* Posts by Anonymous Custard

2789 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jul 2008

Your pointy-haired boss 'bought a cloud' with his credit card. Now what?

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Re: Why the PHB should only be given *minimal* access to any system.

Or better still:

http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-04-03

Which keys should I press to enable the CockUp feature?

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Which keys should I press to enable the CockUp feature?

Which keys should I press to enable the CockUp feature?

Probably the infamous "any" key?

The screen rotation one is an oldie but a goodie, and is still usable on a surprising number of semi-innocent victims and new intake.

'Planet nine' theory boosted by Kuiper Belt Object with odd orbit

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Quick, someone send for Hans Zarkov!

He was formerly at NASA, but has also been seen playing music on the roof...

Anonymous Custard
Boffin

Re: Anyone feel a pulp scifi novel coming on?

We're running out of Illudium Phosdex?

That may explain all the hipster beards around lately...

Blighty's nuclear deterrent will get a software upgrade amid cyber-war fears

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Air gapped ?

If there's a gap between the submarine and the water, then something has gone very wrong I would have said...

Furious English villagers force council climbdown over Satan's stone booty

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Re: That

At which point no doubt you'll get motorists so fixated on avoiding the original rock in the road that they plough straight into the hall of fame slab...

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Of course I haven't looked for any photos

In the Beeb article there is an older pic of the stone, and it had a street lamp just behind it. Oddly said lamp doesn't seem to currently be in place, but that strikes me as a sensible thing to have close to it, to both illuminate it and also to give less visually aware motorists something a bit bigger and taller to spot and avoid perhaps?

Sick to death of mighty rocket launches? Avoid these dates

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Re: Launch Kardassian's arse

I'm not sure they've developed a big enough rocket yet for that payload...

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Alternative moonshots?

Non-interested parties are directed to Instagram, where Kim Kardashian should be posting plenty of snaps of her arse as ample alternative entertainment.

I would have thought such people would have wanted to avoid those moonshots too?

Hope for Hitomi after tumbling space 'scope phones home

Anonymous Custard

Good luck!

Fingers crossed this one too can be saved.

Spanish launch heroic bid to seize Brit polar vessel

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Re: The lesson from this story is don't ask the public

Or to quote the late great George Carlin:

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

That said, Boaty McBoatface is inspired genius.

Dodgy software will bork America's F-35 fighters until at least 2019

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: WaitWhat? Affordability challenges?

That maybe explains it. Someone somewhere misread "in service for 40 years" as "in service in 40 years"...?

Anonymous Custard

Re: Let's hear it for the Swordfish.

More likely the only plane capable of launching will be made of paper, or in extremes Lester may finally get that call back from the FAA, but perhaps not quite the one he was expecting or hoping for....

Google tries to run from flailing robotics arm

Anonymous Custard
Terminator

Amazon vs Big Dog

Hmm, if Amazon take them over and then use the Big Dog as an alternative delivery method when they realise quite how stupid the whole drone idea was, that could be really "interesting" (and not something I'd wish to be anywhere near).

Still I guess it'd be a role reversal from the delivery (post)man getting bitten by the dog.

Off to Mars this summer? Don't forget your map

Anonymous Custard
Terminator

Add a brush, duster, batteries and a few spare wheels so they can give Spirit and Opportunity a helping hand and quick service too whilst they're at it.

Web ads are reading my keystrokes and I can’t even spel propperlie

Anonymous Custard
Big Brother

Text speak

So now text speak, emoj's and other such similar unreadable stuff for anyone out of their teens suddenly becomes much more useful in bamboozling the keyreaders. And there was us thinking it was just laziness and poor spelling.

That said it could also be fun to screw around with other peoples auto-correct and see what you can turn various common words into and what ads can be induced.

But then I'm a cynical old fart, so get off my lawn!

Flying Scotsman attacked by drone

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: So let me see if I have got this straight ...

I'd be more concerned about any high-flying ones personally...

Anonymous Custard

Anyone else reading the last few posts above in a Ewan McGregor voice in the cadence of the opening bit of (appropriately enough) Trainspotting?

Slack smackback: There's no IRC in team (software), say open-sourcers

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Best of both worlds

There are bridges available between Slack and IRC (we use one on a project I'm part of the team on) and it works fine. So use whatever floats your boat, and all still talk together.

NASA celebrates 50-year anniversary of first spaceship docking in orbit

Anonymous Custard
Thumb Up

Re: Makes me feel old

Have to say though, either Armstrong lived a charmed life, or karma was out to get him. This, the flying bedstead that nearly flew him into the ground and of course Apollo 11's Eagle module itself trying to land them on top of a boulder.

Certainly had the right stuff back then. Shame they didn't have the politicians to match.

Just like now too I guess, on both counts.

Western Digital spins up a USB disk just for the Raspberry Pi

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: The price baloons. To what exactly?

Picture shows a USB3.0 connector ion the drive but the WD cable for it looks like it's got a power passthrough, so you'd plug your wall wart PSU into that first and then into the Pi.

