* Posts by werdsmith

7096 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Feb 2011

Calls for 'right to repair' electronics laws grow louder across Europe

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Just because...

I can buy an ODBII code reader of eBay for a tenner, plug it into my car and it tells me what’s wrong with it.

Problem is, I don’t have a 2 post lift or an engine winch.

Master boot vinyl record: It just gives DOS on my IBM PC a warmer, more authentic tone

werdsmith Silver badge

You could also get them from CEEFAX.

Boeing 737 Max will return to flight after software updates, says EU's aviation regulator

werdsmith Silver badge

Please yourself. Nobody is talking about airport steps. It’s onboard steps for places that didn’t have airport steps. Even gravel fields. No doors on the gear wheel wells either. In the 1960s this was not just for passenger steps, but ground access for cargo doors, fuel intake etc. There were no A319s in the 1960s.

This explains better:

https://simpleflying.com/737s-low-to-the-ground/

Anyway, it really doesn’t matter if you buy it or not.

werdsmith Silver badge

Because it was low compared to a 707 for example, to enable its use beyond major airports.

werdsmith Silver badge

Steps are still used, even for higher cabin doors because airport handling has mobile stairways. Jetway bridges are only limited availability especially at European airports, many still require those passenger transfer buses for parked aircraft out on the apron. Airports are too busy for the number of terminal stands there are.

The reason for 737 lowered stance was to make it practical at more airports that were less well equipped. Not only are the passenger door low, so are the cargo loading hatches.

Marmite of scripting languages PHP emits version 8.0, complete with named arguments and other goodies

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: It's all relative

That’s like comparing Boris and Trump. You can choose which way round.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: ?

Yes, the gunicorn arrangement is where I thought we had moved on to.

werdsmith Silver badge

Depends if you like a particular style of instruction. These were training books, not reference manuals and they were from PHP's salad days about 20 years ago.

werdsmith Silver badge

I expect there is work for code maintenance for PHP, but I assumed nobody in 2021 is going to start a new project with it. I recently found a number of books about it in my garage. They have gone for recycling,

European Space Agency will launch giant claw that drags space junk to its doom

werdsmith Silver badge

A lot of thought has been applied to space junk clean up. Whoever figured out a “cheap” simple way will “clean up” in more ways than one.

So much brainstorming has been done already.

It may date back to 1994 but there's no end in sight for the UK's Chief customs system as Brexit rules beckon

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Still. The Farage Garage will be open for business on time.

Why would anyone in the UK expect leadership and competence from their government? I’ve not seen that from any government in my living memory, it would be a complete miracle if that ever happens.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Still. The Farage Garage will be open for business on time.

So many million believed Farage and sided with Trump.

That’s why I despair. I’ve tried to find a good reason for leaving the EU for years since the whole referendum thing came about. There is none, apart from this latest “oh you wouldn’t understand”. This totally condemns the whole leave ideaology .

Apple's global security boss accused of bribing cops with 200 free iPads in exchange for concealed gun permits

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Back in the UK

I was a shotgun licence holder when I did regular clay shooting. My police visit was an inspection of the gun cabinet and a check that the house was tidy and unwashed dishes weren’t piling up in the kitchen.

As a member of the clay shooting club, we were invited by the local police to their gun range for a safety and gun security talk with a hand gun demonstration. I was given this little box of 12 .22 handgun rounds for my turn. Unfortunately on the first shot the gun action cut a gash in my thumb making it bleed everywhere and I was driven in a police vehicle to A&E for stitches. Next morning at home when I put my jacket on, the remaining 11 .22 rounds were still in my pocket.

Hundreds of Facebook moderators complain: AI content moderation isn't working and we're paying for it

werdsmith Silver badge

Faecebook. Is it still here?

Ugh.

UK's Space Command to be 'capable of launching our first rocket in 2022'

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Best of British Boffinry

Not only that, but there were routine launches of Skylark, in fact 441 launches between 1957 and 2015. A sounding rocket, which may have been only suborbital, but the peak development could lift 200kg to 350 miles altitude. So significantly ahead of this Space Command “first rocket”.

