Mark-x

According to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), Britain produced 120,649 cars in January, 26,858 fewer than in the same month of 2018. It is the eighth consecutive month in which production has declined in the UK. While the number of cars manufactured for the domestic market fell by 4.8%, the bulk of the decline came from the export market, which fell by 21.4%. Demand for British-built cars in China declined by 72.3%, with exports to the 27 other European Union member states down 20%. The news is another blow for the UK car industry, following Jaguar Land Rover’s recent losses – which it attributed in part to its struggles in China – and Honda’s recent decision to close its Swindon factory. SMMT boss Mike Hawes said that the industry faces “myriad challenges”, including falling demand and the threat of a trade war. But he added the “clear and present danger” remains the continued risk of a no-deal Brexit. He said preparing for that prospect was “monopolising time and resources, undermining competitiveness”. He added: “Every day a no-deal Brexit remains a possibility is another day automotive companies pay the price in additional and potentially pointless costs.”

The Duke of Cambridge has urged the public to “come together in times of trouble and work for the common good”, as he pays a visit to Northern Ireland to praise work of those transcending community divisions. The Duke praised individuals working to bring those with divided opinions together, in comment which appear to echo the sentiments of his grandmother, the Queen. In a speech delivered during a two-day tour of Northern Ireland just over a month ahead of Brexit on March 29th, the Duke made careful reference to helping divisions of society. “From using sport to encourage people to talk openly about mental health to delivering services to children and young people who are at risk of entering care or custody – the work you do transcends community divisions and is helping deliver a brighter future for everybody in Northern Ireland,” he told an audience at Belfast Empire Hall, in remarks honouring Dame Mary Peters, who was yesterday appointed a Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter by the Queen. “And as we celebrate those who are leading that change for the next generation, it is also fitting that we recognise somebody else in the room this evening – who helped inspire so many of you in the first place. “Mary Peters, is not only one of the United Kingdom’s sporting legends, she’s also inspired generation after generation to come together in times of trouble and work for the common good – a lesson I hope many of us can learn from.”he Duke of Cambridge has urged the public to “come together in times of trouble and work for the common good”, as he pays a visit to Northern Ireland to praise work of those transcending community divisions. The Duke praised individuals working to bring those with divided opinions together, in comment which appear to echo the sentiments of his grandmother, the Queen. In a speech delivered during a two-day tour of Northern Ireland just over a month ahead of Brexit on March 29th, the Duke made careful reference to helping divisions of society. “From using sport to encourage people to talk openly about mental health to delivering services to children and young people who are at risk of entering care or custody – the work you do transcends community divisions and is helping deliver a brighter future for everybody in Northern Ireland,” he told an audience at Belfast Empire Hall, in remarks honouring Dame Mary Peters, who was yesterday appointed a Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter by the Queen. “And as we celebrate those who are leading that change for the next generation, it is also fitting that we recognise somebody else in the room this evening – who helped inspire so many of you in the first place. “Mary Peters, is not only one of the United Kingdom’s sporting legends, she’s also inspired generation after generation to come together in times of trouble and work for the common good – a lesson I hope many of us can learn from.”His sentiments appeared to echo those delivered by the Queen in her Christmas message, in which she said: “Even with the most deeply held differences, treating the other person with respect and as a fellow human being is always a good first step towards greater understanding." In further comments to the Women’s Institute in January, she said she praised “speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view; coming together to seek out the common ground; and never losing sight of the bigger picture”. The Duke’s remarks were delivered during a lively engagement which saw he and his wife take a turn behind the bar pulling pints. Earlier in the day, they had raced each other in Canadian kayaks, tried archery and clambered round a rope obstacle course at Roscor Youth Village in County Fermanagh, which provides activities for more than 2,500 children and young people a year referred to the centre by social services. At their first engagement, at Windsor Park football stadium, the Duke and Duchess joined in dribbling drills and a match against primary school children. In a discussion, in a meeting room with mental health charity Ahead of the Game, he also raised questions about the resilience of the next generation growing up playing games where everyone is supposed to win. “Are we setting up some of our children at the moment for more mental health issues in the future, by the way we are creating a win-win situation and scenarios?” he said. “Because resilience has to be built within everybody. “From a very very young age, nobody wants to be told they’re not good at something but of course that could prove a difficult situation to handle when life comes along with school and jobs and so on. “How do they learn to pick themselves back up again?“When they lose a match, you’re gutted. But that’s part of what sport is all about. Every sportsman and women knows what it takes to be at the top of their game.” The Duke also accused football clubs which fail to support the mental health of their players of a “dereliction of duty”, saying the habit of treating them like “financial assets” must change. The Duke, who is president of the Football Association, warned that too many clubs simply drop young players if they fail to reach a required standard, with no thought as to how to support them in building a new life. “Some of these [football] clubs don’t do anything about mental health”, he said. “They pick a player up, he plays football, ‘no good’, move on. “If we’ve got to change anything, we’ve got to change the whole way we look after players. “Many players come from difficult backgrounds and may have all sorts of issues going on. “So just to have them as a complete financial asset is pretty...it’s a dereliction of duty I think - having these players not given the key building blocks or support.” The Duke, along with the Duchess of Cambridge and Duke of Sussex, have been campaigning for several years on mental healthy issues, speaking regularly about the stigma. Saying sport was something he was “really interested in”, he said he was “trying to get to how we can use the playing field, the platform, to tackle mental health, particularly in men”. “We’re working on something with the FA at the moment, trying potentially to get a mental health FA Cup to have a really punchy campaign we can base something around,” he added.

