* Posts by Charles Manning

3509 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jun 2007

'WOMAN FOUND ON MARS' – now obvious men are from Venus

Charles Manning

She's standing on a rock....

If you zoom and enhance you'll see a tiny spider and she's waiting for a man to come kill it.

Charles Manning

Clearly...

A druid with moobs.

If this is the crap that crowd-sourcing science gives us, then please bring back the boffins.

Texas senator Ted Cruz serves up sizzling 'machine gun bacon'

Charles Manning

Obama is probably being lobbied by the gun industry

Every time Obama opens his mouth on guns, there's a spike of sales in the legal gun trade. The gun industry has grown 50% under Obama. He's the world's best gun salesman.

Of course the illegal gun trade - which accounts for over 90% of the homicides - is unaffected, since they don't worry about pesky things like laws.

As for the bacon, it isn't the grease that's a problem. Some gun lubes (eg. Frog lube) are food grade. I'd be more worried about all the fouling from powder and primers contaminating the bacon.

Charles Manning

Black pudding

There's a Goon Show sketch on that. Also almost a whole show on the Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler.

Charles Manning

Is Hilary electable?

Nobody outside the complete Dem fanboi squad takes Hillary seriously.

She can never fully recover from the Bosnian sniper fire episode of 7 years ago. Add that to the serial lying around the email servers and any time she says anything halfway sensible her opposition have a whole lot of one-liner dirt to fling at her.

Intel building Xeon into lapwarmers as designers, content creators call the shots

Charles Manning

Re: sperm count.

... hence Intel's the more females in computing campaign.

Anyway, I've done with my procreations. I would not mind a laptop that can do big compiles quickly.

First SPACE SALAD on Monday's menu for ISS astronauts

Charles Manning

Why citirc acid?

Could have used acetic acid: a nice little vinaigrette.

Beware, skateboarders! Hackers can switch your 'leccy plank into reverse at warp speed

Charles Manning

The encryption will only help some of it.

The damn thing can still be jammed by swamping with 2.4G RF.

Depending on how the software works this might mean you can prevent "slow down" commands getting through and thus allow the skateboard to run into traffic etc.

Late last year/earlier this year I worked on the development of some BT Low Entergy/ BT4 product and got to hang out on the discussion boards. It seems far too many products are not being designed properly. People basically just take the demos supplied by the manufacturers and just tweak them slightly. No proper understanding of how the security works, the failure modes, etc.

It's all pretty scary really.

Surprise! Evil-eyed cats MORE LIKELY to be SNEAKY PREDATORS – boffins

Charles Manning

Re: I thought it was already known

Yup, we certainly talked about it when I was doing biology at school around 40 years ago.

A cat's eye at rest is set up to detect left-right motion well. This allows them to sit for hours on end waiting for prey without expending much brain power.

When they see prey, the eyes instantly dilate. That reduces the depth of field and makes them more accurate at judging distances when attacking.

Eye placement on the head and the overlap of the eyes also plays a role. Predators to the front, prey to the side.

Good to see the researchers recycling discoveries. You don't want knowledge to end up in the landfill.

Thankfully this is not my tax dollar being troughed.

Another death in Apple's 'Mordor' – its Foxconn Chinese assembly plant

Charles Manning

"employees aren't statistics"

Errr, yes they are when you're looking at statistics. If you don't look at the statistics you get irrational articles like this.

Foxconn has about 1 million employees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn

If they were just normal USA citizens then you'd expect 100 to kill themselves in a year. (10/100,000)

If they were just normal Chinese citizens then you'd expect about 78 to kill themselves in a year. (7.8/100000).

If they were just normal Brits then you'd expect about 62. (6.2/100,000)

So it really sounds like Foxcon is doing pretty well unless you let irrationality into the equation.

Want to download free AV software? Don't have a Muslim name

Charles Manning

Re: so now tha bad guys

Well it's all pretty stupid. Names are hardly unique. There are multiple Charles Mannings in the small city I live in and that's hardly a common name.

The name pool for Muslim names is far smaller than for English names.

