* Posts by MrT

1359 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Oct 2007

Nvidia unveils Titan Z: An 8TFLOPS off-the-shelf supercomputer disguised as a gfx card

MrT

Whoosh...

...and whoosh...

MrT

Or maybe...

... a boatload, Ma'am?

All hands to bathe? Aye-aye!

Bletchley boffins go to battle again: You said WHAT about Colossus?

MrT

Good call!

... try a few more to get a more complete picture. I'm not a fan of the "one site fits all" approach (indeed, one of the most interesting Spitfire displays IMHO was the one that was dismantled and mostly mounted on the wall upstairs in the Science Museum a few years ago).

Once done down south, hop on a train up to York then pop to Elvington and the Yorkshire Air Museum...;-)

TV sales PLUMMET. But no one's prepared to say what we all know

MrT

I got to...

..."There is lots of intelligence out there in TV land" and chuckled - better comedy than a lot of the cheap channels...

IBM PCjr STRIPPED BARE: We tear down the machine Big Blue would rather you forgot

MrT

I'm not surprised the monitor still works...

... IBM tended to build good peripherals for their other ranges... the Model M keyboard especially.

Last IBM CRT monitor I used was an 8514 PS/2 job, back in the era when companies sold a 14" CRT but only 12.9" visible. Not IBM - that thing weighed about twice as much and showed IIRC a touch more than the stated diagonal. 1024x768 goodness until I swapped it for a higher-res 17" Vivitron CRT (with its pixel mask support wires just visible across the screen).

Nice pictures - it looks like it was cared for through its life, which must mean it's about the best of what's left.

GIANT FLESH-EATING DEVIL CHICKENS roamed North Dakota

MrT

KFC dinochicken? The picture's wrong then...

...because I only see 1 pair of legs, it's not eating waste packages, nor regurgitating KFC cardboard hats and passing barbecue beans...

MrT

Re: Done already...

...pity the loss of the Post Office Tower...

SACRILEGE! Hitchhiker's Guide game's back ... and it TWEETS at you

MrT
Facepalm

Enthusiasm or not...

...I'd have thought the Robot Academy would've taught you to spell your own name correctly... couple of letters awry in the middle there, Marvin old chap... ;-)

MrT

Re: A nice cuppa

'Er, yes. With milk'

'Squirted out of a cow?'

'Well, in a manner of speaking I suppose ...'

MrT

Re: Leather goddess

...chocolate bar, sugar rush, etc...

I had a box set on 5.25" discs, HHGTTG, LGoP and Zork. Probably still in the attic, next to the drive and maps drawn on graph paper, unspun in at least 15 years. Time well spent :-)

MrT

Are they expecting...

...a tweetstorm every time someone new to the game feeds the cheese sandwich to the small dog?

Time to have a nice cuppa and see how this idea develops.

Twin GEEKS: NASA studies identical brothers – one on Earth, one IN SPAAAACE

MrT

Switch? Start planning now...

...because it looks like Mark's 'tache took a while to grow... or is it Scott? Or Kelly??

MrT

It might happen...

... they did say they were going to do some "novel studies"...

Psssst. Don't tell the Bride, but BBC Three is about to be jilted

MrT

The difference between BBC3 and ITV2...

...can be neatly summed up just by watching their respective 1-minute news summaries. BBC3 is professional and presented in a way that assumes the viewer is adult (despite it being followed by shite like that dire single-joke cross-dress Ja'mie import). ITV2 is all "Hiya!" "Awright" bezzie-mate style, presented by chatty truck-stop barmaids.

MWC: The good, the bad ... and the Galaxy S5

MrT

Teesside Police Armed Response Unit...

...training manual, page 42: "Acceptable phrases to use as instructions in dealing with Section 5 and 7 public order offenses, Middlesbrough and surrounding areas"

"Just put the parmo down, and go for a walk."

How a Facebook post by blabbermouth daughter cost her parents $80,000

MrT

Re: Sharpest knives...

