* Posts by Dave 126

10643 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

A Rowhammer ban-hammer for all, and it's all in software

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Still does my head in

>I can visualise how buggering up memory can cause other programs to mis-behave but still struggle to visualise how you can force such a specific mis-behaviour that you can take over control of the machine.

The Google Project Zero the article refers to is outlined here. It should answer your question better than I can!

https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/exploiting-dram-rowhammer-bug-to-gain.html

I think the rough idea is that by hammering the memory bits you have permission to access, you can flip a bit in adjacent memory that otherwise would be off limits to you. Part of the exploit method is to deliberately fragment the machine's memory before the hammering, so that there is a greater chance of accessible memory being adjacent to memory reserved for the kernel.

RIP HPE's The Machine product, 2014-2016: We hardly knew ye

Dave 126 Silver badge

Just for fun:

Here's HP's Star Trek tie-in teaser trailer for The machine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3sHh6CsN7c

[To be read in your best movie-trailer voice:]

At the beginning of the 21st century, the earth needed to find a way to keep up with the data from over 30 billion connected devices, which changed the basic architecture of computing. This year, Hewlett Packard Enterprise will preview [dum dum dum!] The Machine

Google's Chromecast Audio busted BT home routers – now it has a fix

Dave 126 Silver badge

Not related to article:

My Chromecast Audio works with my Huawei phone, but not with my housemate's Nexus 5. Weird, but just writing the last sentence has jogged my brain onto a possible cause - I use Google Play Music, my housemate uses Spotify, so it might be an issue with the client app and not the phone itself. Hmm, a line of enquiry to be confirmed or eliminated later - I'll just try something from iPlayer Radio on the Nexus.

Half-ton handbuilt CPU heads to Centre for Computing History

Dave 126 Silver badge

Go big or go home!

Oh, it appears this chap has already got the memo! :)

The future often starts as a toy, so don't shun toy VR this Christmas

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I'd save some money back...

>I wish I'd had the money to do all that.

It's more to do with where you live, and not how much money you have per se - though obviously money and employment have a huge bearing on where you call home. Trees, streams and beaches cost nothing - travelling to them might do.

To someone brought up in a small town or village, raising a child in a city just looks cruel.

Another link - my 'techno hippy' friend in North Devon built himself a rotating observatory, and in the mid nineties constructed a CCD imaging system for it. Digital imaging was no match for film for everyday applications then, but for for stargazing CCDs offer some advantages such as compositing images to compensate for partial cloud cover. I remember him telling me he used some laser-pointers down the telescope to find the correct location to mount the sensor. Now in his sixties, he plays with racing drones - indeed, he's hosted regional championships, including one in which a world champion has qualified. Really though, it has more in common with the 1980's outdoor activity of RC car racing than it does video games.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I'd save some money back...

I did all those outdoor activities too when I was a child, and I'm very glad I did. However, I still have fond memories of waiting for Sinclair computers loading, playing two-player games on an Atari ST, and later playing networked Doom - as well as using these computers as paint brushes and musical instruments.

These groups of activities aren't mutually exclusive. For sure, young people today are offered more polished, more immersive games, but at the same time there is potential for greater links between the virtual and physical spaces. Examples of these links might include: Making your own toys with sensors, motors and Arduinos, Augmented Reality (as a toy, but also as a tool in the workshop), and Machine Vision. As an adult, the 'toys' that appeal most to me now are on the border of the virtual and physical - such as CNC routers.

Finding a good balance is in part a matter of parental guidance, and it sound that despite your grumpiness, your children are lucky to have you as a father.

Drops the mic... Hang on, hackers could be listening through my headphones?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Odd

>Also, I guess I'm getting old, we used to use speakers as microphones when I was a kid because we didn't have all the stuff kids have nowadays.

Same here. First, I discovered that microphone worked as a speaker, when I was about 7 year old. Later, I used some earbuds to record sound onto a Mac LCIII at school. Certainly not hi-fi quality, but speech was comprehensible.

