* Posts by Dave 126

10643 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

Hypernormalisation: Adam Curtis on chatbots, AI and Colonel Gaddafi

Dave 126 Silver badge

Dear Mr Curtis,

The last entry on your BBC blog was a trailer for Bitter Lake, and until the last month I have only been able to find one mention of you - attending a film festival to receive an award for Bitter Lake. Was your 'radio silence' deliberate, or have you just been very busy?

Also, what's your relation to the Internet Video channel on YouTube?

Cheers!

Mercedes answers autonomous car moral dilemma: Yeah, we'll just run over pedestrians

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Ahem...

>That subject (Adolf) has already been addressed, here,

And in the Stephen Fry novel Making History

>just in case you thought Germans couldn't possibly have a sense of humour regarding Der Führer. :)

I didn't think that - not after hearing a BBC radio adaptation of a German novel, and watching the film of the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Who%27s_Back_(film) :)

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Would it pass the Kobayashi Maru?

My understanding is that hitting moose can be very bad for the occupants of the car.

As regards 'this system'... we're not talking about a specific system.

I was having a nice chat in the pub the other week with a military systems engineer though... some interesting stuff about specifically narrow-band IR sensors (for detecting mood in humans, so likely able to differentiate twixt moose and person)

Will Microsoft's nerd goggles soar like an Eagle, or flop like a turkey?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Fact Check?

>the modern era Microsoft is showing signs of calling trends correctly well in advance.

Maybe yeah, but a large part of the Hololens is the Kinect technology that MS invested in after seeing the commercial success of the Nintendo Wii. That sort of thing happens all the time - had Apple computers not had FireWire, they wouldn't have made the first generation iPod. Apple only had FireWire because high-res scanners needed something like it, and Apple survived the nineties in DTP and later video. Apples were used in DTP because their user-friendly GUI originally required greater graphical power than was the norm, and software grew around it. The Motorola architecture and consistent FireWire implementation of Macs at one point meant they were favoured by musicians after their Atari STs died, and so the first iPhone was made with Wireless MIDI and sub 10ms latency baked into the operating system. Having your product adopted by high profile musicians doesn't hurt.

The point is, sometimes you develop a technology for one reason, but end profiting from your investment for another.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: What term can we come up with to destroy this?

>THe question remains though, will this be enough to kill it stone dead.

Are you hard of thinking?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Fact Check?

>Also, didn't MS come up with the tablet design years before Apple?

Arguably the production designers of 2001: Space Oddessy came up with the iPad design before MS or Apple even existed - though it carried an 'IBM' badge. As shown in the film, it is only used for watching telvision news ('content consumption'); 'real' computer work was done by speaking to the computer directly, or else ripping out its daughter boards. There may be earlier prior art in film or Science Fiction illustration - in literature, casual references by the likes of Asimov to 'pocket computers' are too vague.

MS had Win XP: Tablet Edition for years, but the devices were usually heavy and didn't last long on battery. Sony had some unusual WinXP.TE devices with keys on either side of a 9" screen - but hey, Sony did the colour CLIE running PalmOS, too.

Psion had the original NetBook - I can't remember it being touch screen, but it was an 'ultrabook' form factor long before its time.

The idea of a tablet has been around for ages, but Apple did it well - they even released a phone a few years beforehand in order to teach their users how to use it. They used ARM instead of Intel, and of course had control of both the OS and the silicon. Rewind further, and we have the Newton - which gave us ARM - though the Newton wasn't the first Newton-like device.

The Microsoft Courier was an interesting device - a dual-touchscreen clamshell device focused on collating and annotating content like a scrapbook. Since then, Sony released a spilt-screen clamshell Android tablet, but since it was sub-optimal for watching movies nobody bought it (I miss you, crazy Sony!)

Speaking purely as a consumer, it doesn't matter to me who did what first. It just matters who did what well. Doing something well usually involves judiciously balancing compromises.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: £4,529 ?

>What muppet would part with that for an MS product?

NASA, JPL, D'Assault Systemes, Autodesk, Volvo, Saab, amongst others. I know who they are - who the hell are you?

CAD hardware used to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range, if not more. The software was typically a tenth of that. Companies would pay it if it payed for itself, and then some. And it did. FFS, a few thousand quid is only the cost of a professional graphics card a few years ago.

You've betrayed your ignorance of this sector, N2, so I'm confused as to what it is you feel you can add to this topic.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: What term can we come up with to destroy this?

@Planty

Google Glass was designed to worn in public spaces.