...blunted by most of them having retired there from New Everything (York, Joisee, etc.) to end up driving around Jacksonville with their left-turn signal on all day... like my aunt and uncle, who did the east coast shuffle from Portchester

Now which chad do I punch out to make this post anonymous, so none of my friends and family in Tampa and Panama City know it's me? Okay, found it - I'm sure that's the right one...

Crap hospital databases next goldmine for cyber-crooks, say Microsoft's botnet slayers

MrT

Bodes well for care.data...

...the problem isn't collecting and storing of data (NHS hospitals have been doing that bit fairly well for 25 years or so), but it's the way the data is passed around - especially if the wider use or retention of said is ultimately based on promises, or legislation that can be rewritten later.

One of my friends worked for Oracle and later was involved in the last major attempt to create a unified system (about 10 years ago or so). He stayed with us up in Leeds on occasion for the times he had to work at the Kremlin (Quarry House). IIRC, the technicalities of creating a dual-redundant stand-alone infrastructure that could safely deal with all the transfers, without exposing it to any public-facing network, were a headache. This was despite the eye-popping multi-billion budget for the whole job, enough so that just 1/30th would have been enough to do everything using top-end Apple Mac desktops and XServers in every GP practice in the land, plus install leased lines between them and the data centres. Even then, they knew they couldn't do the job properly, although it would have cut out the majority of the risks around at the time.

Passenger jet grounded by two-hour insect attack

MrT

Cries of disbelief: "Paul Hogan's dead?...

... Does his plastic surgeon know?"

and

"Quick! Pass me that fire extinguisher - they cure everything!"

Apple's Windows XP moment: OS X Snow Leopard left to DIE

MrT

Re: 2007 hardware obsolete?

Not quite as old, but my Dell Insipid 9400 from Jan 2007 is still going strong, in daily use. RAM and HDD upgrade, but the trick was to spec it to a good level originally (512MB nVidia 7900GS, 1900x1220 panel). Win 7 and Kubuntu, plus a raft of old OS's on VM, for old time's sake - I still like running W2K. I know it's not the most thorough benchmark, but it rates at 5.1 on Win7 performance index. It should easily get to 10yrs.

UK spies on MILLIONS of Yahoo! webcams, ogles sex vids - report

MrT

Eurythmics....

...now playing in my head ;-)

NHS England tells MPs: 'The state isn't doing dastardly things with GP medical records'

MrT

Grabbing that much...

...the collective cough would be deafening.

Actor who played Rogue Two in Star Wars dies aged 67

MrT

Re: Fist full of travellers cheques

Cafe owner:      Two steaks coming right up.

Miguel:              Wait. Make that four.

Carlos:              Each.

Miguel:              Six.

Carlos:              Eight.

Miguel:              Ten!

Cafe owner:      Aw c'mon guys, ten steaks each? Are you joking?

Miguel:              Do we look like comedians?

Classic...

MrT

Also...

... Labyrinth and The Comic Strip Presents...

Enjoyed watching his work - RIP

Fine, you can mock us: NSA spies back down in T-shirt ridicule brouhaha

MrT

Reminds me of the Simpsons Movie...

Fake EPA logo and message at the start of the DVD...

" 'PROTECTING THE PLANET, PROTECTING OUR JOBS'

The Environmental Protection Agency wishes to strenuously object to its depiction in this film. We are a competent, well-meaning government bureaucracy, and if we were ever granted any real power we would never, ever abuse it, we promise.

Russ Cargill, Acting Head"

EPAAAA! EEEPAAAAAA!!

App-maker King hopes to CANDY-CRUSH $500m from IPO

MrT

Candy® Crush® Saga®...

...That's® What® My Heart® Yearns® For® Now® ?

The Zynga School of Business Ethics' finest alumnus...

Computer expert and broadcaster Ian McNaught-Davis dies at 84

MrT

One moment on Making the most of the Micro...

... I remember when they arranged for a Beeb in New York to send a program listing to one in the UK, with MAC sitting there explaining what was happening, must've been a live show since it didn't get edited...

He wasn't flustered at all when the program gave an error - he just went to the relevant line, spotted that the US ROM included 'color' instead of 'colour' so the command wasn't recognised on this side of the pond, corrected it and ran the 'message' - it drew a big red apple on screen with the text (IIRC) "Greetings from the Big Apple". All the time, explaining things, "of course, the spelling is different" etc. Very reassuring presenter - RIP.