Windows Insiders chief Dona Sarkar has taken to Twitter to explain what's taking the Slow Ring version of Windows 10 so long: It's all about the gamers, apparently. In a sequence of tweets, Sarkar admitted the problem was a bug caused by gaming anti-cheat codes. Since it wasn't hardware specific, a staged release is apparently more trouble than it's worth and the team isn't keen on releasing something likely to blow up in the user's face. Those tasked with picking up the pieces after 1809 or unbricking Surface Pro 4s might disagree. Dona Sarkar ✔ @donasarkar (1/2)Many of you are asking why we haven't released a #SlowRing flight in a while. We have a GSOD that's caused by a very common scenario around gaming anti-cheat codes. Unfortunately the fix is in the hands of our 3rd party partner company that we're working with them on... 93 2:49 AM - Feb 26, 2019 · Melbourne, Victoria Twitter Ads info and privacy 17 people are talking about this Dona Sarkar ✔ @donasarkar (2/2) Looking at our #SlowRing po[CENSORED]tion, MANY of you play these games so your machines would be very difficult to use--we are committed to releasing Slow builds that are high quality so this is why we're holding the build Yes indeed, the gang does scrutinise that telemetry you volunteer to hand over when you join the Insider programme. Sarkar added that "a LOT of you apparently play games at work! (I won't tell your boss)" Not at all sinister then. The lengthy absence of the build is becoming a concern since the release of Windows 10 19H1 (also referred to as 1903) is drawing near, and code will need to be locked down within the next month if the OS is to follow the usual pattern of an April release. Getting the code exposed to as many Insiders as possible would therefore be prudent. Hence the worry about exclusion of Slow Ring testers. Clearly Fast Ring testers don't play games so much, although Microsoft has been requesting users have a crack at State of Decay while being coy as to the reason why. A Green Screen of Death (GSOD) triggered by games using anti-cheat software has long been on the known issues list. Firing up the speculation machine, Microsoft has had issues with antivirus software doing things at a low level and upsetting Windows 10. Anti-cheat software, by its nature, also needs to lurk in the background to ward off nefarious activity. 19H1 remaining wedged in the Fast Ring also goes some way to explain why Microsoft has yet to release 19H2 (due in the October time frame). Doing so would require the creation of yet more test rings. Things are already confusing enough, and what to call it? The Ring Of Fire? Home, home on the Ring? Ringo? ("Best OS in the world? It isn’t even the best OS from Microsoft.") We'll get our coat. ®

After the launch of their new mainstream GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card, NVIDIA will now be introducing more price effective graphics cards based on the Turing GPU architecture under the GeForce 16 series family. The new family will be based on the Turing GPU architecture, featuring the same shader enhancements while excluding the RTX feature set such as Ray Tracing and DLSS. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 and GeForce GTX 1650 Prices, Launch Dates Leak Out The latest report comes from DigiTimes which states that NVIDIA would be introducing their new GeForce 16 series cards in the coming months. The two cards would include the GeForce GTX 1660 and the GeForce GTX 1650. Both graphics cards are based on the Turing GPU architecture and are more similar to the recently introduced GeForce GTX 1660 Ti than their Turing based RTX siblings. RELATED NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6 GB GDDR6 Graphics Card Review Ft. MSI Gaming X ($299) and Ventus XS ($279) – The Turing For All The sources said that Nvidia is slated to launch GTX 1660 on March 15 and GTX1650 on April 30, which will bear minimum price tags of US$229 and US$179, respectively. The four new graphics cards, ranging from US$179-349, are expected to bring heavy pricing pressure on AMD’s mid-tier and low-end offerings such as VEGA 64/65 and RX590/580/570. via DigiTimes The leak suggests that the GeForce GTX 1660 would be launching on 15th March for a price of $229 US while the GeForce GTX 1650 would be launching on 30th April for a price of $179 US. Previous reports suggested that the GeForce GTX 1650 would be launching in March, close to the GeForce GTX 1660 but this doesn’t seem to be the case. NVIDIA may try to push out each GeForce 16 series card a month after one another. So this way, we have the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti for $279 US in February, the GeForce GTX 1660 for $229 US in March and finally, the GeForce GTX 1650 for $179 US in April. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 and GeForce GTX 1660When it comes to specifications, the GeForce GTX 1660 would be based on a slightly cut down Turing TU116 GPU core with around 1280 CUDA cores and 6 GB VRAM. The GeForce GTX 1650 would end up using a different core with around 896-1024 CUDA cores and 4 GB of VRAM that would be based on GDDR5 rather than GDDR6 if rumors are correct. We have seen that the GTX 1660 Ti is faster than the GeForce GTX 1070 so it’s highly likely that the GeForce GTX 1660 would be faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 for a lower introductory price. The GeForce GTX 1650 would end up being faster than the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti but we have to wait for the final specifications to provide a proper estimate that’s close to the real product. Talking specifically about shading performance which will be the main technology and architecture feature of the GeForce GTX cards, it looks like we are looking at an average 50% improved shading performance per core compared to Pascal. This is not the overall performance increase but rather the rate at which Turing improves upon its predecessor in shader performance. The new mainstream lineup would definitely let NVIDIA gain some ground in the budget market. Their GeForce RTX cards, although good products, weren’t able to grab much attention by the high-end market, due to higher prices and the little support for RTX features in games at launch. The GeForce 16 series cards can, however, play a very positive role in terms of sales in the Gaming side of things for NVIDIA.

