* Posts by Chris King

1153 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Feb 2009

Ad networks promise to do something about the awful adverts you're all blocking, like, real soon

Chris King

Yeah, Right...

Real world adverts still get banned - TV, newspapers, bus stops, hoardings and so on, because advertisers like to push the limits to get their point across.

If they think I'm stupid enough to trust them on-line just because they say they're going to clean up their act, Satan will be modelling winter clothes before I turn off my ad blocker.

Twitter reduces BBC hacks to tears with redundancy notice

Chris King

"Orwell would have been proud"

Times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

If anything, the corporate nonsense being spouted by today's "leaders" makes Doublespeak look cute and fluffy by comparison.

Neuroboffins use supercomputer to partially build DIGITAL RAT BRAIN

Chris King

Re: Politician brain

More likely VOOOOTEEEESSSSS, politicians are self-serving organisms after all.

T-Mobile US hires someone other than bungling Experian to offer ID theft monitoring to hack victims

Chris King

Re: What were they thinking?

Experian: Hey, sorry we lost your data, how about you give us even more data so we can tell you if someone nicks that too ?

*Facepalm*

Doctor Who's Under the Lake splits Reg scribes: This Alien homage thing – good or bad?

Chris King

Re: Science happens to other people

That, and pulling a "DVD" out of a server - hang on a moment, that's an MD-data disk !

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Sony_MMD-140A.jpg

Chris King

Re: I quite

"Genesis of the Daleks" was the first story I can remember watching - what an introduction to the show that was, spent mostly behind the sofa !

Chris King

Science happens to other people

Okay, I can't let this one lie, Cass lip-reading from a video feed coming over wi-fi from the Sonic Sunglasses...

...in a Faraday Cage ? A LEAD-LINED Faraday Cage that the Doctor has ALREADY SAID BLOCKS ALL RADIO WAVES ?

This show needs a Science Advisor again. It's like the BBC have gone back to the bad old days of hi-tech mumbo-jumbo that descended to its nadir with "BUGS" back in the 90's... Jaye Griffiths was wooden in that too. (She played "Jac", the UNIT geek in "The Magician's Apprentice")

Yes, yes, I know it's not supposed to be realistic, but there's a difference between suspension of disbelief and totally making it up as you go along.

Chris King

Dematerialised over the shark ?

I knew there was something else bugging me about the Sonic Sunglasses - it makes the Doctor look like he's fiddling with a Google Glass.

(Time Lord to Glasshole in three episodes - this isn't looking good)

Woman makes app that lets people rate and review you, Yelp-style. Now SHE'S upset people are 'reviewing' her

Chris King

Venture Capital

They used to say that the fastest way to turn money into crap was to own horses.

Nowadays, the fastest way seems to be "invest in social media sites".

Devious Davros, tricksy Missy and Dalek Clara delight in The Witch's Familiar

Chris King

Re: Who's Who?

I'll be more worried if he starts quoting David Cameron - and sounding more convincing with it. Come on, you can imagine Julian Bleach saying “for too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone..."

Chris King

"These days, I'm all about wearable technology"

One thing about that always struck me about the "classic" series is that it had a sense of "timelessness" about it - few (if any) mentions of contemporary technology, and few attempts to set things in specific years.

With previous mentions of wi-fi and bluetooth - and now wearables - this is going to seriously date the show in a few years time, even more than low-budget wobbly sets and rubber monsters will ever do.

BOFH: I'm not doing this for the benefit of your health, you know

Chris King

Re: Excellent stuff

I linked to a "Red vs Blue" video in one of my other posts, but forgot that they'd done a Fire Safety PSA too... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNqfskP72Nw

The 4th of July firework safety PSA is even funnier - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99LguwhQE00

Chris King
Flame

Re: Excellent stuff

Speaking of yellow jackets, work wanted me to become a Fire Warden.

My response to this was fairly straightforward.

"No. If this place goes up in flames, I'm leaping out and letting it burn, just like everybody else you've already asked."

Chris King

Re: H&S

If someone leaves a bucket next to the sign, I do sometimes find myself wondering if the sign is a warning or an instruction...

Chris King

Re: One of the boxes was for "organophosphate-based nerve agents".

This particular question did actually mention VX, Tabun and Sarin as examples.

Some of our LAN rooms have suffered insect infestations in the past, but we've never had to resort to anything quite so extreme !

Chris King

They just don't think...

A couple of years ago, I received a H&S questionnaire that asked some truly bizarre questions

One of the questions asked if I stored chemicals in my office. One of the boxes was for "organophosphate-based nerve agents".

I found myself wondering what would happen if I ticked that box - would they send in a team to decontaminate the building, or make me sit through https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38sQFFuTMzY ?

Chris King

Re: Meh...

Depends on the windows.

I can throw my office windows so far open, I can defenestrate people without them even touching the frame or the pane.

