* Posts by Stevie

7282 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2008

Cargo truck crammed with garbage explodes IN SPAAAAACE

Stevie

Bah!

Typical! The police arrive with a pair of fire trucks in tow if I burn so much as a handful of leaves but these buggers set light to seven tons of assorted non-recyclables and get a standing ovation.

Take the shame: Microsofties ADMIT to playing Internet Explorer name-change game

Stevie

Bah!

I think they should generate a unique browser name each session and send that to the bloody stats gathering crap (the major reason I can't load bloody websites on my commute as I pass from one WiFi hotspot to the next before Google.nothingtodowiththethingIwant finishes dawdling and lets me see the content.

For all the badness, it's worth remembering that the Browser Wars resulted in - free browsers. Netscape originally sold Navigator for Fifty dollars. That's fifty nineteen ninety five dollars too. that's like, I dunno, three grand in today's money. Or something.

Assange™: Hey world, I'M STILL HERE, ignore that Snowden guy

Stevie

Bah!

Tee Hee. Reminds me of the reporter character "Mimi Ditto" from The Lone Groover in the 70s.

Yes, but what are your plans if a DRAGON attacks?

Stevie

Bah!

Still waiting to find out what my council will do if a dragon is hit by an asteroid in our airspace.

So much for FOI.

NASA's rock'n'roll shock: ROLLING STONE FOUND ON MARS

Stevie

Bah!

Huzzah! "Scientists" prove that gravity works on Mars!

Hackers' Paradise: The rise of soft options and the demise of hard choices

Stevie

Bah!

You made me read 3 pages of Selections from Maurice Bach so that you could grunt "Windows Bad" at the end?

Only the numerous pictures of the Westrex - a proper manly man's computer terminal - save you from a finger-wag.

Apple BANS 2 chemicals from iPhone, iPad final assembly line

Stevie

Re: Benzene is nasty, fullstop.

"And if you are unlucky, the transcription error creates a cancer cell."

Or you might get something awesome like laserbeam eyeballs or the ability to call down lightning on command.

Mutation is like that, apparently.

The internet just BROKE under its own weight – we explain how

Stevie

Bah!

This article exacerbate the problem by citing so many links that required a further link to get to the meat of whatever point was being made.

Spin doctors crack 'impossible' asteroid hurtling towards Earth

Stevie

Bah!

This asteroid is clearly held together by secreted alien resin.

Either that or the shape of the thing has tricked the scientists' spin-o-meter. Again, the work of aliens.

Dead Steve Jobs sued by own shareholders in no-poach pact brouhaha

Stevie

Bah!

This is the way we wreck the shareholder value,

Wreck the shareholder value,

Wreck the shareholder value,

This is the way we wreck the shareholder value,

In the search for a quick dividend payout.

What's in your toolbox? Why the browser wars are so last decade

Stevie

Re: Really?

The stats on that Wikipedia page do not refute the statement made (on my reading of it), though they do suggest it is inaccurate.

The 'fine print' clauses on the Wikipedia page are illuminating.

Thanks for the link.

Anonymous threatens to name cop who shot dead unarmed Michael Brown

Stevie

Re:Isn't such stuff just common knowledge ?

Incoming clue missile: It's about not putting public focus on someone for the benefit of those too ... let's say "busy" ... to do that work, and to not do so to someone who is entirely unconnected to the affair.

And by Jove lets hope that whoever is named in this jolly little demonstration of the rule of the mob in action is actually the one to blame.

Though "anonymous" will be safe in any event because, well, no-one is threatening to name any of them.

Password manager LastPass goes titsup: Users locked out

Stevie

Bah!

"We immediately started taking action to migrate the service "

To a bunch of post-its stuck on the server cabinet sides.

Amazon smacks back at Hachette in e-book pricing battle: We're doing it for the readers

Stevie

Bah!

No e-book is worth $9.99.

Not many e-books are worth half that. $5 is the level at which I begin to baulk, looking instead for the remaindered hardback, originally priced around $25 now going for $10 or even less.

I wonder what the authors make of that calculus.

I also wonder at an industry that pushes e-books optically scanned - and therefore error-laden - from originals published in the 1950s and 1960s, written by authors dead two decades and more and prices them at around $12-$15, and wonder what the living authors think of that. Who would buy such a thing?

And I can't tell you the smell that comes to mind when an e-book costs $12 while the hardback is in print, but can be had for less than half that when the paperback is published with no changes to the e-content. Not so much as a change of typeface. Yes, George, I'm talking about your books. And no George, I didn't buy it until the price dropped to $3. I believe that's your nose lying at your feet.

Perhaps it's time to remember that making a living by writing books is a very recent phenomenon, and that the window for that being possible may be closing owing to too many fat bastards grabbing all the pie.

Stephen Hawking biopic: Big on romance, not so much with the science?

