Posts by that one in the corner

Re: experiment

> There were memes going around for satellite constellations to provide internet everywhere long before Elon "invented" Starlink.

Someone here hopefully has a copy of the original Wireless World article and can correct me, but I'm sure I recall that Arthur C. Clarke's original idea of comms satellites[1] would provide for *all* styles of comms, so if 'plain old data" had been called "internet traffic" back then it would have included.

Phonecalls were uppermost in the discussions about this outlandish idea, because Joe Public could understand the idea of a phonecall as something personal to them, more of a leap forwards than just some more long-range radio coverage for the Light Programme.

Maybe Elon's offering will one day provide phone via satellite to every subscriber? There's a revolutionary idea.

[1] ok, geostationary 'cos who'd ever want to flood fill the sky with the things? And gamer's ping times weren't an issue then.

Re: "and update the notes so that the team has it before the meeting."

Darmok at the karaoke machine. Jalad heckling "not My Way again!".

Re: Coronagraph

A disc held on the end of a 150m pole (or even a 150m tall teepee)?

The word "boooiiinngg" springs to mind.

Not to mention the support structure(s) obscuring the view and causing diffraction in the image. Or having the centre of mass moved away from the thrusters on the main body.

And if you're thinking "smaller disc, closer to sensor", then for starters that increases the optical effects of defects on the rim (see diffraction), including weathering (pink, ding).

Re: @Doctor Syntax

There a many, many instances of hardware that are nothing at all without software to control them - starting, as you say, from microcode up. And that code is pretty well engineered and deserves to be referred to in that way.

But that is a miniscule amount of the software floating around, let alone the software being (re)written every day. Practically a rounding error. Even if we are constantly running multiple copies of that properly engineered code every hour of every day, in all the microcontrollers and CPUs around us, the amount involved is piddling compared to the size of the Office Suite component that you avoid using because it crashes every time you so much as sneeze at it.

When you move into critical control code for larger systems, such as aircraft and, increasingly, cars, which we again all interact with every day, directly or indirectly (planes fly overhead every day, even if it is rarely me inside one - and I really hope they don't have a fly-by-wire fart and come pay us an unexpected visit), the amount of code involved - and the amount of code churn - is vastly outweighed by all the crap online systems that are changed daily in the hopes something will stick.

And when you drag in all the LLM stuff, where the contents of the models, the weightings, effectively make up vast piles of flow control that nobody even comprehends, let alone can claim to have rigorously engineered...

Re: Can you please confirm?

> Bombardier's "strategic exit" from the commercial aviation sector

Ah, thanks, that makes more sense than TFA's simple wording, which implied that Bombardier had been bought in its entirety by Airbus in 2020. 'Cos it seemed a bit odd that Airbus would want to get into the other stuff, like train building, as well (that bit went to Alstom IIRC).

Re: Mustang Panda

And there I was thinking that the rozzers only started using Mustangs recently, making them Battenburgs[1] rather than Pandas.

[1] you'd think those guys were permanently on refs: Battenburgs, Giant Jam Sandwiches...

Re: Funny

> So there is nothing happening in the EU of note? Nothing globally? Nothing even just in Europe?

You might not have had the chance to notice it yet, but there is *always* something happen; in the EU, globally or even just in Europe (good of you to remember to distinguish between Europe and not just the EU). Things have been happening for the odd millennium or two.

And so the political and governmental organisations always expect there to be "something" going on, to them that *is* the day-to-day. If there wasn't there would not be any need to have any organisation set up to deal with it! Which might be a blissful world to live in, but sadly...

>> Not knowing these things, one can presume you have never had the chance to...

> Nice try. You might not remember the very recent US Secretary of Defense just...

Ah, sorry, wasn't aware that I was conversing with the US Secretary of Defense, or at least one of his immediate subordinates. Good of you to take the time between White House meetings to post on El Reg.

>> May I introduce to you the Infineon Profe ... it's not necessarily your granddad's fuseboard out there.

The implication in the original post was quite clear.

> I've a feeling you badly misunderstood the post.

Or a more humble person might have a feeling that the original post was not saying what the author hoped to say.

Re: Nobody's mentioning the Mastodon in the room

A Muppet duck : he is upset that his quackery doesn't echo on Mastodon.

Re: Possible gains that almost certainly won't happen

Wasn't there a UK swimming pool and a few houses that were fed heat from a crematorium?

Re: Auto-Account Deletion

Caesar adsum iam forte, Brutus aderat. Caesar sic in omnibus, Brutus sic inat.

Re: Worthless

Unless you would actually like a guitar effects pedal to, you know, use. And be a source for conversation with Linus and the kernel community. And ...

Oh, sorry, you are measuring "worth" purely on the basis of how much you could scalp it for on eBay.

Re: Gulf of ??

The Gulf of 'Merica may just be a good name for the gap between belief and reality, for - certain groups.

Re: In-car ordering for takeout

> I want to try that chippie

You'll have to hurry; their landlord is shutting them down very soon :-(

> When I was contracting in Bristol ...

And that brings back memories of the chippie at the bottom of Christmas Steps, before they had a fire. Very convenient while waiting at the bus-stop to go up to Bradley Stoke (the one up there was definitely using low-temperature veg oil, shudder).