One of the most striking draws will be the display of Alfa’s 2019 F1 season team car, as the brand celebrates its return to the sport under the Alfa Romeo Racing name with drivers Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Räikkönen in the line-up. But the true stars of the display area will be the limited edition ‘Alfa Romeo Racing’ special series versions of the Giulia Quadrifoglio and Stelvio Quadrifoglio, both boasting the same livery as the F1 model. Unique stylistic details include Sparco racing seats with red stitching and carbonfibre shells, and carbonfibre inserts in the gear knob and steering wheel. The 2.9-litre BiTurbo V6 in both cars will remain unchanged. Other models will be on show including a Stelvio Ti SUV, equipped with a 276bhp 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine, and a Giulia Veloce Ti in Misano Blue featuring extensive use of carbonfibre. There will also be a display of accessories from sister parts and accessories brand Mopar, and a merchandise stand where dedicated fans can consider items such as an Alfa Romeo Dolomiti e-MTB electric mountain bike. There’s also been a timely announcement of trim level revisions and a re-jigging of the engine range for the 2019 Alfa Giulietta: the Super, the Speciale and the Veloce. There is a choice of three different Euro 6D compliant engines – a 1.4-litre 120hp turbo petrol and 1.6-litre 120hp diesel in manual or auto, plus a 2.0-litre 170hp diesel available in TCT automatic transmission only. The entry-level Super comes with cruise control, dual air-con, front fog lights and rear parking sensors as standard; side skirts, sports seats, tinted windows and an oversized exhaust come with the Speciale; and the top-of-the-range Veloce includes 18in dark alloy wheels, twin exhausts, Alcantara and fabric seats, electric mirrors, auto headlights and wipers, and Uconnect 6.5in infotainment.

Professional wrestler Leati Joseph Anoaʻi, better known by his stage name Roman Reigns, has confirmed his leukemia is in remission and that he will be returning to the WWE. Reigns, a former football player who has since become one of World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) most po[CENSORED]r personalities, had been absent from the ring since announcing he had cancer in October. "The good news is, I'm in remission, y'all," he told the crowd during an emotional speech at a WWE Raw event in Atlanta on Friday. "So with that being said -- the Big Dog is back." Reigns, 33, has been living with cancer since he was 22, and the disease returned last year, he revealed in his speech in October. He subsequently relinquished his claim to the WWE's Universal Championship to battle the disease. He thanked fans for their support on Friday, and admitted he struggled with the decision to announce his cancer."I'm not going to lie -- before my announcement in October I was terrified. I was scared. I was insecure. And I didn't really know if I wanted to share that secret with the world," he told the cheering crowd. "That overwhelming support that you gave me, it gave me strength, it gave me new life. It gave me a new opportunity and it gave me a new purpose," he added. "There is no other job like this," he said. "There's no other fanbase like you guys." Reigns later thanked his family in a video on his Instagram account. The announcement was met with a wave of support from other wrestlers. "Real superheroes exist. Back and with strength and purpose! It's your yard Roman. Your time is most certainly NOW!" John Cena wrote on Twitter.

About a dozen bodyguards dressed in dark suits ran alongside Kim Jong-un's blacked-out limo as it left the Melia Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, and headed to the North Korean embassy. Motorcycle outriders then escorted Kim's vehicle on the short journey before more bodyguards took up positions to form a human shield as he entered the compound. The 35-year-old and US President Donald are both in Vietnam on the eve of their second summit at which they will tackle how to implement a North Korean pledge to give up its nuclear weapons. Men dressed in dark suits ran alongside the dictator's blacked out limo as it left Hanoi's Melia Hotel and headed to the embassy