Microsoft's AR goggles are designed to be worn in private studios, offices, construction sites, workshops etc.

Dave 126 Silver badge

It's very different to Google Glass. The Hololens is the price it is because of the sensors and silicon in it, which allow it to:

- 3D-map the room in near real time

- Track your eyeballs so your gaze acts as a cursor

Google Glass only presented visual information to one eye (to-do lists, simple graphics like maps etc), wheras the Hololens projects slightly different images to both eyes so that virtual 3D objects appear to be a part of your real environment.

You might as well say that tablet computer is no different to a pocket calculator.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Microsoft Nerd Goggles?

Really? It seemed like a sober discussion of MS's product strategy to me. The article did contain a link to another article in which the experience of using the Hololens was described in positive terms, but then most people would expect several thousand quid's worth of sensors and custom silicon to work fairly well, regardless of who made it.

I'm not MS's biggest fan - and I assume you aren't, either - but I've looked at a list of their current software partners, some of whom make some very good software indeed. If you were in any of the target sectors, you would know that. If you are not, I don't know of what value your inferred opinion is.

Google Pixel: Devices are a dangerous distraction from the new AI interface

Dave 126 Silver badge

>I love it, just love it when someone who doesn't know anything about a market feels compelled to give their two-penneth.

Yet we can still learn from them. In this case we learn than people can confuse the Galaxy Note 7 with the Galaxy S 7. It is not unreasonable to assume they are not the only person to do so, which may concern Samsung.

Dave 126 Silver badge
Stop

Re: No thanks.

I'd rather remove a piece of burning fabric from my skin than I would a piece of burning ABS plastic. [If you want to know my reasoning, there is an easy experiment that you can perform at home. Or perform next to a medical centre with a good burns unit. It's up to you, but I strongly suggest you don't. ]

Anyway, I'd rather have a phone catch fire when it is a few inches away from me than have one combust when it is in my pocket - or next to my bed when I am asleep. [Again, you can demonstrate this to yourself using some readily available materials...]

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Volume or niche?

Thank you Whitter for a sane and measured comment.

Sadly, Subtle = Invisible, on the internet.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: VR

> Until we're able to fit the equivalent of a GTX1080 in a phone in another decade or so, mobile VR will remain very much limited to strapping a phone to your face without any chance of that "immersing yourself in VR" part.

Games can still be just as fun without the latest fancy graphics, and even gaming PCs don't fool anyone that they are looking at reality.

Heck, the only games system to make a success of more immersive games, the Nintendo Wii, had underpowered graphics compared to its peers - the fun came from how players interacted with it, not how many polygons it was pushing around.

Your level of 'acceptable' appears to be arbitrarily chosen.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Then pay for it.

If that business model is not viable, then no number of comments on The Reg (preaching to the choir) is going to fix it. Sorry folks.

If you really want it, start a discussion about how this might be achieved... probably best to start with AOSP (because Tizen, Maemo, Meago, WebOS, BB10 et al have been so well supported by developers /s), but you'll need a huge investment in alternatives to Google's services and propriety APIs - ask Amazon, Samsung or Blackberry. Then bear in mind that many people who care about their privacy decided iOS was the lesser of two evils some time ago.

Microsoft was attempting to use user privacy on phones as a selling point a few years back, but yeah...

Samsung to Galaxy Note 7 users: Turn it off. Now

Dave 126 Silver badge

>It is only one type of battery that has the problem. It's the ones with Lithium in them.

Bullshit. Batteries of other chemistries can burn or spew acid if improperly charged, so don't make assumptions. Be safe, folks.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Sabotage ???

>That said, sabotage is not as unlikely as I first thought, because given the volume it is inconceivable to me that these problems did not show up in QA - unless that was rigged or not done, and I don't see the latter happening in a company like Samsung.

Some pundits suggest the development of the Note 7 was sped up, in order to take advantage of the then upcoming (and predicted to be lacklustre) iPhone 7 launch.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Yesterday in my Inbox from Vodafone

That link only mention one reported G7 fire:

"It’s not clear whether the battery issues affect other handsets, including the Galaxy S7 Edge; Samsung has not issued any guidance or statements regarding other phone models. As such, we can’t say for sure whether the Galaxy S7 Edge is affected by any faults. "

- http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-overheating-catch-fire

Command line coffee machine: Hacker shuns app so he can stay at the keyboard for longer

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: brewed coffee from the command line

Thanks for the correction, guys!