Also, the port remapping isn't unheard of - many XP-era desktops would present a dialogue asking what kind of device had just been plugged in. Of course, this facility in hardware doesn't translate to helping me right here and now remap my unused mic jack as an audio out.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Odd

A lot of PCs have retaskable audio jacks at the hardware level - but the firmware and drivers differ between models. Some PCs would bring up a port selection dialogue when a 3.5mm plug was inserted.

I have spent a few minutes seeing if can do the same - my headphone jack is damaged, so it would suit me to reassign the microphone port. However, it would probably be quicker for me to open the machine and re-solder the port than it would to faff around with software and drivers. As far as I can make out, the IDT drivers allowed port remapping in XP, but don't in Win 7. Screwdriver time...

Oh, just to clarify, Class D amplifiers are not 'digital', though people often refer to them as such.

Hey techbros, make an airplane mode but for driving for your apps – US traffic watchdog

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: So what you do is

On a more sensible note, more vehicles are coming with external cameras, either to cover the driver's ass in the case of a collision (typically on delivery vehicles who were the targets of insurance scammers), or as part of assisted driving systems. Dash-cams are popular in countries where people don't trust the police.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: That's why ..

Sony sold NFC tags for their phones - tap the phone on the tag to enable a certain profile, for example. Daftly, there wasn't a 'toggle mode'. This meant that you couldn't tap a tag to enable a silent profile and then tap the same tag again to turn the ringer back on.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: If Fines Can't Stop It, Can Technology Really Provide An Answer?

>How does it differentiate driver from passenger? Genuine question.

The report glossed over that, merely saying that 'until driver/passenger distinction systems mature, Driver mode must be activated manually'. Oh well.

It seems most of the thrust is towards the systems already being developed by Google, Apple et al. When you connect your phone to your car, the car takes control of the UI, giving simplified controls for calls, sat-nav and audio.

How to confuse a Euro-cop: Survey reveals the crypto they love to hate

Dave 126 Silver badge

>Sorry, but it's working exactly as designed.

Actually, it isn't. As the head of the NSA pointed out, they like encryption. Because Joe Public doesn't bother with it much, the people who use encryption stand out like a sore thumb, providing the NSA with metadata that to them is just as useful as any message content.

Encryption will only work as intended until everybody is using it all the time. Whilst professionals like doctors and lawyers will need to take due diligence against criminal data thieves to comply with data protection legislation, most people's choice of messaging app will be determined by what their friends use and its convenience.

A closer look at HPE's 'The Machine'

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Welcome to the machine

Hehe, I've just finished watching the techno-thriller series 'Person of Interest', in which an all-seeing AI is dubbed 'The Machine'. The soundtrack includes Portishead and DJ Shadow amongst others, but it refrains from using Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine until the end of its 4th season, and to great effect.

If you only want to watch it for the techno stuff, there's a case to be made for jumping in at the beginning of the 3rd season, in which it breaks from it's police-procedural format and then some. It was created by Johnathan Nolan (Momento, The Prestige, Inception, Dark Knight, Intersteller, Westworld) and addresses many of the themes he's known for.

CompSci Prof raises ballot hacking fears over strange pro-Trump voting patterns

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Vote Fraud? Are you CRAAAZY?

>So, up until a couple of weeks ago, the Democrat party line was "Vote fraud? Don't be ridiculous! Never happens!"

They didn't say it never happened, they said it hadn't happened when Trump said it had. It was just another example of people doing some fact-checking, and this fact-checking being wilfully misinterpreted as anti-Trump bias.

There was a case of a woman whose submitted a postal vote on behalf of her husband, who later died before polling day. The Trump camp interpreted this as pro-Clinton fraud.

Anyway, your duty now is get out of your bubble, and that goes for the Democrats too. Remember you have to live amongst each other, and you have more in common than your polarised media suggests.

Reg man 0: Japanese electronic toilet 1

Dave 126 Silver badge

Future Toilet?

Really Mr Corfield, you don't know how to use the three seashells? What are you, a caveman? :)

Dave 126 Silver badge

You got away lightly: A friend of mine was due to give a speech of thanks to her Japanese hosts after a stint of teaching English when she made a trip to the bog. She pushed the wrong button, and the toilet retracted into the wall and a shower head soaked her to the skin. She had to give her speech with her silk blouse stuck to her skin.