Pro He is good player + good activity

Software giant Oracle was sued on Wednesday by Worth & Company, a Pennsylvania-based mechanical contractor, over a failed enterprise resource planning (ERP) software deal. The lawsuit, filed in a US federal district court in San Francisco, California, alleges Oracle breached its contractual obligations and fraudulently misrepresented the suitability of its software. "Despite Oracle’s representations that its integrated software system, i-cloud (sic) services, and technical support system was a functioning workable product fully capable of fulfilling Worth’s needs, Oracle failed to provide a collectively suitable and operable software system," the complaint paperwork states. "Worth paid in excess of $4.5m to purchase and implement the ultimately non-functioning Oracle ERP product." Worth & Company, the complaint explains, began looking for a new ERP system in 2014 and after several months of sales pitches and proposals, decided in February 2015 to hire EDREi Solutions, LLC, a now-defunct Austin, Texas-based IT systems integrator, to implement Oracle's E-Business Suite Applications and its Cloud Services. The initial "go live" date was scheduled for the fall of 2015, the court filing recounts, and by summer of that year, it was clear the system would not be ready on time."By November 2015, it was evident to both Oracle and Worth that the on- premises implementation and cloud integration was seriously delayed and wrought with issues," the complaint says. The "go live" date was moved to February 2016, at which point Oracle directed Worth to pay for about $260,000 in education classes, training, and support contracts. The system wasn't ready in 2016 as promised. Instead, by Worth & Company's account, that year was consumed with testing, patching, debugging, data correction, and data migration. By the fall of that year, a new "go live" date had been set: February 2017. When the time finally arrived, the system still had problems. In March 2017, CEO Stephen Worth wrote to Oracle to convey his "dissatisfaction with Oracle regarding the failure of Oracle to provide an ERP system compatible for use in Worth’s business." The company then ended the consulting services of EDREi and in April that year hired Monument Data Solutions, another IT integrator. Monument spent the remainder of 2017 and part of 2018 rewriting applications, debugging and trying to resolve various other problems. It wasn't enough. Though there was no catastrophic failure, the incremental failures of Oracle's system ultimately led Worth & Company in the spring of 2018 to abandon the project and choose another ERP vendor. Now the Pennsylvania-based contractor wants a refund and damages. Oracle declined to comment on the lawsuit, one of several recently. A week ago, two Oracle shareholders sued the company and its board of directors for allegedly misleading investors about the health of its cloud business. Also last week, a former sales rep sued Oracle for alleged gender and age discrimination. ®

Gigabyte will soon be launching their flagship motherboard for Intel’s HEDT Xeon W-3175X CPU. The new motherboard will be based around the C621 chipset which would support the flagship processor and the first 28 core chip that Intel has to offer to enthusiasts. Gigabyte’s C621 AORUS Xtreme Motherboard For Intel’s Xeon W-3175X Unveiled – Features 32 Phase VRM, Seven Full-Length PCI-e Slots, Huge Heatsink on an EEB Form Factor Design We have seen the likes of the ASUS ROG Dominus Extreme which was recently the only board you can purchase for the Xeon W-3175X. It looks like the only other player that will be offering a C621 chipset based motherboard will be launching it soon. Yes, Gigabyte is one of the two motherboard makers who will be offering a C621 chipset motherboard. Other board manufacturers have so far not confirmed their plans for a C621 chipset motherboard. The reason could very well be the price of these products which is completely insane. The ASUS ROG Dominus Extreme motherboard goes for $1799 US on Newegg and that is excluding the $3000 US processor, which is the only one you can purchase with this motherboard.Now talking about the C621 AORUS Xtreme, it looks like AORUS has gone all out with their C621 chipset-based flagship design. The thing I like the most about this high-end series is that each of the OEMs can showcase their engineering and technical prowess in such products. The ASUS ROG Dominus Extreme shows how far ASUS is willing to go with their premium and ultra high-end design while the C621 AORUS Xtreme shows the same for Gigabyte.If you take a close look at the motherboard, you’d know that this is the same product that AORUS first showcased back at Computex 2018 which was used for a public demo during Intel’s keynote. The motherboard makes use of a 32 Phase IR Digital VRM design and houses the power delivery under a huge finned heatsink that covers the entire upper portion of the motherboard. The PCH is cooled off by a heatsink that is an extended section of the upper heatsink and features a similar fin cut design. The AORUS logo can be seen on the PCH heatsink with silver accents and the obvious RGB touch through Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion technology.The LGA 3647 socket is surrounded by 12 DDR4 DIMM slots which support memory with speeds of up to 4200 MHz. The motherboard houses a total of seven full-length PCI-e slots and the AMP-UP Audio design is also a prominent feature of this C621 motherboard. There are at least 8 SATA III ports and a single U.2 port on the board. Of course, feeding the motherboard with power would be a huge task as the motherboard requires four 8 pin power connectors and a single 24-pin ATX connector to boot. The motherboard can deliver up to 1600W of power directly to the processor hence the overclock showcase.Just for the sake of their presentation, Gigabyte once again showed the chip running at 5.0+ GHz with a water chiller providing the cooling support. The chip was tested in Cinebench R15 and had scored over 7200 points.The chip was also compared to a dual EPYC 7601 (64 core/128 thread) setup which scored around 6000 points and a Xeon 8126 and dual Xeon 8170s (56 core/112 thread) setup which scored around 6500 points. There is also the Core i9-9900K running at 5 GHz in the benchmark which scores a tiny 2200 points when compared to the higher-end workstation parts. There’s no word on the pricing or availability yet but considering what we got with the ASUS ROG Dominus Extreme, expect the C621 AORUS Xtreme to cost around $2000 US with a market launch soon as the processor (Xeon W-3175X) has been out for a while now.