(I had read the wiki page in the past having heard of the coffee pot long ago, but I didn't read it today. As could be inferred from my post, it was written before I had drunk any coffee. That situation has now been corrected.)

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: brewed coffee from the command line

The history of the internet is lost on you. The world's first 'webcam' was rigged up at MIT to see the level of coffee in a filter machine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot

Right, I'm off now to use my Aeropress. I might give it a quick check for security flaws whilst I'm at it, but I'm fairly relaxed about it!

Four reasons Pixel turns flagship Android mobe makers into roadkill

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: It's the age old problem...

>But I don't see anything to "fear" from Pixel. The price ensures it will have next to no impact. Samsung's all round package is far superior - especially the imaging.

Eh?

"With an overall DxOMark Mobile score of 89, pixel, the latest Google smartphone is the highest-rated smartphone camera we have ever tested."

- https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Pixel-smartphone-camera-review-At-the-top

"Its image quality scores are impressive across the board, but it is particularly strong in providing a very high level of detail from its 12.3MP camera, with relatively low levels of noise for every tested lighting condition. It also provides accurate exposures with very good contrast and white balance, as well as fast autofocus.

Not that I'm too fussed - many smartphones will take 'good enough' pictures, and if I was that fussed about image quality I'd use a dedicated camera.

FBI wants to unlock another jihadist’s iPhone

Dave 126 Silver badge

your passcode will be needed for additional security validation:

- After restarting your device

-When more than 48 hours have elapsed from the last time you unlocked your device

- To enter the Touch ID & Passcode setting

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204587

'Please label things so I can tell the difference between a mouse and a microphone'

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Label you, label me, label us all together

@9Rune5

A genuine thank you for your clarification.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Label you, label me, label us all together

Is your comment in relation to labels, or to Star Trek?

That young actor Anton Yelchin was killed by shit user interface design. Fiat Chrysler had already flagged those vehicles for recall because of the gear selector:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/20/autos/jeep-recall-anton-yelchin/

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: When we get to the stage where we have to label everything...

Or make the mouse (Human Input Device) look like a mouse (cheese thieving squeeking mammal):

http://lowendmac.com/wp-content/uploads/kidzmouse.jpg

Amazon supremo Bezos' Blue Origin blows its top over Texas desert

Dave 126 Silver badge

"Sometimes a big cigar is just a big cigar", but still...

Simpsons creator Matt Groening once drew Mac heaven for Apple

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I don't like to mention this but....

Also, though I am not an IP lawyer, it would seem anything printed in a T-shirt might be captured in a photograph of a crowd... it seems unfair if that photographer couldn't distribute his photograph because he'd unwittingly snapped a pic of a copyrighted image on someones clothes.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: "Perhaps Matt Groening can be attributed with keeping Apple afloat"

Haha! A lovely nod to Ridley Scott's '1984' advertisement for Apple.

Still, Fox's business interests sometimes overlap those of Apple and Jobs (not that the Simpsons are kinder to Murdoch or Gates).

Stingy sapphire lens in Apple's iPhone 7 is as scratchy as glass

Dave 126 Silver badge

The compromise isn't to save money, but to reduce reflection artifacts in the images the camera captures. The Reg, amongst others, had articles when Apple first used sapphire lens covers that criticised purple artifacts in iPhone photos, and knocked Apple's advice to customers: "Don't take photos when the subjects are against the sun".

Since many people use phone cases, it seems that Apple have decided that fewer reflections are worth the cost of a less scratch resistant lens.

‘Andromeda’ will be Google’s Windows NT

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: What's the incentive for vendors to use this?

>If Google tries to lock things down too much, OEMs might not choose to follow.

So what? If an HTC get too big for their boots, there will be a Huawei or OnePlus (or a Bloggs MK1 with Qualcomm SoC, Sony camera and LG display... same difference) to fill their place. [please update my references according to how far through 2016/17 we are].

Speaking as a fan of the Sony Xperia Z (Compact) range, there is little that Android OEMs can do to differentiate themselves.

My friend is still using his iPhone 4S - and beyond replacing its battery himself, has cheerfully taken no interest in mobile phones since he bought it. He's vaguely 'normal'. I'm not, so I'll use my cheap (and seemingly indestructibly plastic) Huawei until I get a Project Mango Lenovo (Y'know, the one with the 3D depth mapping )

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Damn and blast

That was no typo. Not sure how you think 'Strain' would work, unless you imagine me with a sieve under my puking cat in order to catch the chunky bits. Cue the joke about the waiter in an alleyway, three tramps, two cocktail sticks and a straw.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Curtains for Windows

There is no reliable way to stop Windows 10 from restarting itself whenever it feels like.

