Showing 1 - 9 of 9
YouTube hypocrisy deserves flagging
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/09/2023
» YouTube is behaving badly again. A prominent presenter I occasionally watch, who has millions of subscribers, has been demonetised, for some possible actions 20 years ago. This is not a commentary on potential innocence or guilt, but on YouTube's processes. There are people whose lives are supported by revenue from their presentations on YouTube. This ranges from small fries all the way up to the big fish like the one here. When an individual is demonetised they can lose the ability to support themselves. In this case allegations were made by the media, not the police or authorities, and at the time of writing there have been zero charges made. YouTube is essentially saying, bring us all your viewers so we can hit them with ads and we can make lots of money, but you will be getting nothing for your work.
Microsoft on the naughty list again
Life, James Hein, Published on 15/03/2023
» Some of you may have already noticed, Microsoft is getting very pushy about installing Windows 11. On one of my machines, it started the process under the guise of a standard update. Softwarekeep.com has an excellent article titled "How to Cancel Windows 11 Update and Stay on Windows 10" that covers many ways to handle this. One option is to revert back to Windows 10 within 10 days of Windows 11 being installed, found here: Start menu > Settings > Windows Update > Advanced options > Recovery > Previous version of Windows. After this arbitrary 10 days, you need to do a clean Windows 10 install. I also recommend the free Windows Update Blocker, currently at version 1.7, as a way to control your Windows updates.
Think twice before going with Huawei
Life, James Hein, Published on 28/04/2021
» The Chinese firm Huawei is in the limelight again for allegedly snooping on the Dutch prime minister's phone calls, with the information used to track down Chinese dissidents. This was a while back and it only came to light now because back then the Dutch were worried about exposure. Huawei was able to do this because they have core components in the Netherlands' mobile network. The result was that Huawei employees could not only listen in on any conversation but also identify those in the conversations across their 3G and 4G networks. Even today, the Chinese have admin-level access due to the network management outsourcing deal. Huawei strenuously denied any wrongdoing but those thinking that their 5G Huawei networks will be safe might want to rethink this or look very carefully at the access granted under the contracts.
Think twice before going with Huawei
Life, James Hein, Published on 28/04/2021
» The Chinese firm Huawei is in the limelight again for allegedly snooping on the Dutch prime minister's phone calls, with the information used to track down Chinese dissidents. This was a while back and it only came to light now because back then the Dutch were worried about exposure. Huawei was able to do this because they have core components in the Netherlands' mobile network. The result was that Huawei employees could not only listen in on any conversation but also identify those in the conversations across their 3G and 4G networks. Even today, the Chinese have admin-level access due to the network management outsourcing deal. Huawei strenuously denied any wrongdoing but those thinking that their 5G Huawei networks will be safe might want to rethink this or look very carefully at the access granted under the contracts.
The limits of simulations
Life, James Hein, Published on 09/10/2019
» I've recently been assigned to a team working on a simulator to model and test some business scenarios. The details aren't important but the upshot is that a model will be built, some decision points assigned percentages and times, then 1,000 transactions run through to see what the baseline is.
None more black
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/09/2019
» Accidental discoveries have been responsible for many useful items like rubber and penicillin. A couple of science types at MIT in the US wanted to see if they could grow carbon nanotubes on aluminium to increase its conductance properties. Instead they found they had made the blackest substance yet known to man. It absorbs 99.96% of the light from any angle making it 10 times blacker than the current options. Potential uses include telescopes, optical blinders and art. Carbon nanotubes, is there anything they can't do, eventually?
Seamless synchronicity
Life, James Hein, Published on 11/09/2019
» As I was walking to work thinking about this week's column, I did a quick self-inventory. I was listening to On Liberty by John Stuart Mill through my noise cancelling headphones. The audio was being sent by Bluetooth from my Samsung Galaxy S10 5G phone that I was also using to play a location-based game, Ingress. This was being fed my position by satellite and receiving information from the internet via my phone's data connection. Occasionally I would pull down the notification tab to see what was on for the day and who had tried to contact me via a number of social-media services.
At the risk of droning on about UAVs
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/11/2014
» A hot topic at the moment is UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles. Not the military drone kind but the one with four or six rotors carrying a camera and flying around the neighbourhood taking photos of video up to 4K resolution. The TV show South Park covered this issue in its own unique way and countries are struggling to cope with the legal ramifications of taking pictures over the backyard fence, through windows, above secluded pools and so on. Even innocent pictures like a real estate agent getting an aerial shot of the property can be an issue as one found out recently when part of the shot had someone sunbathing next door that was missed in the process before the billboard went up.
What big eyes you've got
Life, James Hein, Published on 29/05/2013
» When mobile phones became more common and were increasingly used in restaurants, questions began to be asked about etiquette. To this day I know people who are offended when others have phone conversations while sitting at the dining table. People speaking on mobile phones regularly bump into poles, trip over paving stones or have accidents while driving _ mishaps all caused by lack of attention to their surroundings. With the advent of technology like Google Glass these situations will become even more prevalent. Testers for Google Glass have already reported entering places like bathrooms without immediately realising where they were. Given that these devices can record video, this scenario also raises a number of privacy issues. With legislation in many countries lagging well behind developments in technology, a number of such incidents will, no doubt, be reported online before any real changes are made to these gadgets. So, next time you see someone wearing an odd-looking pair of glasses and talking to himself, he may be providing a running commentary to accompany something he is recording _ or he could, equally well, just be talking to himself.