I’ve heard it before but it still makes me laugh. On this occasion, the person responsible for saying it is David Massey who, unless you’re into vehicle diagnostics, you’re unlikely to have heard of. David’s describing how independent garages are, he claims, denied essential technical information by car makers. “There are the EOBD-II error codes that most drivers are familiar with and which correspond to a vehicle fault. They’re universal and can be interpreted by all garages. But then, running in parallel, are manufacturer-specific diagnostic platforms that require special software, and which generate their own codes,” he says. “Manufacturers will argue it’s progress but it freezes out the small independent garage lacking the resources to invest in the required software, assuming they’d be granted access.” those unique to car makers, gives technicians the power to cure every problem. According to David, the error codes they rely on to identify a fault can themselves be misleading: “What’s your average tech going to do then, except hope he’s done something that causes the problem to go away long enough for the customer to pay up and take their car? Days later, the warning light’s back on and the car is in limp home mode – which is when people call us.” Error codes, diagnostics… it’s gobbledygook to me but, fortunately, I’m in the presence of experts: David, of course, but also Frank, his dad, known in the trade as the ‘guru’Frank is just back from Australia where he presented a series of tutorials in diagnostics to hordes of keen techs. Last year, he was in Italy (Modena, of all places), France and Ireland doing the same. He’s lectured to the military on Ascension Island and even to MI5, although his lips are sealed on that one. I first heard his name on a recent visit to Ceramex, a Slough-based company that cleans diesel particulate filters. In a tone that suggested I should know the name, my host boasted that the facility had been visited by Frank Massey who had declared it fit for purpose. Having since watched Frank’s video tutorial on DPF diagnostics, I realise he was qualified to judge. From Preston, where, with David, he own ADS, a specialist in Volkswagen Group cars, 65-year-old Frank heads up a diagnostics training school called Auto Inform. Topics include battery testing, misfires and emissions. Fascinating stuff but, if you’d rather stay by the fire, there are always his videos on YouTube; topics such as top 10 tests with PicoScope (a brand of oscilloscope) and the mysteries of diagnostic workflow…Frank’s interest in diagnostics dates back to his time running Motor Masters, a vehicle tuning business he started in 1985. “It was about the time new systems such as electronic fuel injection were coming into cars,” he recalls. “The trade hadn’t a clue how to work on them. I saw an opportunity, so got an oscilloscope and taught myself how to diagnose electrical problems.” Frank quickly became an authority and began hosting training seminars, teaching technicians how to investigate and measure signal strength to determine the origin of a fault, rather than relying on half-measures like fault tracing charts. Vehicle electronics moved up a gear with new emissions regulations in 2000 and the explosion in features such as air conditioning, electric windows, central locking and adaptive suspension“For garages and technicians it was like chasing a runaway train,” says Frank. “Simply to keep up required a huge investment in tools and training.” Throughout, his faithful oscilloscope was by his side. “A scan tool, or code reader, shows you the symptoms of a problem but an oscilloscope shows you its cause,” he says. “The former gives a tech only half the story; the oscilloscope reveals the profile of the signal and its flow. It’s the road map to a fault.” Frank spots my eyes beginning to glaze, so gets straight to the point: “Imagine a tiny box. If all’s well within it – in other words, if a signal’s profile doesn’t stray outside it – no error code is triggered. But what if the signal’s extremes are teetering on its edge? It may be just enough to cause a problem but not to generate an error code.” Frank explains how the ECU is constantly struggling to keep signals within these millions of tiny boxes, in the process generating ‘correction values’. Identify and understand these, he says, and you’ll find out what’s really going wrong: “Accurately diagnosing a fault is like spotting food going off in a fridge. How do you know? You use your nose, you check the sell-by dates… And to prevent it happening again, you control the environment. “It’s the same with a fault, only we study the electrical signals flowing in and around the suspect component. Often, we find the root of the problem is not the component but the environment – temperature, oxygen levels, carbon deposits – that it’s operating in.” He quotes the example of a customer at the end of his tether over a long-running problem with his four-year-old Audi A6 2.0 TDI. Frank established that the main dealer who’d been trying to fix the car had been misled by an error code and, running out of options, told the customer it needed a new selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system. “In fact,” says Frank, “by examining signal strengths and flows, and the wider environment the SCR was operating in, we discovered it was the exhaust gas recirculation cooler that was at fault. Basically, it had an air block.” Interview over, Frank begins work on his next patient, an Audi R8. With his instruments laid out like a surgeon, an oscilloscope in his hand and a small LED light strapped to his head, he sets to from his favourite chair, illuminated by the glow of a large monitor displaying the car’s electrical pulses. “He looks like a Cornish tin miner on Mastermind!” quips David. Even gurus need a thick skin. Speaking in code Code readers or scanners aren’t just the preserve of professional workshops – you can buy one from as little as £10. Just plug it into your car’s OBD port (the car’s handbook should tell you where it is) and read off the error code on the display screen. Then consult the code book to find a description of the problem. Users swear by them, claiming they’ve saved fortunes in garage bills. Vehicle diagnostics expert Frank Massey isn’t convinced. He says: “The cheapest readers often have a very limited range of codes and their descriptions of the problem can be extremely vague. Remember: a code reflects the symptom but not its cause.” Massey says vehicle- or manufacturer-specific code readers are a better investment. Where a generic reader might say ‘pressure sensor range error’, a dedicated reader would provide much more detail. “If you have a VW Group car, buy a professional scanner such as the dedicated Ross-Tech VCDS,” he says. “It’s much more helpful and only costs £300 – a small price to pay if you’re a confident, amateur mechanic.”