If you found John Smith on the list, which John Smith would it be? Now take that problem and multiply by a factor of 100 or so and you get the idea how hopeless a Muslim naughty-name list is.

Boffins have made optical transistors that can reach 4 TERAHERTZ

Charles Manning

Boffins have made optical transistors

... in a simulator...

Reg, for fuck sakes, you're not main stream media. Get it right.

Next thing we're going to hear is that it was simulated in Minecraft.

Off to simulate going for a simulated drive/flight in my flying car!

Moronic Time cover sets back virtual reality another 12 months

Charles Manning

Moronic Time cover sets back virtual reality another 12 months

Nope virtual reality is doing that all by itself.

I've been watching VR revolutionise human interaction for the last 20 years. It is still a toy technology.

Big, ugly, heavy laptops are surprise PC sales sweet spot

Charles Manning

Why now?

Blooming obvious. The price of these machines has fallen through the floor.

General purpose laptops have also fallen, but not through any price sensitivity threshold. They fell through that threshold about a year or two ago and everyone who wanted one bought then. They're not going to throw out the old, and buy a new one now even though the price continues to fall. There's no advantage in a new one over a 2yo machine.

Now the "certified workstation" grade machines have also dropped low enough that a whole raft more people will feel like buying these.

IDC should hopefully (maybe I'm being too hopeful here) realise that once the gamers have their "certified" kit, they've blown their allowances and won't be buying again for a couple of years.

Who are all the PC makers going to sell to in the interim?

Oh no ZigBee, as another front opens on home networking insecurity

Charles Manning

re: two way authentication

Surely the selling point of IoT is convenience. Having to rummage around your house pushing buttons to pair your phone with your numerous devices sounds rather bothersome. Sounds like we're putting IoT in the too much hassle basket.

Expect most of the IoT features in most devices to be unused. They're be like the VCR clocks that flash 00:00 for their whole life.

Unfortunately, most devices will likely come with unsecured IoT access to allow you to get going quicker.

Microsoft lures iOS devs with open-source app tools for Windows 10

Charles Manning

For how long?

Microsoft are forever hyping up a new offering, then cutting it off at the knees. About the only exception has been .NET.

My first significant experience of that was on NT3 back in 1995 or so. They offered POSIX support and stream driver support to encourage people to move from the ~$1000 *nix licenses to ~$350 NT licenses. As soon as they got people committed to moving, the POSIX and streams was chopped out.

Microsoft Robotics all mouth, not trousers.

Silverlight...

And I've never been anywhere near web or database development which I'm sure is worse.

So nth time bitten n+1th time shy. Anyone lured in by the MS sirens deserves to be dashed to death on the rocks.

Techies told to GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY by Microsoft, Netflix

Charles Manning

A loophole

I suspect this might be a loophole for the quota people: mum goes of on "unlimited leave" for 10 years to raise her family. Since she stays on the books she will still be counted as a female employee and keep the "we employ lots of females" box ticked.

Bloody genius.

AIDS? Ebola? Nah – ELECTRO SMOG is our 'biggest problem', says Noel Edmonds

Charles Manning

He's possibly right about Ebola

Ebola has been massively over-hyped.

Sure, it has killed some people but really nothing compared to other health risks. If anything, all the hoo-ha about Ebola has muddied the water when it come other diseases.

During the last 18 months in the three W. African countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia there have been 11000-odd deaths from Ebola out of a population for 22million or so. About 1 per 2000 people.

During that same time in those three countries:

* Flu killed about 50,000-60,000

* Malaria killed about 30,000.

* Tuberculosis killed about 50,000

* AIDS 20,000.

* Motor vehicle accidents: 6,000 or so.

So all the media hype about Ebola causing massive problems due to economic disruption due to people dying was just nonsense.

Intel doubles its bounty for women and ethnic minorities

Charles Manning

Re: Questions

"Likewise not Intel's fault (presumably) if people of the 'correct ethnic diversity' don't have the qualifications to be accepted for available roles, either."

