* Posts by Stevie

7282 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2008

Squeeze the banana to log into this office Wi-Fi

Stevie

Bah!

"Voltage drop across the fruit" dammit!

What are they teaching in Physics O levels these days?

Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

Stevie

4 LucreLout.

"The home PC is fading, being replaced with one tablet or another, that either updates itself or simply never gets patched."

Not in any home in which the creation of stuff is the reason for having the device in the first place it ain't. TYhe form factor too small, the "cloud or nothing" storage/interchange untrustworthy and the software toylike at best and a joke at worst.

Apropriately, ths is my second attempt to post this from my iPad. Using the soft keyboard induced my repetitive stress issues, I fat-fingered a key and the entire page vanished at "untrustworthy". I had to deploy a third-party bluetooth keyboard to get the job done reliably. awkward and a waste of time.

Everybody howls about IE. I'm the only bugger howling about how naff Safari on iPad is.

Brit boffins brew nanotech self-cleaning glass

Stevie

Bah!

So, does the Frank Herbert heat trick and is self cleaning? Boffo!

Now if only they can stop it exploding when anyone says "mattress" ...

Boffins: There's a ninth planet out there – now we just need to find it

Stevie

Bah!

When do we vote to change "astronomer" to "dwarf scientist"?

For fsck's SAKKE: GCHQ-built phone voice encryption has massive backdoor – researcher

Stevie

Bah!

Well stap me vitals! This is a turn up for the books. I never saw that coming.

Amazon China registers for ocean freight services to US

Stevie

Smart move

New packing feeback questionaire:

Was the item delivered on time?

Were contents crushed by high gee sub orbital trajectory?

Was it easy to open?

Did the delivery set fire to your house?

Have an upvote for making me laugh ot loud on the train.

Adblock Plus blocked from attending ad industry talkfest

Stevie

Bah!

In a curious coincidence, today, for the first time when viewing The Register, I was served a Computerworld/YouTube style "eventually skippable" ad before the front page would load.

Way to suck at my limited portable bandwidth, El Reg.

China names the date for dark side moon landing

Stevie

Re: Bah!

Ooh, and do you think Science Fiction is Star Wars and Babylon 5? Good hit!

But, not so much SF as extension of been there, done that. Or did you forget we've shown that people can go to the Moon and camp there for a bit before coming back?

The challenge you speak of is uncontestable, but doesn't detract from the essential boring nature of yet one more luggage trolley in space.

The real challenge that just about anyone on the planet could get behind, either for or against, would be to put people on the far side of the moon.

This Moon Roomba simply oozes Meh.

Stevie

Bah!

So, still no people, then? Just the equivalent of a radio controlled go cart with a kid's shovel on the front.

Glad to see China has lost the vision too. For a few years I was afraid they'd beat everyone else back to the moon.

You've heard of Rollercoaster Tycoon – but we can't wait for Server Tycoon

Stevie

Bah!

Laaaaaaame!

Now add in random natural disasters, interference by bosses and beancounters (coincidentally also the name of a failed 1980s role playing game from TSR), Godzilla strikes, fires, halon releases, and Jim the bloke with the forklift and a desire to tidy the switch cabling, and it picks up some speed.

But would still be the last game on earth anyone would play, even if you include Freecell and Minesweeper.

Put your private parts on display if you want to keep earning a living

Stevie

Bah!

The depressingly stupid part of this CrotchCam "solution" is that to implement it will likely absorb many times and putative "savings" from ordering people to go back to their desks.

When will the directors learn that to get people to do a good job you need to make the environment in which it is to be done as job friendly as possible and then treat the people in it as valued human beings?

The Bong Diaries, Pt.94: Bowie, Martha... and where's my knighthood?

Stevie

Bah!

A Stylophone is a synthesizer in the same way I am a world class footballer.

Boffins baffled by record-smashing supernova that shouldn't exist

Stevie

Re: Did you drop this?

Not me. I never use 'em. I don't think anyone should.

But eight out of ten people apparently can't tell the difference without them. Makes me wonder if we don't need to broaden the compulsory syllabus in our Computer Science degree courses.

Stevie

Bah!

And hence it is proved that science doesn't work after all and evolution and global warming are lies perpetrated by heathens and liberals.

Aircraft now so automated pilots have forgotten how to fly

Stevie

Bah!