There is no reliable way to stop Windows 10 from restarting itself whenever it feels like.

Yeah, I know I said it twice, but what the hell? [all caps, multiple exclamation marks etc]

How the living fuck can you leave it to do a simulation or render? The answer (apparently): Big jobs like that should be done on rented compute power like AWS - or MS's equivalent. Oh well. Arse burgers.

And no, Linux is not an option. I'm sure it's a lovely OS but the applications for many sectors just suck. Deal with it. The GIMP is to Photoshop what Windows is to Linux. As for serious CAD, don't make me laugh... it'll be streamed from the cloud to a thin client before Linux gets it properly. Sad really, cos it was all Unixy (though proprietary and useful) back in the nineties.

Dave 126 Silver badge

>As for IoT devices... ...Since the tools for Linux are generally excellent and the runtime cost is zero, it's clearly going to be the defacto choice unless there is a reason to choose differently.

Three big reasons:

The size of OSs such as QNX are a tenth the size of Linux. This is important if your application is taking power from an AA cell or harvesting it from piezo-electric switch or from elsewhere.

Also, IoT applications may be more of a pain in the arse if they go wrong- QNX has a longer, more battle-hardened pedigree in critical systems than Linux.

Yet more, Linux isn't a real time OS.

The idea that Linux is a panacea is mere shabby thinking, or at least narrow thinking based upon the presumption that a computer is a discrete lump of X Mhrtz and Z MB etc

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Damn and blast

If my cat was called Andromeda and barfed a lot, I would only be reminded of the Andromeda Stain. Yep, with HBO's adaptation of Westworld, Micheal Crichton is in vogue this week.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Should have happened years ago

>There wasn't a good reason for ChromeOS and Android to be separate things in the first place.

Really? There are a lot of inherent issues with Android that Google want rid of. One was mentioned in the article - Java, and another you'll have read of many times in these forums - the slow speed of updates because each new build is specific to a specific hardware configuration (so requires the cooporation of original chip manufacturers).

Dave 126 Silver badge

Indeed. Just because Linux is good doesn't mean it's perfect. QNX, as an example, has much smaller footprint, and a real-time design, making it - or something like it - more suitable for embedded applications and the IoT. Or even for a mobile phone where it is critical that it doesn't drop a phone call because the OS is concentrating on something else.

Dave 126 Silver badge

I have no gospel answer for you, but looking at the clues should give you grounds for optomism:

1, ChromeOS is regularly updated directly from Google

2, The foot-dragging attitude of OEMs and carriers toward Android updates frustrates Google, to the extent they have had the Nexus and Google Play Edition range of phones to show OEMs 'how it's done'.

3, This new OS is a chance for Google to undo rushed decisions made in Android's early days (when they were desperate to catch up with iOS)

SpaceX searches for its 'grassy knoll' of possible Falcon rocket sabotage

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Laser?

>No worries about wind

True

>or leaving behind evidence.

Depends... even lasers in non-visible spectra could hit dust particles and heat them. SpaceX could well have IR cameras in operation which conceivably show a line of heated dust from enough angles to show the origin.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Pathetic attempt at diversion

>Possibly a camera on the roof. They want to find/get/expose it either for data or a red face on their competitor. Using this "excuse" to get at it.

That is plausible. In fact, It'd be surprising to learn that ULA didn't have a camera trained on their competitor's test, if they already had a convenient vantage point (unless of course there were more suitable, publicly accessible vantage points available to them closer to the test site)

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Reminds me...

That looks like a sweet story, but have you a more savoury source than the Daily Mail? :)

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Eliminated the obvious

Broadly, I agree with you Bazza.

However, this plot, reminiscent of a 1960's espionage B-movie, does fit Elon Musk's aesthetic (he bought the submarine Lotus from The Spy Who Loved Me, and for ages his Twitter photo was of him stroking a white cat - I kid you not).

In the past though, SpaceX have been pretty efficient at identifying and rectifying the causes of their Rapid Unplanned Disassemblies - they have an edge over NASA in that they don't have to dig through a stack of sub-contracting manufacturers.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: downrange?

>Problem would be getting the spark needed and with the videos running, tracer or incendiary is not an option.