(Not that I've tested this, you understand)

Chris King

Obligatory safety video

An old, old internet classic. Looks like an ordinary safety video until about the 2nd accident - the one with the knife.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo

(Jump to 2:10 if you're impatient)

Official: North America COMPLETELY OUT of new IPv4 addresses

Chris King

Anyone sitting on anything bigger than a /24 invariablty gets spam from scumbags wanting to purchase or "hire" IPv4 address ranges.

I offered the last couple 127.0.0.0/8 - hey, they can have a copy each without conflict, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Chris King

Re: Not fast enough!

Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2015/04/isp-sky-broadband-prepares-first-uk-customer-trials-of-ipv6.html

Zen are also running a trial, and don't forget that some of the smaller "boutique" ISP's like AAISP and Aquiss already provide it as standard.

Chris King

Re: @chris 17

I once had to sort out a site that used 200.200.200.0/24 internally. That was fine when their external connectivity was X.25 to JANET, but I had to convert them to a public /24 when they joined the JANET IP Service because that range belonged to somebody in Brazil.

(This was almost twenty years ago - /me waves walking stick over Zimmer Frame. If I see that kind of stupidity these days, I usually ask "Have you got a note from your mum that excuses you from RFC1918A or something ?")

Michigan sues HP after 'botched' $49m upgrade leaves US state in 1960s mainframe hell

Chris King

Re: Stuck in the door frame

Then you give it one final tug, and you're left with a mainframe-shaped hole where the door used to be.

Chris King

Re: Radical idea

Yeah, good luck with that.

It was hard enough teaching COBOL to upcoming young snots 25-30 years ago. I should know, I was one of those young snots back then ! If it's "legacy", they either won't want to know, or they'll be too afraid to mention it on their CV's because they won't want to make a career out of technology that's heading out the door.

I have a lot of experience with DEC kit and old brand-name Unix systems, so I tended to get dragged into projects that were migrating from such systems. (Maybe I need some new business cards - "Systems Executioner" or "The Decommissioner"...?)

Asus ZenBook UX305: With Windows 10, it suddenly makes perfect sense

Chris King

Re: RAM?

They don't include media, but they give you a tool that supposedly creates recovery media... which didn't work in my case. Once you've done the Win10 upgrade, you should be able to download the .ISO - either burn it to a DVD or make up USB media, and you should be able to perform a clean install without needing a licence key.

If you still have 8.1 on the Zenbook, you can take an image backup, it's just hidden away:

http://www.windowscentral.com/how-make-full-backup-windows-pc

Chris King

Chaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggeeeeeeeeee !!!!

One thing the review didn't mention is that the USB port on the right-hand side can be used to charge other devices - even when the Zenbook is asleep or switched off. I took mine on a trip with me, along with a phone, camera and mi-fi dongle, but I didn't bother taking any of the chargers with me other than the Zenbook's. I had no problem keeping everything charged up, even though I could only charge one USB device at a time.

You really wouldn't want to try this with something like a tablet, but it works a treat for kit with smaller batteries.

Chris King

Re: Thanks!

UK spec is normally 8Gb RAM, 128Gb SSD. I haven't seen anyone selling anything different as yet.

Chris King

Re: Checking it out under Linux is a good idea.

When I bought my UX305, I didn't have time to tidy up the pre-installed Windows 8.1 or re-install everything from scratch, so I made up recovery media and slapped Ubuntu 15.0 on it. Everything worked and it ran just fine. No having to muck around with arcane settings or boot options.

Getting Windows back on to the machine later on, that was a whole different matter. The recovery media refused to recover, but I had 8.1 Pro licences and media available to me and I've now upgraded the machine to 10 Pro.

Chris King

Re: RAM?

They ususally have 8Gb soldered to the motherboard. There are only two "user-replaceable" parts:

1 - SSD. This is a M.2/NGFF 2280 SATA device, usually Sandisk. Crucial MX200 seems to be a common choice as replacement ;

2 - Wireless card. This is an Intel Dual-Band Wireless AC7625, again in M.2 format. I've heard of some folks swapping this out for a Broadcom to make the machine more Hackintosh-friendly.

Doctor Who returns to our screens next week – so, WHO is the worst Time Lord of them all?

Chris King

Other Time Lords are also available...

I'm surprised we've got this far in the discussion without a mention of the Minister of Chance.

http://www.radiostatic.co.uk/

The title character is loosely based on a character from the BBC's early "webcast" series "Death Comes to Time", but played by Julian Wadham instead of Stephen Fry.

If you're fed up with bad scripts in Who, give this a go. Imagine a Time Lord with no TARDIS, no sonic screwdriver and a companion who keeps screaming "TOSSER !!" at him - sort of like the old-school Doctors who had to *think* their way out of trouble without having convenient plot devices to save their skins.

This was crowd-funded, but the first series is now available for free on iTunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-minister-of-chance/id496483209

(There was an official MP3 version up on SoundCloud, but I can't seem to find it now)

A second series is in development, and they're looking for funding for a film version.

Chris King

Re: Difficult poll wording...