Correct - the Pi Drive cable has 4 connectors, a micro-USB-B female (into which you plug the wall wart), a micro-USB-B male (plugs into the Pi to power it), a micro-USB3-B male (plugs into the drive) and a USB-A male (plugs into the Pi USB port for data input).

Thus you get power to both the drive and the Pi, and data connection between the two, all in one neat cable. It works very well, presuming the PSU you use has enough juice for the job to supply both. With this new drive it's not really a problem though, as it's designed to be light on current draw (measured at about 200mA when acting as the source for playback on an uncompressed BluRay - I was a beta-tester for the drive and one of my fellow testers made some in-line measurements of current draw and reported them).

Brits shun nightclubs and CD-ROMs for lemons, coffee and woman’s leggings

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

A pre-budget revelation?

Suddenly the cause of the current state of the economy becomes much clearer...

Swedish publishers plan summer ‘Block Party’ to thwart ad blockers

Anonymous Custard

Fix the root cause, not the symptoms?

It's so disheartening to see all this kind of merri-go-round trying to fix the symptom of the problem (that ad-blockers exist and are used by so many people) rather than the actual root problem itself (that these days too many of the ads are unacceptable to end users in what they demand of system bandwidth and how they look, operate and what they open the end user up to in terms of malware etc in some cases).

All that'll happen is end users will get pissed off with said Swedish publishers, and many will just go elsewhere for what they were after and probably a fair proportion won't come back again afterwards.

Whereas if the ads were plain, simple and without all the scripting junk behind it, I'm sure many users would be happy to accept them as a trade-off for being able to access the sites for free, and everyone (except maybe the ad-block suppliers) win.

Or am I looking at this too logically from being an engineer and troubleshooter?

Computer says: Stop using MacWrite II, human!

Anonymous Custard
Boffin

I just find it ironic that compared to the storage capacity that was available when I left university (a bit under 20 years ago), the whole Physics Department where I worked had less total storage capacity than I currently have about my person, between my phone and the various USB sticks on my keyring and loose in my jeans pockets.

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Penisland.net

To this day our work mail filters routinely block about 1 in 4 of the reg weekly digest summaries and new post notifications from Simon Traviglia.

I just love the juicy irony of BOFH setting off such things (as is invariably the underlying cause). They're prudish enough to object to the B-word...

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: We had a Mac network in college in the late 80s.

Did something similar back in the uni days on the student newspaper. Replaced the innocuous warning beepy-bingy noise with the editor loudly proclaiming "Don't do that!" in his best managerial voice (said chap ended up in later life briefly as a government minister, which may allow those with Google-Fu to work out which university and timescale this was).

Was then quite fun to watch the reaction of the various editors and section writers who used the machines when they made the inevitable small mistakes to elicit the warning.

Brit geeks craft bijou Pi Zero gaming controller

Anonymous Custard

Re: Life in the slow lane?

I would tend to agree, although in my case I just want the board, as I have two Zero's at home.

From what I've seen in interviews with Ebon Upton, the Zero's are being "fitted in" around the production of the Pi3 (and Pi2), but as they're much simpler boards and only single sided, the Pi3 isn't actually causing any significant delays that weren't there already with the Pi2.

There are plans to up production of the Zero too, and so he said they are catching up quite well with the backlog, so who knows they may be lucky? Apparently the key point is that Farnell aren't involved with the manufacture of the Zero, only with the larger boards. Hence why it's being "fitted in" rather than mainstream productioned (and of course the popularity of it took everyone by surprise).

Anonymous Custard

Re: Emulation on the Pi

Retro Pie is better I'd say, as it includes that plus a few other emulators and options too. And a nice simple SD card image download and burn, if you don't even want the hassle of installing it yourself.

Anonymous Custard

Life in the slow lane?

This one's been around on there for a few weeks now, and so far they've managed a spectacular 11% funding of their target. Must say I'm a bit surprised about how slow it's gone, given how popular this kind of thing tends to be .

I'm already one of the 30 or so who have got it that far, but I think sadly even with the sterling promotional support of el reg they might struggle to hit their target, let alone that crazy stretch goal target.

You say I mustn’t write down my password? Let me make a note of that

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

If they were doing it right they'd just swap all the notes around with those stuck on other random monitors around the place (which may or may not have had password post-its on them themselves originally), and then watch as people have to track down their own passwords and some of the ensuing bartering and bastardry that goes on.

Brings back all-too distant memories of schooldays, when the foolish comp-sci master gave me admin privs on the server. Two others in the class (who hated one another) found out and spent days pestering me to give them the password of the other. So I duly did - I swapped them over and just told each that they now had the others password.

Cue a Mexican stand-off that the whole class enjoyed, including the master who was going to bollock me for doing it but couldn't keep a straight face long enough to do so, and then privately told me it was one he'd use himself in similar future situations.

Anonymous Custard

Re: Clear Desk

Around here all a clear desk earns you is being the ground zero dropzone for all the incoming parcels of parts and stuff that reception bring in and just dump on the closest available area, even if they have nothing to do with you nor are you the intended recipient on the address label.