Well in the modern PC world we can't blame it on the ethnically diverse people either, so it must be either Intel's fault or the patriarchy.

I don't know what it's like in USA, but here in NZ many institutions give free tuition to any women or Maori wanting to do engineering oriented courses... and still they don't come. They do, however, flock to the Maori studies and women's studies courses - neither of which is any use for employment.

Charles Manning

Window dressing in USA

Intel already have lots of diversity.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/location/worldwide.html

Israel, Germany, South America, Canada, Australia, India, China... Can't all be WASP males.

This is surely just window dressing for inside USA.

Researchers look sideways to crack SIM card AES-128 encryption

Charles Manning

Physical access == rooted

Hats off to this persistent researcher.

Now that this step has been taken, the work could likely be sped up even more using FPGAs etc. You'd probably get change from 2 minutes.

Any electronic encryption should just be treated like physical security (locks and the like). It's just a deterrent for the less motivated - it isn't unbreakable.

The NSA GCSB's efforts still have worth to them. Mr Yu Yu's method requires physical access and significant tampering. Even the most gullible person is going to question you extracting the SIM and borrowing it for up to 80 minutes. The NSA/GCSB method probably allows for more discretion.

Drone delivery sparks Ohio prison brawl

Charles Manning

Re: Bad strategy

... or just use one drone...

Fly it around dropping numerous small packages filled with breath mints for the diversion.

Meantime just throw the main package over the wall.

Charles Manning

Merey a diversion

Most of the contraband gets into prisons just the same way as it has since forever - the screws bring it in.

The odd episode with a drone allows the prison guards to shrug their shoulders and deny responsibility.

Charles Manning

Damn conversionitis!

" 144.5 grams of tobacco, 65.4 grams of marijuana, and 6.6 grams of heroin"

Bad reporting. You're making up precision that would not have been in the original report!

That would have started out as "something like "4 oz tobacco, 2 and a third oz marijuana, and a fifth oz of heroin". It is only then valid to give the same degree of precision. Something like:

145g tobacco, 65g dope and 6.5g heroin.

Apple goes to crapple in stock plunge kerfaffle: $113bn wiped off in days

Charles Manning

"What goes up must come down."

It doesn't even have to come down.

Much of the Apple stock evaluation is based on the expectation of continued explosive growth. Even just mediocre growth is not enough.

Lights out for Ada Initiative – women's group closing shop

Charles Manning

Unfortunately doomed to fail

Hats off to any initiative that brings quality people into any industry where they can add their value to society.

It is true that some people (blacks, women, ...) feel somewhat daunted by an industry that is typically dominated by white males. Efforts to make all people welcome in IT (or any other field) should be welcomed and encouraged.

Unfortunately though, these organisations tend to become infected with ideologists who put the idealogical mission ahead of the beneficial purpose.

Reading through the vitriol on https://adainitiative.org/ that seems to have happened here.

How is it that the medical profession managed to transition well, but others have not? Perhaps engineering needs to look at what they did.

Hacklands introducing geeks to something called 'outdoors'

Charles Manning

Re: I'll give you 'Outdoors'!

Yup

I tend to agree. More than half the point of going into the outdoors is to leave the tech tat behind. Have a breath of fresh air, if you will.

Otherwise you might as well just put a pot plant on your desk.

Websites that ID you by how you type: Great when someone's swiped your password, but...

Charles Manning

Everyone misses the whole point of this...

The basic idea isn't that novel. It has been tried and rejected for crapness before. It's also very similar to identifying a person by their gait - also shown to be crap.

However the whole purpose of this is to try any put an idea in front of VCs and hope they think the idea has some merits and pay out a fortune to the start up, as well as create a few buckets of gravy for all the security bods.

Stop forcing benefits down my throat and give me hard cash, dammit

Charles Manning

Why I upvoted DaveDaveDave

The dude is clearly farming downvotes.

As I write this he has 47.... that's got to be close to a record.

The only way to combat this is to give him upvotes.

Charles Manning

Re: Stability?

" I'd be prepared to bet that the vast majority of people on minimum wage..."