Surprises bring the ratings. Last week's episode of RAW saw 4 surprise main roster-call ups and the viewership for the show saw a big upsurge. WWE will look to continue the momentum this week as well, with a packed show. A few surprises interspersed across the three hours could do the trick. In this article, I shall suggest five surprises that could potentially happen. Of course, maybe none of them will actually happen on the show. But if they do take place, I have a feeling that the crowd will go absolutely bananas and more viewers will tune in. When you cast your mind back to the greatest moments in WWE history, it's always the surprises that stand out. So, why shouldn't there be surprises on every RAW episode then? Here are 5 things that could make the show absolutely unforgettable.We all know that Roman Reigns will be on the show this week to give us an update on his current health status. We also remember the fateful night when he had announced to the world that he was battling leukemia. The same night when Dean Ambrose turned on Seth Rollins, going heel and stunning the world. Roman Reigns may be disgusted by Dean Ambrose's actions, in kayfabe. We know that Dean Ambrose is on his way out of the company and has also been going off script in recent times. WWE may want to devalue his character before he leaves for greener pastures. What better way to do this than to have Roman Reigns take out the trash, quite literally. If Reigns is allowed to get physical, a Superman Punch and a spear could be punishment for Ambrose's actions.

Troops arrived at a checkpoint set up by an indigenous community in Kumarakapai, on Venezuela's southern border with Brazil early this morning (left). But when civilians tried to block military vehicles, soldiers opened fire shooting 12 and killing a woman named as Zorayda Rodriguez, 42, it has been reported (victims pictured inset left, ambulance top right, confrontation bottom right). The villagers are believed to have been trying to keep open a section of the border so that aid could be moved into the area from Brazil. It comes after dramatic footage emerge of a clash between President Nicolas Maduro's troops and supporters of his rival Juan Guaido. The clip shows trucks trying to ram through a checkpoint in Mariara, northern Venezuela, as security forces loyal to Maduro stand in its path.

I will Give Pro

On Call After a long, hard week, what better way to start Friday than with a dose of On Call, El Reg's weekly column for tech traumas, mishaps and eureka moments. This time, we meet "Robin", who tells us of a time he was consulting for a group building a web-based billing system in the early 2000s. In some cases, he said, the development platform and production platforms were stood up using trial versions of software licences. "To keep costs down for the database product, measures such as binding the DB software to a single CPU in each server's multi-CPU hardware were tried, and worked successfully," Robin said. "Trial versions of software components were used where possible, to reduce costs in the development phase – in some cases exceeding five digits – for what was going to be development-only infrastructure." The project – which took more than 12 months and involved many thousands of hours of effort – was a classic waterfall affair: "Nothing much to see until it was all complete." As the application neared delivery status, the banks that had been on the project steering committee – which had vetted all the designs, changes and feature requests – asked for a demo of the "look and feel" of the platform before sign-off.The date was about a month away, and system testing, fixes and so on proceeded frantically. "Infrastructure was tested; features, like firewalls, failure, redundant databases, servers, were all tested and verified to be in place and functioning as designed," Robin said. Several days before the demo, Robin said that the team was happy and confident and so rebooted the platform's servers overnight to provide a "clean" example of the system the day before the demo. "First thing next morning, the bank representatives all wheeled into a conference room, with multiple displays all set up to demonstrate the application. "The project team, management and business analysts were all on hand to present each of the features and functions in the new system. And coffee and doughnuts were on hand." But once the demo began, their confidence quickly shrivelled. Because when the lead designer went to log in via the browser interface, it failed. Password and connectivity checks were fine, but the web application wouldn't allow logins. Across the room, hand-waving explanations attempted to placate the guests as the team started feeling rather hot under the collar. Then Robin looked up at the console screen in the demo room that was set up for the database server. And that's when the penny dropped. Because on it read: "Trial License expired." Suddenly it all fell into place. "The initial 30-day trial licence for the 'big end of town' database had expired months before, but never upgraded – and the database servers had never been restarted to re-check the licence key throughout the entire project," said Robin. With little else to do, the group slurped down the coffee and hoovered up the doughnuts before agreeing to try again the next week – by which point, Robin said, all the requisite licences had been verified and or upgraded. "Two morals of this story," he said. "First, the money you save now might end up costing you in the future. Second, before demos, check that the object of the demo actually works!" If you've enjoyed Robin's tale of a licensing close call, why not share your own story with On Call. We'd love to hear of head-scratching problems solved, near-misses – and of course experiences where the issue is rather more of a PIBKAC situation. Send them straight to our On Call Vulture's mailbag and they might be featured in a future column. ®