Stevie

Bah!

But...the movie is based on an autobiography of his wife, not Stephen Hawking.

So no harm in less physics as I see it.

Besides, who wants to pay 10 bux to have two hours of hard sums pounded at them?

World's only flyable WWII Lancaster bombers meet in Lincs

Stevie

Re: There is an extra a.

No, there isn't. That particular bit was hummed in a Canadian accent as a tribute to Guy Gibson and "S for Sugar".

Stevie

Bah!

Daaaah daah dahdah dadadaaaaah dah

Daaaah daah dahdah dadadaaaaah dah

Daaaah dah daaah dah daaaaah dadaaaaah

Dah dah dadadah daaaaaaaah...

Intruder alert: Cyber thugs are using steganography to slip in malware badness

Stevie

Re: two eyes, not five

I'll remind you of the memo of 8th Aug inst. Re: defamatory language in usage by embassy staff to whit: The practice of referring to the members of the Groaci diplomatic mission as "sticky-fingered five-eyes" will cease forthwith under penalty of extra duty in voucher reconciliation and expense report filing.

Hacker crew nicks '1.2 billion passwords' – but WHERE did they all come from?

Stevie

Bah!

Two phishing attempts in two weeks to my normally phish-free email, one "from" Bank America, the other Paypal (apparently I must follow the link to unlock my account, which has been frozen due to unlawful activity!)

Crap.

I hope this originates from some stupid StackOverflow account and not anything I care about.

NASA tests crazytech flying saucer thruster, could reach Mars in days

Stevie

At 1G you can get from Earth to Mars in six days.

Yesyesyes. Every 12 year old has done that math (or I would hope they had).

But this thing doesn't put out 1G. This motor would not pass muster in any sort of planetside test by the Galactic Patrol as it cannot make way in even an asteroidal gravity well.

Consider: To make the microwaves and steer them about you need lots of metal. To actually get any useful thrust from this motor it would need to be made entirely out of soap film.

Stevie

Re: I love napkin math!

You can't reach luminal velocity. The implications of the various bits of Relativity Theory in play mean that as you get faster the spacecraft gets more massive requiring more and more oomph just to maintain the same acceleration. The change isn't linear either. Near the speed of light the energy required to nudge the craft up to the line (photonic speed-wise) goes asymptotic. At least, it did some thirty odd years ago when I last did the maths involved to see what was what using equations I found in Einstein's own book "Relativity" (very readable, worth a look).

We don't need to do the experiment you describe to confirm the mass-gain at fractional lightspeed velocities. We use the effect all the time in supercolliders.

Stevie

Re: "quantum vacuum virtual plasma"

Aye, but when you were a lad they called Oxygen "dephlogistated air".

Stevie

Bah!

""Test results indicate that the RF resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma," "

Prediction: No, it isn't.

US cyber-army's cyber-warriors 'cyber-humiliated by cyber-civvies in cyber-games'

Stevie

Re: Not much of a surprise there then

On the gripping hand, if the IT bunker is overrun by hordes of fuzzy-wuzzies your average nerd is going to be rather less help in the grabbing a rifle and bayonet and getting stuck in department.

They don't like it up 'em Mr Mainwaring.

CIA super-spy so sorry spies spied on Senate's torture scrutiny PCs

Stevie

Re: make them dig their own grave and lie in it

What, even Felix Leiter?

It's War: Internet of things firms butt heads over talking-fridge tech standards

Stevie

Bah!

Never mind making the fridge talk to the toaster, build the thing with the compressor on top so the bugger doesn't use so much electricity heating *itself*.

Plane grounded so cops can cuff semi-legless passenger

Stevie

Re: The return trip would have cost an arm.

I'll bet she's hopping mad about that.

Stevie

Bah!

She'll do time for this. She hasn't a leg to stand on.

What's that? A PHP SPECIFICATION? Surely you're joking, Facebook

Stevie

Bah!

PHP. Ptui!

No website is worth looking at unless it is scripted using Turbo Hyperventilated Zebulon-6 rev2.3.7 On Tramlinez-2.

At least until next Wednesday, when the beta release of Thunderbox ProtonSplitter 9.3 is promised for the CranezOnCrak framework.

Thirteen Astonishing True Facts You Never Knew About SCREWS

Stevie

Re: mechanical here has to have a 2-stroke attached for extra noise

skelband, may I recommend you seriously consider purchasing a large (7500 KW peak load or better) "worksite" generator and mount it in the flatbed of your King Cab pickup truck (having family in Alberta I know that all Real Canadians have a King Cab truck)?

That way if you need to use a namby-pamby electric tool you can fire up the earsplitting generator and experience the thrill of go-anywhere electricity AND the proper amount of decibels for the job at hand.