... would be better dumping their dead-end job and thinking a bit more like an entrepreneur.

Get a rake and a leaf blower and go gardening. You'll make far more money than minimum wage as well as having more than one customer. One customer leaving is not a threat to your income.

Charles Manning

Stability?

" many people would prefer to have some mandated stability in their employment."

That stability is a false sense of security.

I have been a contractor for the last 8 or so years full time and previous 20 or so years part time).

A week ago one of the companies I did work for rolled over and went belly up with little notice. Everyone out on their ear with a couple of weeks wages - looking for a new job.

I have multiple clients running simultaneously. I am used to the feeling of going out to engage customers. I can work more hours when there is more work and less when there's less work.

There are a few companies around who don't want to sign up new employees, but are willing to engage people short term to achieve specific goals. They won't hire the person looking for a job, but they'll hire the contractor.

Who is really in the more stable and secure position? The employee or the contractor?

'White hats don't want to work for us' moans understaffed FBI

Charles Manning

Re: Public sector it jobs

(C) You're really, really crap and can't get a proper job elsewhere.

(D) You're really, really interested in a very niche field that nobody else will sponsor.

OnePlus phone fanbois flock for a shiny phondle

Charles Manning

Re: Are you sure it's about the phone?

"(Apologies for the stereotypes.)"

No need for the apology, the Englishmen would have already apologised.

ATTACK of the ZOMBIE SATELLITE: Run radio hams, run!

Charles Manning

Re: 'kin typical

" albeit subjected to an apartheid policy"

To be fair, they are not subject to an apartheid policy.

They are free to choose it for themselves and free to pack it in whenever they want.

Charles Manning

Re: 'kin typical

Mr Dan Paul

There is one thing that does unite the world and allow us to see past our differences:

Our dislike of USAian attitude to the rest of the world.

Thank you for giving us that. It is the biggest USAian contibution to peace and goodwill between men.

Buffoon in 999 call: 'Cat ate my bacon and I want to press charges'

Charles Manning

Re: Too polite

"guy deserves neither girlfriend nor cat"

He clearly handed in his man card years ago. Wouldn't know what to do with a girlfriend.

How much of one year's Californian energy use would wipe out the drought?

Charles Manning

"some clever people ...could come up with a solution or two."

And some even clever and infinitely more powerful politicians well motivated to thwart them.

Charles Manning

According to wonkapedia it only takes 3kWh/m^3 for desalination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis#Desalination

At 200litres per person (a generous amount), that's 600Wh per person per day. Bugger all really.

Reverse osmosis of waste water produces even better efficiency.

You can guarantee though that the politicians want to keep this drought alive. Fear keeps the populace in their place.

Petrol cars are dead in the water, says Tesla CTO waving numbers on the back of an envelope

Charles Manning

"In a petrol car, production of the car is 20% of the pollution, driving is 80% of the pollution."

Based on what lifetime and usage? That "20%" is fixed whether you use the car for 50,000 km or 500,000 km. Many of the numbers are based on some usage model like 100,000 km or 100,000 miles.

My 20 year old diesel HiAce has over 400,000 km on the clock. It has had nothing replaced except one clutch (replaced at 90,000 km due to previous owner being a knob-head - it would still be on the first clutch if I had owned it from new) and normal wear and tear items (cam belts, tyres and brake pads). By my reckoning it has used about 33,000 litres of diesel. And I treat it like complete shit.

What is certain though is that replacing a clunker with a shiny new hybrid - or any car for that matter - does not necessarily reduce pollution.

Git a load of this: GitHub now valued at $2 billion

Charles Manning

Re: Value?

Right, so just like I said there's not $2BN of investor value in this.

Charles Manning

Re: Sponsors

Rubbish

There are far better ways than that to support open source.

There are perhaps 1000 or so really useful open source projects that could do with some sponsorship. Direct injection into those projects would be far more valuable than the very indirect method of sponsoring storage.

What open source projects need it developer time, not a few bucks for storage.

Charles Manning

Re: Where's the value?