You mean that when revenues drop and there are too many snouters at the directorial trough the first thing to get axed is primary staff training?

Who could have predicted that?

Database rights are no 'impediment' to Europe's data-driven economy

Stevie

Bah!

Will this mean the end of google searches that return dozens of pages to a tech question, all of which have identical text scraped from the first hit on the search?

Server retired after 18 years and ten months – beat that, readers!

Stevie

Bah!

I have to show this to my shiny obsessed consultant SAs who sniff if the equipment is more than two years old.

Well done Ross. Doin' It Right.

Kentucky spies stricken: Ban on web snaps of horror accidents mulled

Stevie

Bah!

The

United States state of Kentucky. As opposed to to other one.

Nest thermostat owners out in the cold after software update cockup

Stevie

Bah!

An internet connected software controlled thermostat? Who could imagine such a device would be open to this mode of failure? Who couldnhave predicted this disaster?

Oh hang on. I did, didn't I.

No doubt someone will explain how being able to turn the thermostat up or down using their smartphone is worth what just happened, and what will undoubtedly happen again and again, given that the firm in question didn't anticipate a failure showing up at the worst possible moment.

Hacks rebel after bosses secretly install motion sensors under desks

Stevie

Re: Bah!

In English we say "Please to take look at this unworthy Wiki article before make honorable arse of self".

Absent wikipedia, consider the absurdity of:

a) the number of hands needed to hammer a nail upward into a table while trying to hold a kipper, the nail and the hammer

2) doing so "stealthily"

The joke (for joke it was) hinged on the absurdity of the stench of a rotting kipper being undetected for a year, and the unspecified nature of the problems of a Bed and Breakfast in which said stench was undetectable.

But if your absurdity detector has a flat battery I guess the joke falls flat too.

Stevie

Bah!

Please tell me the installation was discovered by a journo as he attempted to take his morning kip under his desk.

Stevie

Bah!

There is no part of this train wreck that wasn't mishandled, from the installation to the transparetly lame "explanation".

I am reminded of an episode of "The World Of Beachcomber" in which he told the viewers that his test for whether a B&B was up to snuff was to nail a kipper under the dining room table and check for its presence the next year.

Cut to landlady hotly denying that the trick had been used at her establishment, then finding a kipper under the table in mid-denial.

Learn you Func Prog on five minute quick!

Stevie

Bah!

This new learning fascinates me sir Verity. Explain once more how we may employ sheep's bladders in the prevention of earthquakes.

Ansible dumps Van Halen product names for Led Zeppelin references

Stevie

Bah!

I believe that OTHAFA is,in fact, a Sean Bean reference.

Philae's phinal phlop: Lonely lander didn't answer wakeup signal

Stevie

Miracle

Come on, go look up how the lander was sent to the comet and how the lander was released ... it is a miracle that the lander managed to get 10 000kms close to the comet, let-alone land on it!!!!

And I said the part that depended on maths was well done indeed. We pretty much understand how to do orbital mechanics and how to harden computers well enough to handle the on-board changes well enough to cope with the variables the comet's nature introduced. The science part was well done.

But there was a single point of failure in the mission critical path: The harpoon/tether, which did not work. From that, the wreck of the entire mission can be traced. Sayin' it ain't so doesn't help get the next mission funded.

If you don't think I was cheering this mission on from the sidelines you are badly mistaken. Big space nut., me. Mum pulled me out of school to see Yuri Gagarin's victory parade through red square - in the days before Telstar made international TV a common thing. Hell, we watched on a TV set my dad had made from parts sourced from Radiospares. A European mission to a comet? It doesn't get better than that.

But rose-tinting the obvious failure doesn't help anyone.

And as for "re-taking GCSE A levels", well, my A level physics grades were not good as I lacked some of the insight that has come from watching physics work in the real world, and hadn't stretched my maker legs much (money was tight). I could do better today I reckon, but sad to say I never took a GCSE.

They hadn't been invented when I sat my A levels.

I still have my Nelkon and Parker though.

Stevie

Bah!

A noble attempt but allow me to point out (again) that the only successful part of the probe part of the mission was the bit that depended mostly on maths. Just about all the crucial engineering involved failed spectacularly.

The harpoon/tether did not work, the probe bounced and skidded across the comet *because* the harpoon gizmo was so important to the entrprise and the probe only ended up on the comet in the end because it crashed into a ravine where it lay unresponsive for lo these many months.