We see what you did there: First-stage booster from Rocket Lab's Return to Sender mission floats back to Earth

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: The Scottish Solution

The main chute trails a small drone shoot above and behind, the helicopter snags this line with a long underslung line.

Police warn of bad Apples that fell off the back of a truck after highway robbery

werdsmith Silver badge

I had ordered an Apple thing (not iPhone) as a gift from a large department store online and it didn’t arrive. When I called them about it they explained a large shipment to the courier has “disappeared” on the same day. Seems there’s a lot of it going on.

Billionaire's Pagani Pa-gone-i after teen son takes hypercar out for a drive, trashes it

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Yes, it IS insured!

They don’t need insurance, they can underwrite themselves by guaranteeing their assets. A wealthy person need never pay any more than an admin fee to insure a fleet of super cars, unless one prangs.

ESA's Vega rocket crashes and burns after fourth-stage nozzle failure sinks two satellites

werdsmith Silver badge

With the competition increasing, 2 launch failures in 2 years starts to feel catastrophic to the business. Arianespace need to get their finger out.

When humans return to the Moon in '2024', HPE would like us to remember: We built the computer that simmed this

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Don't go to space til we sort out Earth

We need spearhead projects like space to drive us forwards and help sort out earth problems.

It’s part of human nature to push on and explore beyond the envelope.

Anyway, this moon thing won’t happen in 2024, that timescale was set to generate some glory in Trumps final term.

2030 is more realistic.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Not...

The ISS MIMIC project, built by NASA engineers uses Rapsberry Pi.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledges £12bn green economy package

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: How exactly?

I doubt that the existing cabling sufficient to power a light is going to be capable of carrying the current needed for EVs.

People don’t have petrol pumps on their driveways, so I don’t see how going to shared charged points will be a problem. Especially with the tech more developed in the future,

Oxford Westgate car park has 50 spaces with chargers.

werdsmith Silver badge

Not at the property, not necessary. Take it to a charge point and charge it up. Like you go to a filling station and fill up.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Wrong Information

Some hybrids, meaning plug in hybrids, not mild ones.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: World-beating?

World-following.

The neighbours Netherlands, Germany, Ireland are all aiming at 2030 already. France is still 2040 but will probably fall in line. Norway are already on their way there and have set a target of 2025.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Not a chance !

The other solution is to drive your car to a filling station and fill it up with whatever your fuel of choice is, which can include electric by whatever means of doing it that will be developed by 2030.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Not a chance !

The AA have booster packs on their vans already.

No, the creator of cURL didn't morph into Elon Musk and give away Bitcoins. But his hijacked Twitter page tried to

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Pointless

The wheat from the chaff. Like mining for diamonds in a cat litter tray.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Pointless

I forgot the billion times recycled memes and gifs of actors pulling faces that have no relevance to the conversation.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Pointless

It exists so people can create fictional anecdotes to trigger outrage and then wallow in an echo chamber of similarly outraged people. And also so people can pointlessly whinge eternally about anything, usually governments.

It also exists so people can get into “discussions “ and then cowardly block people when it doesn’t go their way. They can then return to their echo chamber and have their false beliefs reinforced.

It’s a cess pit, but a less noxious cess pit than faecebook.

OPPO showcases 'rollable' concept phone that turns into a tablet – no bending needed

werdsmith Silver badge

I think he knows that. The point he is making is that Escobar is Colombian, not Columbian.

Six months after A100 super-GPU's debut, Nvidia doubles memory, ups bandwidth

werdsmith Silver badge

Let's have a Jetson version!

New lawsuit: Why do Android phones mysteriously exchange 260MB a month with Google via cellular data when they're not even in use?

werdsmith Silver badge

Mon portable.

Python swallows Java to become second-most popular programming language... according to this index

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Professional use

Some languages where the developers are usually very competent, you don’t see much web chatter because they are not students constantly asking for help with their coursework on stack overflow.

werdsmith Silver badge

I don’t think VB was used much for data science, ML etc.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: what is it about python that irks you?