Vertical take-off and laughing: Space Harrier

MrT

The Harrier universe...

...looked like it had been mown by my dad and his Suffolk Swift push-along roller-mower.

Mablethorpe - last time I was there was when 'For Your Eyes Only' played at the cinema, which still had the Wurlitzer rise up in front of the screen before the main show... Brilliant beach, amazing dunes, RAF Tornado jets at low level to the bombing range further north...

UK spooks STILL won't release Bletchley Park secrets 70 years on

MrT

That book is excellent...

Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley Park's code-breaking computers" B. Jack Copeland and others

A really interesting collection. About 85% of it is written by the people who did the work, including Tutte and Flowers.

EVE Online erects mashed-up memorial to biggest space fight in history

MrT

Henry William Allingham, 1896-2009...

... last surviving founder member of the RAF, the last man to have witnessed the Battle of Jutland and the last surviving member of the Royal Naval Air Service. RIP.

"War's stupid. Nobody wins. You might as well talk first, you have to talk last anyway."

MrT

"One man's meat...

...is another man's poison", or vice versa.

Time is ours to waste, but it's only a waste of time to someone else. We all do it one way or another.

MrT

;-) $100 an upvote...

...and $200 for each downvote - the trick is to stay in credit...

For example, Eadon wasn't voted out, he ran out of money even after mortgaging everything he had. The irony was, he posted everything from his XBox One Developer Edition and was paid for each comment, but even MS couldn't foot the bills he ran up... allegedly.

Japanese quantum boffins 'may have the key to TELEPORTATION'

MrT

They may have the key...

...but have they got the lock? And which way should they try the key? Will the lock be the same if they try the key twice?

Can't they just sort out Dextermath - I'd quite like burgers that fly to your mouth at the sound of a whistle...

Stephen Fry rewrites computer history again: This time it's serious

MrT

The London Underground game...

..."two stops past Kensal Green"...

Which will also be intentionally incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't got a clue about that game either ;-)

China's Jade Rabbit moon rover might have DIED in the NIGHT after 'abnormality'

MrT

Call the cops!

Anyone checked the area for donuts?

Apple punts patches for holes in Pages and OS X, Windows iTunes

MrT

Re: iTunes Update Issues - MSVCR80.dll

Yup... that's what I found. But then got stuck in the uninstall loop for the MobileDevice service - kept rewinding at about 99% complete. Answer to that was to select 'Change' and then 'Repair' (Repair on its own didn't work), which still failed due to incorrectly calling that C Runtime, but repaired it enough to let me uninstall it straight after.

MrT

Re: iTunes on any platform is pretty grim

...fails to install here (Win 7). On further investigation, it gets just about all the way through then fails to call 'a C runtime library properly'. Upgrade tool, individual MSI, repair install or uninstall and reinstall from fresh download - now Upgrade tells me it's the latest version, if I ignore the error, but trying to run the app tells me the installation failed. Happens on both the iTunes.msi and MobileDevice support MSI, but not the other sections.

Not been the first time upgrading iTunes has borked either, but instead of just letting me drop them the error nunbers Apple try to get one of their support genies involved.

El Reg preps relaunch of Cash’n’Carrion online merchandise emporium

MrT

Reg mugs...

... how about Reg Varney in full On The Buses kit, holding a Reg mug, Blakey looking on with disdain...?

IT angle? After all, he's photo'd using the first ATM in 1967...

MrT

LOHAN Airfix kit...

... excellent - I'll have two. (Just don't sell the plane separately from the rest of the rig).

Probably says a lot about me though...

The button idea reminds me of something I have at work - a USB "Emergency Button" that normally just sits there calmly glowing different colours until pressed - one tap and it CTRL-Zs stuff, hold it down and it launches the Edugeek web forum. Got to be some possibilities with something like that.

Nimble set to conquer Japan after sealing Toshiba distie deal

MrT

I must be getting old...

... because I read the headline and for a split-second thought it was about bread...

