Posts by armster

Re: Typical el Reg

How did your iMac loose support? My 2004 is still getting updates, I'm still running High Sierra, but Mojave is just waiting to get installed.

Apple hardware really used to be top notch, but now any decent Laptop comes with thunderbolt and MIMO wifi, while apple has upped their prices again.

Re: A room full of Apple engineer staring at their own bricked iPhones

Interesting is that Natalie never claimed to brick phones and Tavis got all the press for claiming that Natalie's exploit did.

Re: Half a Brain

OK root escalation is a problem for multi user machines, but seriously: if I install a dodgy piece of software, giving an admin password to do so, and the end result is that dodgy software is running on my computer then there is exactly nothing anyone can do about this. A good AV might have warned me before installing the software, but the OS really has no way of keeping an installer running with a user password from installing things.

Re: Biometrics are broken

Biometrics are broken for high security. Biometrics are great for phones. Many people don't even use a passcode for the sake of convenience. Those who do mostly use 4 digit pins (or an android gesture that is equivalent to a 4 digit pin). There have been plenty of reports showing that such a pin can be brute forced if you have access to a standard PC with the proper software. If I use a fingerprint and a long passphrase as back-up authentication I truly believe I am much more secure than the next guy.

If you worry about your credit card, do you carry a wallet in your pocket, or do you bring along an electronically keyed lockbox to the store? If anything credit card "no factor authentication" is broken, and paying with single use codes protected by single factor authentication is infinitely more secure.

NOT the parents fault

I got a kindle fire as a gift, and I am a bit scared of it. Once you enter your Amazon ID (and you need to do that to set it up) it knows everything, including your credit details. Even if you never entered it on the device. I can see how parents set the device up, install a few 'free' games, and hand it off to the kids to play, all the while assuming that since they never entered any credit details or authorized any purchases this would be a safe thing. Of course the parents could figure all this out, I did. But the point is that Amazon made it too easy for kids to spend their parents money if they have access to a kindle and gave too little warning to the parents. Apple did the same thing, and they paid for it (and fixed it afterwards).

Re: I need to get some t-shirts made up...

It is always shocking how far away from the problem this discussion runs. The problem is that there is excessive peak load, that can't be met. Nuclear can't meet peak load. Ever try cranking up and down a nuclear plant on a moments notice? Great for base loads, but wait, that is not the problem here.

Gas is great for peak loads, since you can spin up a turbine in a few minutes, and get an idling one to full power in seconds. But you would have to pay for the turbine sitting around, or idling. Seems fair to me, peak power is hard, making it available should be rewarded. My problem with gas is that it comes from Russia. Prices have been a bit in free fall lately so it is easy to argue that gas is cheaper than renewables, but I would not claim that it really is more reliable, considering that if Russia shuts down all deliveries prices will be so sky high that burning candles will be a great alternative to light bulbs.

In my mind the real questions are: Why does the Grid need to quadruple STOR power? more finicky renewable plants or more and spikier usage? Why are gas plants not more attractive to run, prices for gas have fallen, peak energy prices are up, yet we hear that gas plants are mothballed. Why is it the politicians that shut down plants? The energy companies made those decisions, based on (good or bad) economic stimulus by the EU and UK politics. If they shut down too many plants without building new ones the energy companies screwed up, not the politicians. If the grid operators did not enter into enough long term contracts and allowed the energy companies to shut down plants and drive prices up (ever learned from California? Enron wrote the book on this.) then this is the grid operators fault. In the end the consumer pays, or puts PV solar on his roof...

Amazon as the bad guys

I think it is really neat to see Amazon as the bad guys here, when just yesterday an article about Ebook price fixing had Apple as the bad guys and Amazon as the good guys. So if Google or Amazon use their market power to push low prices on publishers (or labels) so they can give the music to the consumer for cheap this is bad. If Apple works with the publishers to establish an alternative Ebook market to Amazon, so they can charge more this is just as bad. I guess the definition of bad is really in being a consumer or a producer.

You mean like an iPhone? Which does exactly that, or backs up to iCloud or both...

Re: re Apple was regularly slammed by Greenpeace

I think Jobs was really greener than Cook, he just did things rather than promise things. Unfortunately the Greenpeace rating at the time was about a companies promises for the future, so Apple predictably scored badly, while HP built computers that were harder to recycle, used more power and had more toxic substances scored better because they had a plan on what they could do to improve on this. Of course the plan was voluntary so nobody ever checks compliance either...

Re: Question to someone sciencey.

It is always better to compress air to take on as extra ballast than to compress your lifting Helium. Since the COSH apparatus is shrouded in much mystery I am not convinced that this is not exactly what it does.

As far as usefulness goes: Any tracking outfit will have 50 tons of water available wherever they operate, and they might benefit greatly from getting 50tons of equipment delivered in exchange.

What about updates

So why would anyone consider the Nexus device for "good updates" when you already know that you get less than 18 month of updates, which is much less than the 2 year contract and much much less than I want to keep my phone. I need updates for 3 years guaranteed. So that means MS or Apple.

I wish google would change, but I have no hope they will.

Ever tried to wear those?

I know there are ancient goggles that may be that bad, but for less than $500 you can buy multi-band goggles with good optics and 75% transmission. Laser lines are very narrow and good filter design can remove essentially all commercially available laser wavelengths without much visible issues. I have long wondered why not more pilots wear those.

http://search.newport.com/?x1=sku&q1=31-20096&xcid=goog-pla-31-20096&gclid=CLCys_yKx7wCFQNufgodPBUAgw

Re: @DougS

Why don't you learn how to calculate before posting. If only35 million devices came with iOS7 and 75% of 600 million = 450 million are using iOS7 then 415 million users must have upgraded.

The only reason Android looks halfway up to date is because its surge in market share. More new devices around. Few people upgrade android devices more than once or twice in their life, mostly since device manufacturers and telcos don't roll out new versions quickly. So if you want anything recent it is cyanogen or iOS, or buy a new phone every 6 months.

Re: Sightly strange complaint

So why is the NHS not a public good? It works out in economy just like the herd immunity: In the US where we don't have such a thing a new hip costs a fortune, while it is cheap (and I don't just mean the cost to the individual) in most reasonable systems (such as Canada, UK or Germany). The reason is if you have a decent universal health care system it drives down cost of service for everyone. Not having a decent system in the US (and unfortunately Obamacare is just not enough) causes higher drug prices, higher service prices and even higher insurance company profits. So the true market approach here is if you spend enough money lobbying you can guarantee your profit base for the foreseeable future.

Re: Thermal runaway

Toyota uses Li batteries in their Prius plug-in. There simply is no choice when it comes to range. NiMh is only useful if you want ~100000 cycles of partial charge/discharge as you would in a standard hybrid during regenerative breaking.

If you 'insert' a metallic object into a LiMg battery there will be a fire. Tesla packs are built to deal with such a fire should it happen to a few isolated cells. If many cells in close proximity get internally shorted (no protection circuit can help there) that area will ignite. I think it shows good engineering that the fire did not spread through the entire battery pack.

Most cars have exposed fuel lines along the underside and a convenient ignition source in form of a catalytic converter right next to them. Car fires are really not that rare.