126 Silver badge

A study has suggested that the more people know about media organisations, the less susceptible they are to conspiracy theories and other rubbish.

Of course, the study may not have been replicated yet (a shocking number of published psychological experiments didn't produce the same results when replicated), so follow up research might be a good idea.

Dave 126 Silver badge

If the revelations about CA's manipulation of the Brexit vote don't result in a second referendum, now might be a good time to write to your MP and suggest our post-Brexit data protection policies mirror those of the Germans.

BOOM! Cambridge Analytica explodes following extraordinary TV expose

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Collapse of Facebook

> Re: Collapse of Facebook

he IS being ironic and / or baiting. And what is truly ironic is the amount of downvotes he received. The register's been facebooked, we're doomed :/

I saw him as just using a cute twist on 'when hell freezes over', and didn't mean for him to be down voted.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Warrants

You give a nod to Frederick Forsythe' Dogs of War. This story and climate is the stuff of late period angry John le Carre.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Collapse of Facebook

> I think it’s more likely to mean the end of the University of Cambridge

I'm assuming you're being ironic, but just to clarify for the casual reader: Cambridge Analytica is not related to Cambridge University.

Uber breaks self-driving car record: First robo-ride to kill a pedestrian

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: flags

We don't know yet. If we step out of this sad event and consider the hypothetical: how could both a autonomous car *and* the human 'backup' fail to spot and stop for a pedestrian, there appear to be two major scenarios:

a, The human backup driver was distracted because he'd effectively been a passive passenger for X number of incident-free miles.

b, the pedestrian moved at such speed prior to the collision that the car was incapable of stopping.

Now, writing as a fallible driver and wary pedestrian, it is the first scenario that interests me as one that could be addressed with engineering solutions.