Technology aside, the product designers Seymour and Powell revealed in the late nineties series 'Designs on your [toilet]' that the Japanese test the flushing system toilet in a more rigorous and sensible way than we do. UK toilets are tested with standard speheres, whereas the Japanese test the flush with hand-rolled foodstuffs to better simulate what the toilet will have to deal with in the real world.

It was also toilet design that led to Jony Ive leaving the UK for California:

'Tangerine had a consultancy contract with the bathroom-fittings company to design a toilet. I was there when Jony made an excellent presentation to this guy who was wearing a red nose because it was Comic Relief day. This clown then decided to throw his weight around and pulled apart Jony’s design. It was ridiculous. Britain lost Jony Ive then and there.’ - Clive Grinyer

Emulating x86: Microsoft builds granny flat into Windows 10

Dave 126 Silver badge

>nevermind binary compatibility, they won't work on a phone because they weren't designed for phones.

That is very true, but MS are pursuing the idea of letting people plug their phone into a monitor, mouse and keyboard. Ubuntu were making similar noises, but Apple have taken a different approach (documents and draught emails on your phone are handed over to your Mac, presumably through iCloud or somesuch).

I'm not sure why - SoCs are so cheap these days you might as well just have a second PC instead of a dumb dock.

The only advantage to MS's approach I can think is security - you'd be using your own personal device instead of running your software on an untrusted PC. You'd still have to have trust that the keyboard wasn't logging keystrokes and the monitor wasn't grabbing screen shots, though this wouldn't leave you as wide open as running your software on an untrusted PC.

Still, if working away from an office is your thing, just use a laptop.

I can't understand why more tablet makers don't let them be used as second monitors. You could have an ARM tablet that acts as a screen for a headless x86 box for when you need it. Shit, we could have the x86 box built into the keyboard, a form-factor I've not seen since the Amiga :)

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: However on Linux..

That doesn't help the people whose business are running on legacy software. If they could have switched by now, they would have done.

Apple unplugs its home LAN biz, allegedly

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Oh - I quite liked the Airport range

There's more to choose from today than ever before. Apple haven't been chasing anyone's custom for Airports for a while, since they haven't had a price drop for years.

Dave 126 Silver badge

There's lots of other ways of playing music from an Apple device these days. iDevices play nicely with Google Chromecast /Audio devices, as well as Sonos and others.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Worth watching, regarding the iFixit teardown / Recyclability (shockingly bad).

Any chance of a transcription?

For a tooled-up recycling facility, glue is easier to dismantle than screws because end-of-life products can processed in an oven. This is less labour intensive than using a person with a screw driver.

The trick to bringing costs down, as in manufacture, is the (dis)assembly line.

Apple have a vested interest, for sure. But then so do iFixit.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: What's Going On?

Apple and Google make their money in different ways.

Not only are Google making a posh router, but also professional router brands who traditionally served offices and hotels are offering lower-cost consumer models with easy meshing and other tricks.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Apple reportedly exiting home LAN biz

>there's plenty of competition now with better price/performance ratios.

Yep, not only are there more vendors offering mesh networking options these days, but there is now more competition for the little trick that Airport Express had: Multi-room audio.

The Airport Express had little 3.5 mm audio-out sockets, but these days many people use Sonos, Chromecast, or other ways of playing music throughout their homes.

Amazon's Netflix-gnasher to hit top gear In December

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Wheels within wheels.

>There have been various discussions around the place recently about what value The Grand Tour has to Amazon.

On a subtler note, I've heard that the Grand Tour is a great showcase for HDR televisions, for those who have them.

Why I just bought a MacBook Air instead of the new Pro

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Bye Bye Apple

>Ives isn't a HW or SW guy, purely an Arty type copying Dieter Rams.

Strange thing is Mage, Dieter Rams has a very different view to you:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8555503/Dieter-Rams-Apple-has-achieved-something-I-never-did.html

Dieter Rams has his view because, like Ive, he is a product (not industrial) designer. He knows you can't arrive at a good design just by copying - even if the results might look superficially similar. Seriously, if you were to learn about what product design entails - please do, it's a fascinating subject! - you wouldn't hold your current opinion. It is a little depressing to have one's field knocked through ignorance - when an informed discussion is much more fun.