This does of course always occur just prior to a SMBWA ("safety management by walking around", or colloquially "some muppet bloody wandering aimlessly") audit, most commonly when you're out of the office on the customer site actually doing the work that keeps everyone else in employment and wages.

The trick is of course keeping your desk cluttered enough to dissuade the above (and to appear that you actually do some work), but not full enough to incur the wrath of those with nothing more profitable or useful to do than make such audits.

Austrian mayor spunks €40k on virgin-eating dragon

Anonymous Custard
Joke

No, that describes the clients, not the consultants...

Anonymous Custard

Re: I was quite impressed . .

I have no artistic talents that I am aware of...

Looking at the return on that 40K investment, I don't think you're alone in that camp...

Knackered Euro server turns Panasonic smart TVs into dumb TVs

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Given most of these apps can happily run on something as powerful as a USB stick or a Raspberry Pi, which do you think it is...?

Dumb TVs and smart(ish) bolt-on boxes all the way.

PARIS paper plane lands in Spanish school textbook

Anonymous Custard
Joke

You mean they don't already?

Or is it just we SPB enthusiasts and commentards?

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Just wait til you get home

Lester, you do realise just how much trouble you're going to be in for reprinting that 6 year old picture of the illustrious apprentice boffin, don't you?

At least if she's anything like my proto-teenager semi-boffin first-born and her self-image control...

Top marks for getting into literature though. Maybe the next step is an English (ish) language version for the American market, to subvert their youth into pestering the FAA?

Brit firm unleashes drone-busting net cannon

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Iron Ass?

"entanglement with "ECM jamming".

Can you mount it on a Cobra 3 to take down incoming hard-heads?

Everything bad in the world can be traced to crap Wi-Fi

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: On the one hand...

Given that he had the fallback option of doing it from print-outs, I'd say he was suspiciously prepared for it...

Amazon Shocker: Firm recalls Fire and Fire Kids power adapters

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Turning it up to 11...

"Microsoft confirmed that power chords sold with the first, second and third generations of the Surface Pro"

Certainly not music to Microsoft's ears, those power chords. Too reminiscent of the 90's poodle-haired rockers. Especially if the power cord falls out...

Still it could have been worse, it could have been a U2 album.

Google risks everything if it doesn’t grab Android round the throat

Anonymous Custard

Re: DIY

I'm still wondering when the official OTA update for my Galaxy Tab S2 is going to be available in the UK - the current version is still 5.0.2, let alone Marshmallow.

Somewhat strange given most other regions have 5.1.1, and indeed an Odin sideload of it onto mine is working fine.

Spanish cops discover illegally parked flying car

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Re: Bah!

If it is then forget the flying car, I want that invisible garage...

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

It's even easier with 2CVs (or certainly was back in the mid-90's) - with a little gentle persuasion they dismantle so easily and are quite simple to carry up corridors, stairs and through skylights.

Not that we ever did it to the beloved pride and joy of the annoying git in our halls of residence, oh no officer...

Barking spider prompts Spanish clan shoot-out

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Educational

I now realise that I just learned a couple of new slang phrases that with hindsight I realise that I probably didn't want to know.

Guess that just makes me an old fart...

There’s a module for that: LG launches G5 smartphone complete with 'friends'

Anonymous Custard
Terminator

Re: Does the person demoing it look like a...

Or judging by the picture from the article, you too can look like Bender from Futurama...

NASA stormed by 18,000 wannabe 'nauts

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Peake's in spaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccceeeeeeeeee

Well at least we can already say we've achieved Peake astronaut with Major Tim...

Samsung now pushing Marshmallows into the Galaxy S6, Edge

Anonymous Custard

And tablets?

I'm still wondering when my Tab S2 is going to actually "officially" get 5.1.1 in the UK, let alone Marshmallow.

It's out as an OTA update in other regions, but the UK still seems to be on 5.0.2 for some reason. Not sure why as I've upgraded mine from one of those via Odin and it's running fine.

The field at the centre of the universe: Cambridge's outdoor pulsar pusher

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Did Bell have a first name?

She was even on Stargazing Live on BBC2 a few months ago (at least some of the bits that weren't devoted to Tim Peake and the ISS). A very engaging and eloquent lady, came across very well.

I seem to recall they were talking her up as being Nobel Prize Winning too. Maybe factually incorrect, but as others have noted it's an injustice.

Send tortuous stand-up ‘nine-thirty’ meetings back to the dark ages

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Aquarium? Pah...

Try doing the stand-up in the semiconductor industry - with a crowd of a couple of dozen or so in the usually fairly noisy, warm and dry-aired cleanroom, in full bunny-suit, face-mask and safety glasses with people droning on for an hour or more and only about 5 minutes actually related to your tools or section (if that).

Almost makes the aquarium sound appealing.

Anonymous Custard

Re: Meetings are made even more

Unfortunately you'd probably find they'd be the ones running it...