I have a Casio handheld calculator that can be programmed in Python, either by uploading to it, or painfully directly through the keypad. It is very popular for non professional programming.

werdsmith Silver badge

Contrary to popular belief, Uni computer science is not a holiday, they use C, C++, Assember and stuff like Haskell. They teach supporting stuff in mathermatics and predicate / first order logic.

Python with its extensive choice of libraries is replacing MatLab on the physics / science courses, and it is quite suitable for that role.

C++ is seeing the benefit of Qt now, because Qt goes some way to addressing the Linux gui fragmentation problem. Qt is available for Python but the c++ is more native. How many times I’ve heard “ffs, not tomcat again”

Java is a total turd, horrible outdated piece of crap, which is becoming more and more stigmatised and increasingly rejected since it started to carry the Larry spike.

I am amazed to see that PHP is still a thing on Tiobe. I had forgotten it existed.

Nokstalgia: HMD Global introduces yet another homage to the past – a 4G rework of the Nokia 6300

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: I want the banana phone... with spring!

The 8110 re-run came out in 2018, and is still available for 50 quiddish.

Search Nokia 8110 4G

werdsmith Silver badge

I will look out for one of these. My backup phone, a HMD 3310 was supposed to be RRP £39.99 but I grabbed one for £19.99 so I hope to pay a bit less and 60 quid for this. It will be great to have a 4G hotspot available.

Tax working from home, says Deutsche Bank, because the economy needs that lunch money you’re not spending

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Tax failure to consume

All the logical follow ons, tax people for using Amazon or online stores because the High Street needs their business.

I never used cafes or takeaways for lunch either, they were just too expensive. I know I wasn’t unusual in that.

Wondering what to do over the holiday season? How about aiming a laser at commercial aircraft and then spending years of your life in prison?

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Polarizing filter

In my experience it is the millions of little microscratches on the surface of the glass / plexiglass that causes the light to spread over the screen and interior making vision difficult. Having experienced this in a Robinson R22 a couple of years ago, the idiot cannot keep you fixed in a handheld beam, so it appears as brief flashes from the source.

Banking software firm tiptoes off to the cloud with MariaDB after $2m Oracle licence shocker

werdsmith Silver badge

Terrible Rolls Royce analogy. RRs are for people who are wealthy and wish to make an ostentatious display to all that they are wealthy, to satisfy their ego.

Jobs of serious databases in businesses are more analogous to commercial vehicles, built to do a job.

werdsmith Silver badge

Very satisfying to hear of another legacy Oracle DB getting euthanised. We finally got rid of ours in 2019, replaced it with something that costs a tiny fraction and works much much better.

Buying a new Oracle anything these days should be classes as gross misconduct.

Biden projected to be the next US President, Microsoft joins rest of world in telling Trump: It looks like... you're fired

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Good

I would think a nation like the USA could find two decent candidates that aren't geriatrics.

Magic! If you have an entry-level iPad, the Combo Touch could make it your workhorse

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: The biggest thorn in the side of the Combo Touch...

Can't run Qt Creator (for example) on any iPad anyway.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: the inclusion of backlighting, which is a must-have for late-night work.

An experienced keyboard user can dispense with any kind of keyboard lighting or even the need to look at the keyboard..

Apple opens pre-orders of iPhone 12 Mini and Pro Max models, the cheapest and most expensive in the lineup

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Flying out the door

If you are in the UK, be patient, order from John Lewis or Costco, get a 2 year warranty .

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: I am buying three iPhone Pro Maxes

No, people don’t need a grand. An iPhone 12 128 pro is £39 per month, no money up front. The £1400 is not their concern.

Elon Musk's ancient April Fools' gag about 'Tesla Tequila' made real in lightning-shaped bottle

werdsmith Silver badge

Not for drinking. In some kind of collectors world in the future they will be occasionally showing up at auctions and fetching $2000.

Third event in 3 months, Apple. There better be some Arm-powered Macs this time

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Date, what date?

I didn’t see the date in the article either. I just assumed that I skimmed too quickly, I won’t be streaming the “event” anyway.