There was a '007 special' episode of Mythbusters in which they tried to blow up gas cylinders with bullets (a la the opening sequence of 2006's Casino Royal). Nothing went 'bang'. Of course they were using a handgun instead of anything bigger, but one assumes (I'm assuming, cos my memory isn't that good) that any spark occurs on first contact with the cylinder, i.e before there is any gas available to ignite because the puncture hasn't occurred yet. Additionally, the lead round didn't penetrate the cylinder. Also, lead anti-personal rounds don't spark (though projectiles of other metals for your bangbang-stick are available)

A year living with the Nexus 5X – the good, the bad, and the Nougat

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Nexit?

>So Pixel mean no more Nexus?

That's what I'm hearing, though it is confusing me - the whole reason for the Nexus line was to shame OEMs into sorting out their software. Google did this by supplying good-value phones with top-notch internals. However, I hear these Pixel phones won't be cheap.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Hmmm...

>Hmm, no headphone socket, and a seemingly absolute impossibility of getting music onto it without iTunes destroying one's local music collection.

My iPhone using friend uses Google Music - it makes his existing local music collection available to him wherever, and I assume he can download tracks to his phone for when he is away from data.

My Google Music experience (on a low-end-ish Android) has been less than smooth, with some tracks only playing a few seconds, and not being able to scrub through tracks). Weird.

Ladies in tech, have you considered not letting us know you're female?

Dave 126 Silver badge

For fucks sake! We will never solve our society's issues if we all go around pretending we're perfect, fair and enlightened. We are not. We can't fix our prejudices until we accept them.

If we accept that we are all biased imperfect humans whose judgement is dodgy even with good intentions, and build systems that will compensate for that self-evident fact, we might stand a better chance of actually achieving a meritocracy. This might be too much of a pragmatic approach for some, but then I actually like people.

This article was based upon some facile dogma of the most unhelpful flavour. This 'John' person might be right, he might be wrong - in either case his argument will stand or fall by itself. At least he proposed an idea that has a better chance of being objectively fair than some recruiter thinking to themselves "I must remember not to be sexist today, M'kay?"

Please note that the responses I have made to Andrew Orlowski articles on occasion should reassure the author that it is her content, not her sex, that invokes this feeling in me. Further perusal of my posts will confirm I don't have much time for sexism. Being of a generation that read essays written on real paper by people of intellect (peer-reviewed papers and everything), wit and compassion, I'm confused as to why anyone would think we have anything to learn from this article.

Internet of Things security? Start with who owns the data

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: The problem is a lack of imagination...

>Boil 50 million kettles at once, and you bring the nation's powergrid to its knees, and not just for three minutes.

Ah, the old 'Coronation Street' effect... you don't need connected kettles to bring that about! In fact, connected devices could be used to mitigate such spikes in demand. Even if it just implemented with in a single home.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: The problem is a lack of imagination...

>And while academics quibble about who "owns" data, hackers get on with massive DDoS attacks using webcams and DVRs.

Did you even read the whole article? Far from quibbling, they were looking at reasons IoT security has been so poor, and what can be done - in terms of corporate and legal organisations as well as technical - to make it better. Example:

"There’s an argument that says you start from the boardroom. The pressure to be first to market doesn’t feature security. The pressure to reduce costs? If you ignore security, you do so at your peril; it's going to cost you more in the long run. Educate boardroom and senior management to build security in from the start. Appoint a Chief Information Security Officer. What I’m touting is bottom up and top down. The end message is to build security in."

Oh, and the issue of 'who owns the data' has legal consequences, so is a potential stick to beat some better practice into the IoT industry. Other sticks include market forces and and company reputation.

The wait is over: MoD releases latest issue of Ship Paint Monthly

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Dezincification

What @frank ly said.

C'mon guys, chemists do plenty to make our daily lives better, but their work isn't as visible as some fancy new bridge, fast car or sleek gadget. Let's show some respect from one professional sector to another. :)

USB-C is now wired for sound, just like Sir Cliff Richard

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I predict that they'll have overlooked some details...

>If this is about detecting the connection of analog headphones or earphones...

No, no it isn't. It is a spec for digital audio streams.

All your concerns about sound quality being degraded by poor contacts etc are unnecessary. Indeed, the analogue path will be shorter - integrated into the headphones, possibly just before the drivers - and the DAC and amp will be specified by AKG, Sennheiser or whoever, instead of Samsung, HTC or Sony. The DAC can even be factory programmed to take account of hardware tolerances (as is the case with EMUs and car engines). If you invest in a high-end DAC/amp combo (in your headphones), you can take it with you across future phone updates.

There are some downsides and inconveniences too, of course.