A good place to start would be Esslinger and Frog Design - he worked for Wega before they were bought by Sony, then developed some early Macs and later the NeXT Cube. Or look at the design process for the original Sony PlayStation.

I for one remember beige boxes with some half-arsed attempt at a 'sculpted' front panel that only made it hard to find power buttons or USB sockets. May we never forget.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Bye Bye Apple

>Ive, he just packages up stuff. If he did insist only on USB-C ports and nothing else on the MacBook Pro because it looked nice he would have been slapped down by Jobs or someone in Mac Hardware.

Seriously, you think Jobs would have disagreed? Jobs' return to Apple was marked by the iMac, a device without a 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive. It was under Jobs that Macbooks lost their optical drive.

I'm not saying that the transition to USB-C will be easy - but these things never are.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Solder not Socket...

>Chaining monitors has been around way longer than USB-C. And speaking of USB-C - so nice of Apple to make their use of it proprietary. Can't just get ANY USB-C cable and use it with a MAC.

You can't just use any USB-C cable and use it for every application - regardless who makes the computer, monitor or other device.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Type-C#Cable_wiring

The main issue is dodgy cheap USB C cables. In the last year, this Google engineer has tested a good number of cables, and has become somewhat of an authority on the matter:

https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Solder not Socket...

>Corporate IT recyclers will often physically destroy hard drives before selling on the computer, but when when the SSD chips are soldered to the mainboard this isn't possible. Hence computers with built in SSDs will have to be physically destroyed to protect user's data.

If your data is sensitive, surely you'll be using full disk encryption to begin with? The last mention I can find of this being bypassed was in 2006 - in a much earlier version.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Solder not Socket...

>Apple do this knowing full well, that a Coffee/Coke spill on the keyboard, will render your whole macbook AND its Data, GONE. There is no SSD to remove, to manually recover data.

Any data you only have in one place is data that you don't care about. This is true of any laptop, regardless of vendor, OS, or storage medium.

> You have to ask what Apple's motives are here.

To get you to back up your data, maybe? With spindled image backups built into the OS for over a decade, very fast I/O and even a cloud service should you want it, I can't think of anything else they can do to make it easy for you to back up your data.

>Buy/use a macbook Pro w/ touchbar, please remember to implement an active backup strategy, there no second chances of retrieving Data here, after the fact.

Surely that is true of any laptop? I know SSDs are more reliable than spinning rust, but it seems arbitary for a user to accept the risk that a mainboard will fail, but not the risk of an SSD failure.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Surface is nice and all

>The touch bar DJ demo... this just gets more laughable every day. DJs use nice peripherals with knobs, faders, piano keys or hip multicolored glowing touch-sensitive pads.

I never saw the demo as being an effort to sell the Touchbar to DJs per se, but just a way of demonstrating that the Touch bar was multi-touch and not too laggy. A chef wouldn't use a Swiss Army Knife in the kitchen, but cutting a tomato is a good way to demonstrate the sharpness of a knife.

DJs do indeed have a wealth of knobs, sliders, and 'control surfaces' available to them. What is more, the rise of inexpensive I/O interfaces like Arduino means that people are in a better position than ever before to make their own man/machine music interfaces.

AI can now tell if you're a criminal or not

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: dataset

>Being good-looking doesn't make criminals less criminal: it just makes them less likely to be convicted.

Yes and no. I take your point, but all things being equal, good-looking people have less motivation to commit crime. My reasoning is based on all the studies that suggest that good-looking people are more likely to be promoted at work, or attract more sexual partners. Therefore they can fulfil their needs without resorting to criminal behaviour. *

It's a bit like psychopaths - most aren't convicted criminals, because they can get all they want by manipulating people within the letter of law (if not the spirit), so they have no need to risk breaking any laws. As a result, most psychopaths are to be found in upper-middle management and not behind bars.

* There's a great episode of 30 Rock in which John Hamm's character is made to realise that people only think that he is competent at things (tennis, being a medical doctor, cooking, riding a motorcycle) because he is really, really good looking. He's 'in the bubble', which causes him to think that people are all just really nice and accommodating.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: The return of phrenology?