NVIDIA introduced their Turing GPU architecture last year, taking a complete departure from traditional GPU designs and creating a hybrid architecture that would include a range of new technologies to power the next-generation immersive gaming experiences. While initially announced with Quadro lineup under the new Quadro RTX brand, we all knew that the Turing architecture was coming to the GeForce lineup. It arrived in the GeForce lineup a few months later under the new GeForce RTX branding. NVIDIA’s first big naming departure since two decades of GeForce GTX. RELATED RUMOR: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1180 Spotted In HP Documentation – Is NVIDIA Preparing A Non-RTX Flagship? The GeForce RTX 20 series was the enablement of real-time raytracing which is the holy grail of graphics and something NVIDIA spent 10 years to perfect. In addition to raytracing, NVIDIA also aims to place bets on AI which will play a key role in powering features such as DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling, a unique way of offering the same quality as the more taxing MSAA AA techniques at twice the performance. NVIDIA has announced for cards under the GeForce RTX 20 series family, the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, the Enthusiast GeForce RTX 2080, the high-performance GeForce RTX 2070 and the main-stream GeForce RTX 2060. Now, NVIDIA is looking to offer Turing under more reasonable prices but also going back to the good-old GeForce GTX branding and for good reasons. While GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX will exist alongside each other in this generation, the GeForce GTX lineup as the name suggests would be aiming for raw performance over the graphics intensive RTX features which only the RTX card support. So to start it off, today, I will be taking a look at the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. The latest NVIDIA entrant with Turing GPU at a reference MSRP of $279 US which just about matches the GeForce GTX 1060 price point from two years ago and promises to deliver better performance at 1080p resolution at higher power efficiency than before.When it comes to pricing, the GeForce RTX 20 series are some of the most costly cards NVIDIA has offered to consumers. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, on the other hand, tries to keep budget and more mainstream audiences in mind by offering a price closer to the GeForce GTX 1060 which became a po[CENSORED]r gaming card on Steam due to its $249 price point. Following is the current per segment price structure of the entire NVIDIA Turing lineup compared to its predecessors.For this review, I will be taking a look at two custom models from MSI, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X and the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS. Both cards are based on a complete custom design and feature high-end cooling system to keep the GPU running cool. In terms of the price model, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X has a price of $299 US ($20 over reference) while the Ventus XS OC matches the $279 US price point.With just a few bucks of asking price over the reference models, the custom variants offer a range of features such as triple fan coolers, bulky heatsinks, and custom PCBs allowing for better heat dissipation, higher air flow and more overclocking performance and clock stability at their respective boost clocks which will be higher compared to the reference variants. The main barrier with overclocking on Turing GPUs is by far the power limit and those that offer the highest power limits out of the box are generally the ones with the best overclocking potential and performance output.

The system, which uses kinetic energy recovery braking to assist the combustion engine, is claimed to deliver fuel efficiency savings and emissions reductions of as much as 15%. Models featuring the technology will use a ‘B’ prefix, to separate them from the petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid versions already available. B-badged cars can come with either a diesel or petrol engine, and Volvo expects these versions to become the most po[CENSORED]r. The mild hybrid versions of the XC90 that will be available initially are a B5 petrol or diesel and a B6 petrol. The powertrain will be gradually rolled out to other models, starting with the XC60.Only mild revisions have been made to the XC90's exterior styling for 2019. It gets a new-look front grille, additional paint choices and new alloy wheel designs. Inside, it gains Android Auto smartphone mirroring for the first time, in addition to the Apple CarPlay functionality already present on the old car. Volvo will begin taking orders for the refreshed XC90 later this month. It will arrive in British dealerships this summer, although pricing has yet to be confirmed

Brock Lesnar is a polarising figure for the WWE Universe, and it seems that his fellow Superstars in the WWE locker room feel the same as well. Lesnar clearly gets preferential treatment which may have rubbed the WWE Superstars the wrong way. NXT Superstar Matt Riddle had tweeted a couple of months ago that he wants to retire Brock Lesnar, and it seems like he meant it! In case you didn't know... Lesnar won the Universal title for the second time when he defeated Braun Strowman at Crown Jewel and has since defended his title only once, at Royal Rumble, against Finn Balor. The Beast is set to face off against Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 35, but we may not see him at next month's Fastlane PPV, which is the final PPV before WrestleMania. The heart of the matter In an interview with WWE, Riddle spoke about a number of topics, including how he wants to retire Brock Lesnar, and the reason why he dislikes the current Universal champion. "Oh yeah, retiring Brock... it's no secret. That's been the goal since I started wrestling, since the very beginning. I like to set goals that seem impossible. Only one person can retire Brock Lesnar, only one person can end his career, and that person's going to be me. "I don't like how he does it, I don't like the respect that he shows, and I don't like the work rate that he puts out. That's just my personal opinion. I think he's capable of more. Maybe it doesn't work out for me, maybe it doesn't work out the first time, but I guarantee you I'm going to beat him and I'm gonna retire him." (H/T WrestlingInc for the transcription)

Moroccan police fired water cannons at campaigners, many of them teachers, and beat people with truncheons as they marched towards a royal palace in the capital Rabat (left and inset). Several were clubbed to the ground by officers during the protest, held yesterday exactly eight years after the birth of a Moroccan Arab Spring movement that awakened a spirit of activism in the North African kingdom. It comes as the seven-months-pregnant Duchess of Sussex (right) and husband Prince Harry prepare to fly out to Morocco on Saturday for a three-day