Haribo gummy bears implicated in 'gastric exorcism'

MrT

You are in this forum forever...

... unless your name is Eadon, in which case, load the account purger with a few of these 5kg bags, rinse and repeat ;-)

Google grabs slice of interwebs for EVERYONE (who speaks Japanese)

MrT

の蒸気...

... not the correct translation, but it's what Google gave me, which bodes well - I can't remember a new wave band in the early 80's called "Of Steam"...

My name is Dabbsy and I am an EMAILOHOLIC

MrT

HAD free O2 ones...

... they all got shut down last November. I tend to stick around until chucked out at the bitter end, which is why my O2 ones were more like trophies. I had a friend running CBL at University of Leeds who kept my staff account from the very early 90's going until the day he retired about 15 years later. I miss that one - sentimental I suppose - but not the O2 ones; they marked the final end of my association with a company I hadn't dealt with since about 2005.

Mountain bike mishap man suffers SEVEN WEEK stiffie

MrT

Cue Scrubs reference...

... and leave it to the Todd...

BT banks on ex-HSBC man to take charge of Openreach biz

MrT

If the developer pays them enough...

... they'll pull all the fastest connections in the exchange from the people who already have them and give them to the new build. This happened many times in the villages around where I used to live. Suddenly started getting slow connection as soon as the 'regeneration' projects got to the point where second fix started in the first units.

One engineer back before I went FTTC basically told me this, then went back to the exchange to swap my line onto the "fast stack", which got me another 1Mbps and better stability. That was in a village in rural Co Durham, where there was no alternative to Openreach - VM cable not available out there, but it was back when they still had experienced engineers, rather than ex-shop owners and anyone keen'n'green at the more profitable end of the pay scale.

It's a PITA trying to get anyone to shift, and with this accountant taking over it's likely to get worse.

MrT

Re: If only...

I think it used to be more like that - BT used to send two blokes to a new install, one to sort the line and the other to sort the broadband. Now they send a "multiskilled" person who is supposed to be able to install it all.

In my experience, it's always involved a bit of both sides - last time I had an upgrade, from regular ADSL to FTTC, the engineer arrived, sorted out the line (which involved popping back to the exchange and the cabinet), then installed the kit to the computer to make sure we had a service. We then added Vision using the kit.

This time, they were supposed to install a master socket extension and then cable from there to the TV, as per the new "no powerline stuff" requirements for the HD sports stuff. None of that happened, and all of the blather on BTs site about the engineer "neatly fixing cables" was just forgotten. It was the Openreach modem that he decided to fix on on entirely different wall, rather than use a power cable extension, that took the biscuit. That and setting up the old powerline adapters instead of a cable connection from modem to router - BT see the error reflected from the first one without reaching the Hub to gather diagnostic data, and if the BT Wholesale speedtester manages to run, it bounces off the second to report 0.00kbps down, 0.02kbps up and a ping of zero.

One BT chap (who have been helpful, on the whole) said I should just go ahead and sort it myself, leaving the issue of the skills of the Openreach engineer unchallenged and unaddressed.

MrT

If only...

... they'd re-employ some of the very experienced engineers, the ones they let go a few years ago to save a few quid who actually knew what they were doing, instead of the barely-bothered bumblers they ship around the country to do installs that look worse than bad DIY.

Like the guy who fitted the broadband modem in my house move halfway along a wall where we wanted to site furniture simply because that was where the cable reached, instead of where we asked, then used old powerline adapters between that and the Homehub, creating reflection errors at both sides. Then left the house with the system half installed, and with everyone I've spoken to in BT agreeing that he did it badly.

Shame that Openreach haven't been back to me about it though... maybe their phones are wired back to front?

Cygnus space truck poised for blast-off (again) TODAY

MrT

Or in other words...

... an early bath?

;-)

Naked Aussie gets wedged in washing machine

MrT

"Thanks to Dan Glynhampton for the tip-off."

Ouch. I thought he got away intact...

Boffins build sticky-limbed lizard-bots to tend spacecraft

MrT

But by that analogy...

... only one would survive, and everyone had better watch out for crewman Lowell. Don't forget the watering can ;-)