>I went to school in north Norfolk with a girl (born locally) who converted to Judaism. Fairly sure her DNA remained unchanged.

There was a human-interest story on Radio 4 earlier in the year about a British woman who wanted to convert to Judaism. Her conversion was recognised by the appropriate bodies in Israel, but not by those in the U.K.

I'm not sure that says anything about Judaism other than a group of people spread across dozens of countries for hundreds of years entertain a variety of views about things, whodafunkit.

Apple admits the iPhone 6 Plus has 'Touch Disease'

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Absolutely agree

>WTF? Dozens of manufacturers offer them - many with the same (LG, Samsung or Sharp made) screens as Apple buy.

Care to provide some links? Honestly, I have looked for them in vain. It just seems to be 4:3 Microsoft, 16:10 Apple, 16:9 everybody else.

This is not the first time I've asked on a Reg forum if anyone knows of a 16:10 laptop - no joy.

If you know of one, please share!

Thanks in advance.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: iFixit's teardown of macbook touchbar

>I'd actually say its been purposefully designed to fail, over time, much like the lead-free Nvidia Geforce BGA 7600/8600 Graphics chipset motherboard designs by companies like Quanta, circa 2010.

Seriously? You're suggesting conspiracy instead of cock-up? The same issue affected Microsoft's XBOX 360 console, and they honoured their commitment to the buyers affected by the issue, without even asking for proof of purchase. Lead-free solder was forced upon the industry by legislation, and there wasn't enough experience at the time to use it properly - hence it affecting quite a few companies. Leaded solder can still be used for military and aerospace applications.

Since then, experience means companies are better at using lead-free solder - so we haven't had any major XBOX 360 / Macbook GPU style problems since. For a home user, I've been led to believe that you should use lead free solder as soon as you heat it. It isn't as tolerant of being left sitting on the iron tip as the traditional leaded solder.

Dave 126 Silver badge

> MacBook Pro and its Touch Bar represents a rather smaller step forward than Microsoft's touchy Surface Studio workstation.

Yes and no. Much of the functionality of the Surface Studio has been previously available from the likes of Wacom, but apparently MS have nailed the hardware implementation. For example, there is less stylus to cursor parallax on the Studio than there is on the Wacom kit. However, as a product it only really shines for some types of work. The 'Dial' part is fun, but isn't yet supported by the likes of Adobe - though of course Photoshop is already well-geared to stylus input (because of years of people using Wacom screens and tablets).

The Touchbar is more general purpose, and is likely to se`ll more units than the Surface Studio. This in turns means that it will be adopted by more 3rd party developers, including Adobe Photoshop. 'Under the bonnet', the Touchbar includes a ARM-based SoC with secure enclaves inaccessible to MacOS, making it suitable for the fingerprint scanner, encryption keys and control of the webcam. This itself isn't a new concept - Microsoft tried having an auxiliary low power display with access to some laptop function years ago - but no hardware vendors could be arsed to implement it, and the rise of smart phones soon rendered it largely redundant.

Interesting times.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Absolutely agree

>I just wish stupid people wouldn't keep buying their overpriced shit.

Why? I mean, it doesn't affect you, does it? You're still free to buy what you want.

Here's the thing: It isn't Apple that limits my choice of laptop, it is all the other vendors who don't offer, for example, 16:10 screens.

Helping autonomous vehicles and humans share the road

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: An alternate take on the Trolley Problem

And another, here:

https://xkcd.com/1455/

"Can I reach the lever without getting up?"

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: amniotic

>Re: amniotic: What kind of a van are you even driving?

Ah, sorry, I meant amniotic-like, hehe. I was reaching for a shorthand for a warm, throbbing, muffled sound environment. :)

At the time it was an old, under-powered Luton Transit, lots of noise and vibration in the cab. I haven't come that close to that unnerving experience of having to concentrate on keeping my eyes open since, but it concerned me enough to be wary of the phenomenon.