My generator sounds like a badly maintained ice-cream truck has parked in my garden, and during the aftermath of hurricanes and other weather annoyances gives me the double joy of internet and lights AND neighbor annoyance in one earsplitting package.

Stevie

Re: Son swears blind he put them back in the box

The 10 mm one is still jammed on an inlet manifold bolt of his car. The 12 mm one is dangling from one of the battery terminals where it will eventually cause a short and arc-weld itself across the terminals. It will then be interesting to see whether the battery electrolyte will boil away *before* the battery explodes violently or whether the heat of this process sets the various plastic parts and rubber hoses on fire.

The rest of the "complete set" are scattered over the roadways of your home town as they were inadvertently left on various cross members and handy ledges in the engine compartment after the last job.

Kids. Love them, feed them, educate them, but never ever ever lend them your tools.

Stevie

Re: because more thread looks stronger;

No, Joe Public likes them because they are self-piloting and self-recessing when used for their intended purpose: hanging drywall aka sheetrock or, in the case of the galvanized or resin coated version, building a deck or fixing a fence. The thin shank is designed for displacing the minimum of the material being fastened in place so you *don't* need to drill a pilot hole.

Before you wade in, you are exchanging words with someone who drove about two hundred of the resin-coated type last Saturday in a marathon fence-repairing the likes of which hasn't been seen since the last marathon fence repairing at Chateau Stevie (gale force winds, carpenter ants - who against all reason are actually not real carpenters at all but bloody vandals that gnaw holes in wood instead of getting a proper house - termites and rot. I have some of each in The Fence of Go Away Neighbours).

Ordinary woodscrews, which absolutely require a pilot hole to sink, will shear as you drive them under these conditions, especially is using an electric drill-driver.

Stevie

Re: Spanners Vs. Wrenches

Oh, there are a lot more confusing differences waiting in the spanner drawer of the toolbox for the unwary ex-pat doing the in-driveway-engineering thing than that obvious and well-known one.

Upside: awesome tools that often would be banned in the EU, like gasoline-powered chainsaws mounted on 10-foot poles and portable hydraulic pincers only the fire brigade is allowed to have elsewhere.

Land of the Red Man. Land of the Free. Land of Husqvarna and Tecumseh. Praise the lord and pass the two-stroke oil.

Stevie

Bah!

Riddled with inaccuracies, as usual for The Register.

A "Brummie Screwdriver" is NOT a common-or-garden clawhammer, but rather the old-fashioned cast-iron Stillson's-type plumber's monkey-wrench, 15-18 inches long, traditionally painted red on the handle.

The hammering face is usually the back of the monkey-screw housing.

Also, picture number 2 *is* a screw, specifically a "Machine Screw".

The bolt, which the author seems to have confused this with, is easily distinguished by a smooth, threadless section near the head. You can *use* a machine screw as a bolt, but there are penalties for doing so without using a bushing as any proper engineer would know.

NO MORE ALL CAPS and other pleasures of Visual Studio 14

Stevie

Re: No caps menus

0x700000000081800005

null pointer error

.who.would.want.all.caps not found in object library

call to method "menu" failed

Stevie

Re: I miss VB6

*I* miss VB4 and the "can do" attitude that surrounded it. You could buy the full product for less than the down payment on a new car too. Ditto LogicWorks ERWin. Ditto Visual C. Now it's all about knobbled "free" versions and multi-kilobuck licenses.

You can get ERWin for free *if* you keep revalidating it every month. This info good as of last summer when I got tired of it all and switched to a nastier but free DB design tool on account of CA always seeming to decide revalidation was required while I was trying to work on a train with a non-persistent and slow as frozen treacle internet connection.

8op 8ob 8op

Thrrp.

ICANN can't hand over Iran's internet, bomb victims told

Stevie

Bah!

So, if I understand the ramifications of recent legal precedent and the current idiocy:

ICANN does not own the property it sells. Furthermore, ICANN claims the property does not in fact exist (otherwise, how could it be that *no-one* can own it?). Add to that the fact that ICANN is, under US law, a person in certain important legal respects.

By gad, what we have here is a penniless scam artist who is surely only minutes away from demanding public assistance.

With clear evidence of recidivism (this is not the first time ICANN has sold a non-existent piece of property I'm told), why isn't ICANN (in the form of its board of directors) in jail for fraud and being a threat to the (re)public good?

Canada's boffins need A WHOLE YEAR to recover from China hack attack

Stevie

Bah!

Canada has a CIO?

Philip K Dick 'Nazi alternate history' story made into TV series

Stevie

Re: Anyone read Dominion by C J Sansom?

Or there's "Bring the Jubilee"* by Ward Moore, in which time travelers ... nope, you'll have to read it yourself.

* the name of the song known by many as "Marching through Georgia", used as an anthem by CSA citizens (and, with alternate lyrics, by Manchester United fans).

Stevie

Bah!