Yes it was a very noble effort, but someone deserves a big fat "D-" for wasting everyone else's time.

One Ring to pwn them all: IoT doorbell can reveal your Wi-Fi key

Stevie

Bah!

An internet connected doorbell? So people can play rat-a-tat ginger from miles away?

How thoroughly essential, functionality-wise. Definitely worth the security hole.

Wanted man sends selfie to replace 'terrible' police mug shot

Stevie

Bah!

The rozzers should have asked if he had a link to the youtube video of his alleged arson in progress.

Cops stuff Mumbai thief with 48 bananas

Stevie

Bah!

I'm flashing on a MPFC sketch: "Now then. What to do when being attacked by someone armed ... with a banana."

Stevie

Bah!

I wonder if there's language in the various digital slurp laws that involve involuntary banana-assisted password retrieval?

David Bowie: Musician, actor... tech admirer

Stevie

Bah!

World just contracted a bit more.

Damn.

Time to go listen to Hunky Dory again.

Chinese unleash autonomous airborne taxi

Stevie

Bah!

Looks like an excellent way to get yer legs cut off from the photo.

Bloke sues dad who shot down his drone – and why it may decide who owns the skies

Stevie

Re: FAA

FAA has no enforcement powers. Your rage is better directed at the aerospace industries that underbuild or the airlines that undermaintain.

Stevie

Re: More Drone Hysteria

"A pervert would climb a tree and use a telephoto lens."

No sir, a pervert these days would subvert the cameras included for no readily apparent reason into your IoT lightbulbs and stream video of you to YouTube while he and his pals laughed their faces off.

Stop admiring the shiny for a moment and think. If Boggs and his 3 man crew *weren't* the neighborhood trash, why aren't his outraged neighbors demanding justice for him?

There's a clear subtext in this story. I'm not saying it's the one I'm hinting at, but doesn't it strike anyone else that it's suspicious how quiet everyone else in the nabe is being? How many times has Boggs decamped mob-handed to sort out some issue?

Okay, forget the thug gang factor.

Three (male) pals just happened to be nearby? Four guys? With a drone-mounted camera? And young girls sunbathing?

That's called reasonable doubt and is why the case was thrown out of criminal court.

Boggs is now relying on Preponderance of Evidence to make the dice fall his way in civil court. He thinks he is onto a winner because Shotgunguy admits firing the gun *at* the drone - I doubt this was Boggs' own idea. Some ambulance-chasing bottom feeder personal liability attorney has likely been agitating.

And now Shotgunguy has to lawyer up.

All because Boggs either doesn't have the sense evolution gave a cowpat or he thought with his three bros on hand he could behave any damned way he liked.

At least, that's how it looks to me in the absence of any actual facts.

Stevie

Re: Bring down drones by whatever means

The obvious way to safely bring down an annoying drone is another drone fitted with a 12 gauge side-by-side.

If additional noise is a consideration, a model airship fitted with a 12 gauge side-by-side could be substituted.

Stevie

Re: A suitably modified Kärcher?

Well, do you have the maths to show how this is possible, because I've had three Karchers and not only would they be totally unable to put a jet of water up anywhere near the height we are talking and have any force whatsoever behind it, they can barely do the job they were designed for at three feet without failing quickly.

Karcher one lasted about four years, used once per year on 100 ft of 6 foot fence before the pump stripped a gear.

Number two just stopped working after two uses. Never was able to figure it out. I suspect the pressure detection switch mechanism failed. The motor just wouldn't run.

Number three only made one year before the pressure coupling self-destructed so any attempt to use it caused the hose to eject with dangerous force *even though* the security collar was locked down tight.

No more Karchers for me. I'll rent a proper gas powered pressure washer when I need one.

That said, a twelve gauge side-by-side does a lousy job of cleaning the fence, so I suppose it all evens out.

Stevie

Re: they're called WALLS! And FENCES

Had fence. Was using it. Droney McFucktard used superior tech to overcome it. Family Valuesguy deployed superior firepower to re-impose *your* ideas of how to protect privacy.

It is instructive that for all the shouting by Dronemeister Boggs, none of the neighbors have rallied to his side. I mean, if someone living on your street fired a fucking shotgun into the air wouldn't you be talking up a storm vis-a-vis complaints, redress, aligning with Mr Freedom In The Skies? If you fireed a shotgun into the sky, wouldn't you expect some anger from your neighbors?