The Transit I drive now has electric windows - it might seem a small thing, but it allows me to safely open the near-side window, which brings cool air around my head more efficiently than opening the driver-side window (fluid dynamics, who'da though they'd be complex, eh?). Also, it's a quieter vehicle. In addition, the length of the 50 mph restriction are much shorter than they were a few years ago (but still there - what are they doing??)

Now, the other vans I drove - brand new 3 litre turbo Vitaras/Traffics, were like rocket ships when unladed. Possibly dangerous too, but they had a handy 'Eco' button that made the acceleration less insane, as well as a driver-adjustable speed-limiter. And air-conditioning.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: All or nothing yet again.

Motorways and dual carriageways are also areas that cause drivers to feel tired, or bored and distracted.

There's a stretch of 50mph limit motorway that I travel on every week in a old Transit - I always make sure to have a coffee beforehand, because the noise and vibration is so constant and amniotic that on one occasion I found it barely possible to stay awake (and there wasn't any hardshoulder to use. I got off the motorway as soon as possible, but as soon as I parked up safely to have a snooze I felt fully awake).

The effect of loud but constant noise making people fall asleep is well documented in the medical literature.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Cocks

Especially on roundabouts - I never expect people to give way as they should when they are on my left (I live in a country where we drive on the left of the road). However, I will pretend that I haven't seen the offender, braking only enough to avoiding hitting them. Hopefully what they perceive as a 'close shave' will shock them into driving properly in future.

Obviously it isn't a real 'close shave' because I have seen them and compensated for their moment of idiocy. In any case, my vehicle, a flatbed Transit, is bigger and rougher than theirs (drivers of vehicles bigger than mine always seem to deal with roundabouts correctly, so I never have an issue with them).

Dave 126 Silver badge

>There are so many things wrong with the idea of autonomous vehicles...

No doubt. But there are tens of thousands of deaths each year which serve as granite monuments to the problems with our existing system.

Your phrasing is interesting... you say the problem is the 'idea' of driverless cars, and not any possible implementation.

> from the economic one of how many jobs will this tech destroy

Some might say that is actually a problem with the idea of economics, or at least our current implementation of it! :)

But you're right - just think of how many doctors and paramedics will lose their jobs if we stop killing and maiming each other on the roads. Oh, the humanity! /s

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Price hikes on the way.

>"You're insurance premium is going up this year sir, because we think you'll be acting like a dick!"

Exactly. Here's the thing: Driver speed isn't the chief cause of accidents, but it is the driver behaviour that is easiest to police. So we have the situation where driver safety campaigns solely on speed, and not on other bits of driver behaviour - such as correct lane discipline and use of indicators - where safety would benefit from being educated. ( http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/why-speed-isn't-the-only-factor-in-the-road-toll/6831300)

A black box could help with such things. "You're insurance is going up because you are... "

- driving blithely down the middle lane of the motorway when you are not actively overtaking another vehicle

- not turning your lights on when the whole motorway is a grey fog of road spray. And you're driving a grey car.

- only using your indicators when you reach a roundabout instead of beforehand. FFS, they are called 'indicators' and not 'describers'!

- going all the way down a hill with your brakes on, instead of choosing an appropriate gear.

- etc

Dave 126 Silver badge

It does seem that the articles is written, reasonably enough, about just dropping a few driverless cars onto road systems akin to those we have today. Here's the thing thing though: If driverless cars were widespread, there wouldn't be any schoolchildren walking along busy roads; the schoolchildren would be chauffeured to school instead.*

If driverless cars can be made much safer than human drivers (tiredness, drunkenness, distraction) then these 'trolly problem' dilemmmas will be more niche cases. The choice won't between running over a young criminal and old doctor, but between keeping a transport system that kills tens of thousands a year and striving towards a system that could be much safer.

*Just an example. And anyone concerned with a lack of physical exercise for the children can consider the lovely outdoor playspaces that residential streets could become if they weren't merely used to store parked cars as they are today. I was once in a city during a transport workers strike - busses blocked offthe roads, and the children were all out on bikes and skateboards, and playing hopscotch-type games and football.

Obviously there would be transitional period with lots of challenges.