Well, if it sucks deluxe we could always spritz it with UBIK ...

Stevie

Re: Prometheus wasn't a bad film at all. Stop whining.

Yes it was. Whining not only permitted, but approved.

DAYS from end of life as we know it: Boffins tell of solar storm near-miss

Stevie

Bah!

" Instead, NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) satellite was perfectly positioned to record the blast."

And presumably is now so much silicon slag floating silently in the hellish void.

Or are all those threats of The Flare That Ate The Intarweb perhaps a tab overblown?

Stevie

Bah!

Neil deGrasse Tyson was on Bill Maher's show on Saturday laughing so hard at this "near miss" story he damn near coughed up a lung on camera.

He thinks these so-called "boffins" should get a f*cking grip and so do I.

Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid: The plug-in for plutocrats

Stevie

ultrasonic (old skool) electromagnetic (new school)

"Nuclear electromagnetic. It's the next inevitable step."

Dr A. Heller.

Stevie

Bah!

"You could even go back as far as 1943 with the Ferdinand Elefant tank destroyer that had a hybrid electric drive."

You'd be mad if you did, though, since the drive was a miserable failure in the competitive tests vs MAN* when bidding for the intended use (the Panzer VI aka Tiger) and when the chassis was repurposed as the Ferdinand aka Elefant it was a death trap on tracks due to other ridiculously obvious design issues (the most prominent being no self-defense machine gun; there are credible reports of commanders opening the gun breach and firing pistols down the barrel in an attempt to stop an onrush of infantry bent on close-quarter tank vandalization and the ever-popular dropping-of-grenades-down-hatches).

Most Ferdinand/Elefant AFVs were abandoned by crews once they ran out of ammo. I never saw a picture of one repurposed for "the other side" (usually the Russians, who had a few panzers of various marks wearing the red star by the end of WWII) which speaks volumes for the market for them. Or, the lack of willingness of people to photograph them. Or both.

* So was the MAN chassis. It broke down several times during the trial. But Team MAN were better at explaining why than Team Porsche were.

US Social Security 'wasted $300 million on an IT BOONDOGGLE'

Stevie

not just the UK government who are completely useless at IT

You will note that there is a big bux vendor involved, and that that vendor used to make expensive aeroplanes for the government, but now doesn't so much. Keep that in mind for a bit.

I work at the sharp end of Govt IT these days and I can state unequivocally that were the taxpayer to shut up demanding that we bid out every bloody project to grubbing low-bid vendors they might actually get value for money instead of the atrocious waste they actually fund. Government is a not-for-profit organization when working properly. No private vendor is, especially a former aerospace giant. You do the math.

One vendor I had the misfortune to be interacting with bills by the page of documentation. That's how they word their contracts - documentation is proof of work done. Their project documents are a thing to fear, and by some accounts are responsible for much of the deforestation of Latin America. I never knew IT involved so many adjectives and adverbs.

And you never get one vendor rep, they only come in three- and six- packs, depending on who else will be at the meetings. Of course, there is *always* one that must attend by phone too.

Makes me pine for the old days, in the manufacturing industry in the UK. Actually, I only remember cost overruns and abandoned projects as the norm then too, and I only worked in the private sector.

Reg Latin scholars scrap over LOHAN's stirring motto

Stevie

Re: I'm going for a declensionless Anglo-Latin fusion.

Far out! Who've you got on bass?

Stevie

Bah!

People called "Romanes", they go to the house?????

UK government officially adopts Open Document Format

Stevie

Re: Better but still a bit of a pigs ear

However the reality is that they show you a box to choose the options, the text they place next to ODF is along the lines of "if you use this then you will be missing out on a ton of features that you paid money for are you really really sure you want to spoil your experience and waste your money...

And you will lose functionality. The last one that caught me was a document that I wanted to be in three columns per page *except* page one which needed to be in two columns. MSWord: Easy. OOWriter: Not possible.

You might not care about that loss of functionality of course, but it is real, just as real as the cross version problems OO warns about under certain circumstances when you use heavy-on-the-functions OOCalc.

Not warning about this sort of stuff would be the Evil Thing To Do (in my opinion, as an educated user of the advanced functions of both OO and MSO).

Bravo HM Govt. for making the jump. Shame the argument they use is bankrupt (if you want the message to get out you use HTML or PDF because they are universally portable - or damn near so). Let's hope this is more than just the opening move in a license negotiation.

Stevie

Have you seen the horror Word produces when you save as HTML?

You do know there's a switch to turn off all the inline styles, right?

And that they are there because of an insane requirement that not only should the generated HTML "look like" the original document, but that any HTML made from a word document by default be able to be reconverted back into a word document with minimal loss of styling from the original Word document?

It's right there in the help, or was last time I looked (MSO 2003). Turn off the switch and you'll get about what you'd expect plus a couple of meta tags.