A life well-lived is measured out by chip shops.

Re: "Everything in Australia is deadly"

> some of the sheep weren't deadly.

Whilst the other sheep have been watching the dropbears and taking notes, spurred on by stories from their British cousins[1]

[1] you know the details, like the one about the ambitious Harold and leads into illustrated descriptions of "un mouton Anglo-Francais"[2]

[2] passes the moustache on to the next commentard

It is hard to think of Tamworth as spherically-inclined - it doesn't even have a proper equatorial ring road. Unless you count the gyratory ellipse of roundabouts that has the Odeon at one focus, but that makes for more of a small egg than a sphere when extended into 3D.

Re: What could be the motivation for continuing to fight the case?

> new large geostationary space stations overlooking us.

When we learn how much reaction mass the StarLunk satellites really have, as they manoeuvre together and interlock their panels. The red Tesla reappears, having ejected the Starman to change its orbit; the steering wheel engages with the antenna controls and we learn just what a massively parallel phased array can do to a metal structure on Earth...

Re: Needs more processing power

I too will not be using an R'Pi as a desktop - instead, I'll keep on using my desktop for that. Because I am very well aware that what is required from "a desktop" varies wildly from person to person (e.g. I chew up loads of cores & RAM at the desk but stick to watching videos at 720p or smaller, off in the corner - go downstairs to the telly box for bigger).

Meantime, I'm partway rigging up a set of recently acquired Pi's (3B+'s as I decided that spec best fits this use case) to run as specific servers, alongside the other varied Pi's already on the LAN. I've also just bought an RP2040 Pico-alike without WiFi but with a W5500-driven Ethernet jack onboard - it'll fit a niche but I wouldn't expect everyone else to leap out and buy one (you pay a premium for wired these days).

In other words, horses for courses - that you won't buy any particular model because it doesn't fit your particular use case isn't really worth saying.

On that note, the Thunderbirds creator, Gerry Anderson, had success with space shows. Sadly, "Space 1999" had to be cancelled when Barbara Bain got woodworm.

But US law Trump's everything else!

Re: I would try it, but...

> why are there no programmer focused keyboards out there on the market?

Leaving aside Ken Hagan's very sensible comment about messing with muscle memory, if you really want a keyboard with keywords ready to go, all the odd characters available without SHIFT etc etc then there are opportunities for you to make it a reality.

There is a thriving make-your-own keyboard "scene"[0], everything from reprogramming a ready-built keyboard to designing your own wonderful arrangement (want it shaped like a hand of bananas? PCBWay can probably offer you a range of colours to choose from). All controlled by a common off-the-shelf MCU board (although there are specialised dev boards from the likes of Adafruit) and configurable firmware to control what each keypress does.

Or maybe just get one of the wide range of "macro keyboards" and use that instead?

One of the happy results of USB is that you can plug as many HID devices as you like into your PC and have them all operational at the same time[1]. So you could just take the easy route to removing the need for a SHIFT key by gluing a second keyboard above your normal one[2] and then gluing down its SHIFT key. Plug both into the PC and you'll have a proper Upper Case to work with.

[0] Although a large part of this seems to be dedicated to creating the smallest possible keyboard, so be careful who you outline your ideas to. Personally, as a dedicated Northgate Omni Ultra user, if a keyboard can't be used to measure out a fathom of line it is too small to be taken seriously.

[1] This is, of course, why That Scene from CSI is so daft - they just needed to plug in another keyboard, then they'd both be able to type on all the keys instead of each one only getting the board to use.

[2] be careful if using a laptop, it may obscure the display

Re: No Files, No Serious Work

A "Hello World" is also what I'll still use whenever starting a new program that I expect to grow into something non-trivial.

That way, I can set up the project directories, Makefiles, doxygen etc etc and get all all that infrastructure working and committed before writing any "real" code. Vast overkill for the end result, at that point, but it means Working On The Fun Stuff won't be suddenly interrupted by some faff when a lib's header isn't on the include path.

Plus it acts as a reminder when switching languages again (so I do actually type it, rather than copying a pre-written hello.some_language)

Re: Mobile chipsets in "modern" cars allows location spying as accurate as ±10cm, what a surprise.

Yet you fail to point out how or why any of those requirements imply a need to record the buyer's location, and to such accuracy, at the point of sale[1] *or* at any time after the sale.

And you made to attempt at all to explain why *any* data, especially precise location, should be relayed back to the manufacturer at any point after the title has been transferred - either for the car or the telly[2]

[1] I can buy a telly whilst sitting on Laguna Beach, just so long as the licensing people are told it'll be used in Bolton; the car purchase can be completed in the London Ritz, whilst the car is still in Luton - I was going out that way anyway, so what the heck.

[2] "Excuse me, sir, but is there a reason you are now watching the TV in your upstairs bathroom when our records show it was clearly purchased to be used in the downstairs lounge?"

Re: Important

> Nothing about businesses or individuals. Bit of an oversight.

Hmm, spot the hand of a Robert Heinlein fan, hoping his books will come true.

"Delos D. Harriman, the last of the Robber Barons" - hang on, look at that name: there is an 'e', an 'l', an 'o', an - not quite. But close, dang close.