"Thus they see that as a means of raising revenue."

I'm aware of that. I'm a paying customer. But it takes a hell of a lot of paying customers to be worth $2bn.

Charles Manning

Where's the value?

I can't believe the punters are that stupid that they think they own all the code in github.

Since most of the accesses to github are via git - and very few via web browsers - there's very little exposure for advertising revenue.

Since it is so easy to replicate a git repository, there is no real "stickiness" to git either. In 5 minutes I can move my repo elsewhere.

Yes, a small service business makes sense, but $2bn no!

Obama endorses 3D TLC flash. How else can you do exaflop computing?

Charles Manning

But will it rouse the populace?

The reason the moonshot had a lasting spinoff was that it engaged thousands of kids who got hooked on a fantastic dream about the capabilities of technology.

The late 1960s saw model lunar modules hanging from the ceiling in every second kid's bedroom. Tens of thousands of kids walked around on Halloween dressed up in tin foil space suits.

What are the exabyte generation going to hang from their ceilings and do for Halloween costumes?

Until you can engage a population like that, you won't get a long term benefits.

Small number of computer-aided rifles could be hacked in contrived scenario

Charles Manning

Re: spin drift.

"But in order to break the rotational symmetry (and get this `spin drift'), we also need something else"

Yes, that is indeed so.

Think for a moment of the air forces on the sides of the bullet as it flies along. If they are not the same then the side with the higher pressure is more viscous and the side with the lower pressure is less viscous. That means a spinning bullet gets more "traction" against the higher density air and less against the lower density air. This puts a sideways thrust on the bullet.

This is most notable with side winds. If the bullet is spinning clockwise and the wind is from the right, then the air on the right hand side of the bullet is more viscous than on the left. The bullet gains more traction on the air on the right and is thus deflected upwards (as well as obviously being pushed leftwards by the wind).

Similarly for the same rifle, a wind from the left deflects the bullet downwards and right.

Then there are a bunch of other effects some of which are only meaningful on large projectiles (eg. ships' guns).

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

UK.gov wants to stop teenagers looking at tits online. No, really

Charles Manning

Re: 5 minutes

They will try Credit Card verification.

Within a month, various politicians will be wondering where that extra 800 quid of spending came from/

A week later they will have an emergency session repealing it.

Bloke cuffed for blowing low-flying camera drone to bits with shotgun

Charles Manning

Re: Let the arms race begin...

It all depends on the shot you're using...

If this guy just picked up his home defence shotgun loaded with slugs or OO buckshot (9 balls) he would be lucky to hit a drone, but the projectiles travel a reasonable range.

If he had lighter bird shot in there, the pellets don't fly as far. 7 or 8 (typically used for skeet) does not make it past about 300m or so but have lost their ability to cause any damage long before then.

The ideal anti-drone shotgun load would probably be some sort of "chain shot" using nylon and rubber balls. Absolutely zero danger to people when they come down, but would cause a lovely tangle on the props.

How to quietly slurp sensitive data wirelessly from an air-gapped PC

Charles Manning

... and sound proof too...

In the 1980s I worked on a computer that had a whistling power supply. The ferrites would squeak at different amplitude/frequency depending on the load. You could run a for(...) loop and count the iterations by listening to the warbling of the power supply.

... and light proof too... since you can get info out via the screen.

... and heat proof too... since you can get info in/out via temperature sensors and CPU load causing increased temperature.

... and operate from a battery... since you could also get data in/out by modulating power draw or monitoring voltage on the power cables.

... and no doubt tens of other mechanisms.

Charles Manning

Foil an airgapped computer with an ethernet cable!

What a bullshit article.

Any computer that has been physically accessed and has had either nefarious hardware or software installed is no longer air-gapped.

Got it?

So just WHO ARE the 15 per cent of Americans still not online?

Charles Manning

Let them be

Why does Obama have a mission to get these people online?

If they don't see any value in it, then why push them?

We don't have TV in the house and I know exactly which two words I'd say to any .gov person telling me I must get TV.