In preparation for next month's 30th anniversary of the proposal that gave us the world wide web, boffins at the behest of CERN have recreated the world's first web browser, and made it accessible as a modern web page. Created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the ur-browser, first called WorldWideWeb, and later Nexus, was built from Objective-C in 1990 on a NeXT workstation to display its maker's HyperText Markup Language. The browser's resurrection – click here to try it out – follows five days of hacking by an international team of nine developers, reunited after a previous effort to revive the original Line Mode Browser in 2013.The server side part of the simulation comes from the Line Mode Browser source; binaries of various versions of WorldWideWeb/Nexus were also consulted. The project, unveiled this month, was built with JavaScript and the React framework. The browser's monochrome window into the past includes a basic menu interface that features both functional and non-functional elements. It does allow you to open web pages, via the Document -> Open from full document reference menu, though they're all text. It serves as a reminder of how much the web has changed, for good or ill. There are no images, videos, ads or ad tracking code. JavaScript, which wouldn't be invented until 1995, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which wouldn't debut until 1996, have been employed to recreate the retro look and feel. Much attention went to the blocky aliased fonts. The color palette includes a four-option spectrum: black, white, and two shades of gray. WorldWideWeb recognizes just 26 HTML tags – the term "element" was not a part of web development jargon.One aspect of the original browser that got lost over time was that it was intended to be both a document viewer and editor. "Today it's hard to imagine that web browsers might also be used to create web pages," the project's documentation explains. "It turned out that people were quite happy to write HTML by hand – something that Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues never expected. They thought that some kind of user interface would be needed for making web pages and links." Modern browsers like Chrome retain the ability to edit loaded pages via the Inspect menu, but generally their tools for content display and editing have been separated. Nowadays, web code tends to be difficult to read. It's often minified – compressed into a compact form to save space – or obfuscated – deliberately made obscure. Facebook web pages, for example, rely on impenetrable class names and words fragmented into multiple div elements to foil ad blockers. Thirty years on, the first web browser recalls a time before commerce came online. ®

Intel has named their processors really weirdly in the past, may it be the Broadwell desktop lineup or the more recent Core M (7th Gen Parts). Now Intel is releasing another processor under the 9th Generation branding which sounds like it’s coming straight out of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yes, this is the Core i9-9900KFC, which was recently detected in the latest version of AIDA64. Intel Core i9-9900KFC Spotted By AIDA64 – 8 Cores, 16 Threads, No IGP But Is It Finger-Lickin’ Good? Intel’s Core i9-9900KFC processor number was detected by AIDA64 and has been listed in the new version, Anandtech reports. There are no details mentioned aside from the codename but there’s a lot that the name itself reveals about this chip. First of all, the Core i9-9900KFC seems like a new variation of the Core i9-9900K. This processor would be the fourth variation of the Core i9-9900K which was introduced last year.The Core i9-9900KF was its first revision that was publicly confirmed by Intel at CES 2019 when they announced the launch of their new 9th Gen Core processors in addition to the existing ones that launched last year. The Core i9-9900KF was the same chip as the Core i9-9900K but lacked integrated graphics. Intel also introduced other KF models which were based around unlocked parts but didn’t feature the IGP. The most recent variation was the Core i9-9900T which is a low power part based around the same core config as the Core i9-9900K but featuring much lower clock speeds of 1.7 GHz base and 3.8 GHz boost. The chip, however, does rock an IGP for graphics support.Now coming to the new part, it is a “K” series part which means it will be unlocked to support overclocking. It is also an “F” series part which means it will lack integrated graphics support. What’s confusing about this processor is the “C” suffix at the end which if we go back to the Broadwell era, meant that it rocks an eDRAM cache to supplement the higher-end Iris Pro integrated graphics. If the processor features Iris Pro graphics or similar onboard, then the “F” suffix doesn’t hold true. However, the “C” suffix could be added if Intel is using an eDRAM. The eDRAM could act as a buffer between the L3 cache and the CPU rather than acting as an L4 cache. This may improve performance but the overall extent is currently unknown. This is just a theory though and the Intel Core i9-9900KFC may end up as an entirely different chip. It may even be a specially promoted Core i9-9900K with a bucket of fried chicken for all we know so it’s better to wait for a confirmation/word from Intel on this product.

I see plenty of MG Midgets as I roam the junkyards of the land, but (at least during the last decade) all of them have been 1970s models. What about the Midget's near-identical twin, the Austin-Healey Sprite? The Sprite name disappeared after 1971, and the older Spridgets mostly got crushed or saved decades ago. Here's a battered '66 that appears to have knocked around as a project for decades before ending up in this Denver self-service wrecking yard. The MkIII Sprite came with this 1,098cc four-cylinder pushrod BMC A engine. These cars weren't fast even by the standards of the middle 1960s, but they were a lot more fun to drive than the 59-hp rating suggest.Owned an extremely hooptie Mark IV Sprite with Toyota 20R engine swap about a decade ago, and I would have been very excited to find a parts car like this at a cheap U-Wrench junkyard. This car has many spare parts and ample evidence of attempted rewiring jobs -- hey, I've been there -- so I feel certain it was a project that just ended up not being worth the effort. the month or so that this car has been in inventory, very few parts have been purchased from it. Surely someone in the Denver area needs a few Spridget pieces?