Antivirus tools are a useless box-ticking exercise says Google security chap

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Everything can be a program, if the OS is a PoS

>Programs deleting data:

>Shadow copies / snapshots. Why are they not enabled by default on all computers, and why are they deletable?

Yes. I've made a comments here before about how every PC sold to Joe Punter should come with redundant storage and an OS configured to use it by default. It would save their IT-literate friends a lot of faffing about. Not only could the machine be rolled back to known good state, but a known clean state could be loaded at every startup, if desired.

Incremental backups don't require too much bandwidth after the initial backup, so a network solution is fine when at home - most of the time. For laptops, being semi-permanently attached to an external HDD by cable is less than ideal, but we're getting to the point where a small SSD array could be left in a USB-C port (either USB 3 or ThunderBolt) all the time. I can't see laptops including XQD card ports in a hurry (unlike SD cards, XQD uses PCIe) - oops, I'm straying away from Joe Punter to professional considerations.

Mac book, whoa! Apple unveils $300 design tome

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: FTFY

- You can't just rip off a Braun design for a different product and have it work.

- You can adhere to Dieter Ram's design principals, but to do so takes time and effort. This is analogous to coding - just because good principals can be concisely written down doesn't mean that it is straightforward to produce good code.

- Rams wasn't working in a vacuum. He was part of a lineage, as contemporary designers are today. See the 'Zeiss Werra' camera from the early 1950's.

- The designs that made Ive's name didn't look anything like Braun's products.

The reason I'm defending Product Design (and not Ive per se) is that there is so much shit design out there, and it is irritating on a daily basis like a door handle with a sharp edge or a USB-A cable that only goes in its socket 50% of the time.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: when I were a lad

I had a similar book 'Digital Dreams - The Work of the Sony Design Centre'. It was full of concept sketches, design iterations and interviews - as well as product porn. The Esslinger-era Mac designs are cited by the designer of the PlayStation and VAIO range.

Apple's most famous designs from before the return of Jobs were out-sourced.

Amazon's cloudy 'WorkSpace' desktops-as-a-service gain a GPU

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Latency?

There have been games systems based on this concept, and the lag was reported to be tolerable. More recently, some CAD vendors have similar offerings. I can't vouch for AWS specifically, but some CAD forums might be able to help you. Try a search for 'solidworks CAD'. :)

Samsung sets fire to $9m by throwing it at Tizen devs

Dave 126 Silver badge

Your critical thinking appears to have malfunctioned. In the last decade there have been many stories about laptops and phones catching fire.

You've cited iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 models. What you have failed to do is provide context by stating just how many iPhone 6 and 7s there are in the wild. Being conservative, the figure is north of 60 million. Without that number, you can't begin to estimate the risk of any given iPhone injuring you. Just as you estimate the risk of crossing the road, cooking with hot liquids, lifting a box, drinking, going hill walking, taking a swim, owning a Samsung / Sony phone, trying to open some blister packaging without scissors....

>How much is Apple paying you $. Have you no shame? Not at all. Shameful. What a shame! Fraud media. Apple: Please, somebody, stop explosions news...Theregister Pls help me...

Uh, okay. See the above. Calm down, get good data, estimate the risks. It seems that since you don't own an iPhone, your health is more at risk from your fragile mental state than it is any Apple product. There are many meta-studies in the medical literature about that.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Decentralized OS?

>Is it possible to set up an independent arms length Tizen/Linux foundation, and have every handset user pay (via bitcoin) to install the OS, where they then get to vote on what new features are developed by the community?

Tizen is mostly open source, with some open-source-ish bits, as far as I can make out. There is the Tizen Association which suggests changes, and the Tizen Technical Steering Group which implements changes.

The idea of users voting on features... this suggest that software features might be mutually exclusive to each other (okay, developer time is finite, I guess) which i don't quite grok. It is often hardware that limits features, and users already effectively pay to vote on hardware when they choose a handset.

Where features are limited in software, it is either because someone can't be bothered to implement it (business model), or the limitation serves the business model of the phone vendor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen#Licensing_model

Low-end notebook, rocking horse shit or hen's teeth

Dave 126 Silver badge

I guess one can use a second-hand mid-range notebook instead of a new low-end model.

Devil is in the details, battery life etc.