Sounds to me like Boggs' neighbors were only too happy when a sudden sharp BANG removed the annoying ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ from the sky.

Stevie

Re: @h4rm0ny - What is the sky?

Boggs' video - we only have his word on the provenance, though lord knows it is very difficult to fake such stuff with today's home computers.

Boggs is an idiot, and an annoying one at that. Who the flock wants to listen to a flying weedwhacker disturbing the peace after work? One of my neighbors used to drive an ic model car up and down the street all fucking sunday. What a great way to help the neighbors relax, eh?

Confirmed: How to stop Windows 10 forcing itself onto PCs – your essential guide

Stevie

Re: the chance to change... to Linux.

"No, seriously. The comments on various forums saying, "That's it! I'm going Linux" has been way beyond anything I have seen before after a Windows version launch."

Yah, and we all know that anything people threaten to do on a forum they follow through on.

But.

Imagine for a moment how many of them *would* have done so already if any of the sites purporting to be selling Linux purpose-built laptops actually had any for sale. No diddling around with drivers and spending hours of forums trying to get a home-brew machine to work acceptably.

I mean, I went looking seriously in August. And September. And November. By December I learned my lesson. So many promises, so little meat on the bones. Jam tomorrow.

Say oops, UPSERT your head: PostgreSQL version 9.5 has landed

Stevie

Bah!

Isn't this another flavor of the O'racle MERGE statement?

Plain cruelty: Boffins flay Linux ransomware for the third time

Stevie

Re: Hmmm

No it doesn't depend, at least from my window seat.

No hints, not even sarcastic ones, because you never know when a new member of the team will have a sarcasm detector that works, and your own side is well-populated with people who don't have one who will be only too eager to wade in and "fix" your suggestion in a blaze of overly focussed oneupmanship

Fans demand 'Lemmium' periodic table tribute

Stevie

Re: I heard it was fivers.

Indeed it was a fiver. The amount seemed trivial in the face of the imminent enmythment of the Lemmy Name Origin apocrypha by some zygote weaned on Wikipedia, which had enraged me beyond the capacity for rational editing. Ten quid was a week's living money in them days.

Interesting coincidence, the NME coming up again. Just before Xmas while rooting in my garage I turned up a double page spread from NME that featured a Lowry cartoon lampooning Tommy (the movie). Big Lowry fan in them days, me. On the other side was a blow-by-blow report of the making of the Black Knight scene being filmed for the eagerly anticipated Monty Python and the Holy Grail fillum complete with a picture of the limbless kernigget in question. They also covered the filming of the "We're the Knights of The Round Table" musical number. It was reported as "chaos".

Stevie

Re: Yes, we do know why (lemmee atenner)

Myth as reported in the New Musical Express back when the name first became a thing with Hawkwind.

Get off my lawn, wikilad.

Longing to bin Photoshop? Rock-solid GIMP a major leap forward

Stevie

Re: Luxury!

We used ter dream of 'avin' string t' tie off us coat 'angers. We 'ad ter use own sinews, cut out wiyya blunt knife.

Happy new year, VW: Uncle Sam sues over engine cheatware

Stevie

Re: Bah!

Well, I'm flattered by the offer but I'm a happily married man so I'm going to have to turn down your kind offer of sexual congress.

If you want a USB thumb drive wiped, try asking an arts student for help

Stevie

Bah!

Shouldn't there be some sort of metric as to how many of the said thumb drives were used for anything in the first place?

It's like an art student designed this test.

Wait a minute ...

How long is your password? HTTPS Bicycle attack reveals that and more

Stevie

Bah!

Blast!. Now I must protect my blog by adding more headers like pointless reloads and some more of those FrontPage ones that litter every web page.

Can't have vile spoofers pretending to be me and fooling my reader (the other one recently decided to unsubscribe over some piffling blink tag issues).

Stevie

Paint

*Nods*

Well spotted Bc1609.

GCHQ mass spying will 'cost lives in Britain,' warns ex-NSA tech chief

Stevie

Bah!

Ah, the Cheyney-Bush System rears its head again:

"Is what I've already decided to do a good idea?"

"Nosir!"

"You're fired."