I'll second that recommendation for Big Finish, their spin-off series and other ranges are pretty good too. Plenty of stuff free or for a fiver, and you get DRM-free downloads at no extra cost if you purchase CD's.

Chris King

Another vote for Smith

Why ? Too young, too smug, and needed rescuing by Clara far too often.

Capaldi could be great, if only they would give him some decent scripts to work with.

Photoshop for 40 quid: Affinity Photo pushes pixels further than most

Chris King

Re: Let me know when it works on computers. @Arnaut the less

UK office is in Nottingham, with US offices in Hudson, NH. (They might also have had offices in Nashua, NH, but I could be wrong)

New low for humanity: ONE BEELLION lost souls log on to Facebook in one day

Chris King

Rise of the Machines ?

Will this be regarded as the day Facebook became self-aware, and Bots outnumbered Humans ?

Imagine a Facebook-powered SkyNet sending a Terminator back in time... "I want your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle... your date of birth, your mobile phone number, your complete education and work history, and your address book".

Google tells iOS 9 app devs: Switch off HTTPS if you want that sweet sweet ad money from us

Chris King

Re: Irony

Other people do "Hypocrisy". We do "Policy"

Isn't that the standard corporate mantra these days ?

Chinese, Russian, tech giants join global open source efforts

Chris King

This is hardly news...

Microsoft are a Gold-level ($25K-50K) contributor to the OpenBSD foundation:

http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/contributors.html

Doubts cast on Islamic State's so-called leak of US .mil, .gov passwords

Chris King

Islamic State fears Stockport ?

Are they deadly afraid of large railway viaducts, the UK's only hat museum and Conference League football teams ?

Moronic Time cover sets back virtual reality another 12 months

Chris King

Re: No matter who you pick...

Once again, Scott Adams was on the money over 20 years ago:

http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-10-12

HP slaps dress code on R&D geeks: Bin that T-shirt, put on this tie

Chris King

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me...

...and that's why I'm sat in a disciplinary hearing dressed as Batman.

(Hey, it's better than the usual "Dress for the job you WANT, not the one you HAVE" line)

Universal Pictures finds pirated Jurassic World on own localhost, fires off a DMCA takedown

Chris King

Re: A Scanner Darkly

I've had to deal with notices for IP addresses that don't belong to us, and one in a 10-net that wasn't even in use on our local network at the time.

They got told to stop making stuff up in the first case, and to read RFC1918A in the second.

I usually find that when a notice comes in for newly-pirated material, the machine is most likely compromised (and being used as a warez depot) but older films/music/games are more likely to have been downloaded by the user. Getting take-downs for ten-year-old movies really gets tiring after a while.

Norton for Windows 10 is NOT a box-borking beta, insists Symantec

Chris King

Stick 'em on the compost heap with McAfee...

You know a "security" product is bad when the uninstaller is the best part of the software.

Apple's chip, firmware security demands behind HomeKit delays

Chris King

Why worry ?

The crims will have helped themselves to everything long before the federales turn up.

Spaniard sues eBay over right to sell the Sun

Chris King

Yeah, right...

1. How is she going to manage "Buyer collection only" ?

2. She can't sell it by PayPal, because she won't be able to deliver it by a tracked service - the buyer will be able to make a "Where's my celestial body ?" claim and she will automatically lose.

3. Wrapping it might be a problem.

HMRC ditches Microsoft for Google, sends data offshore

Chris King

Re: HMRC ditches Microsoft for Google, sends data to NSA

You're also forgetting that they didn't put a stamp on it...

Beware Red Hat interviews: You'll pay for coffee, lunch and fuel

Chris King

Re: Strange rationalisation

Job interviews are as much about an employer selling themselves to you, as they are about you selling yourself to a potential employer.

If the execs start cheaping out like that before you've even joined the company, what are they going to be like once you've joined ?

I've been ripped off by companies who offered to pay interview expenses, then changed their mind. One of them made the mistake of contacting me on LinkedIn the other week - "Not a chance, I'm not travelling halfway across the country for you to waste my time and rip me off again !"

That bridge wasn't so much burned, more nuked from orbit.

El Reg knocks a fiver off 16GB USB stick

Chris King

Small and skinny doesn't suit me...

If you're a USB stick, I'm Death Incarnate.

I've trodden on several, dropped a few into puddles, smashed one closing a car door on it, and even had one driven over by a bendy bus. I also seem to be able to conjure up wormholes into which nano sticks can fall, only to reappear somewhere completely unexpected a few months later.

I used to have an IronKey, but I wanted a lot more capacity without having to re-mortgage my soul. My main USB stick is now a Corsair Flash Survivor Stealth 64Gb - big enough that it's very difficult to lose, waterproof and bloody difficult to kill inside its metal shell. Being USB 3.0, it's also very quick.

Yours for £47.99 from Amazon, and they now do capacities up to 256Gb.

What to do when the users are watching Nazi dwarf smut at work?

Chris King

Sometimes, you don't even have to hit the right target...

In a previous job, I was asked to investigate a problem with internet speed (Megastream 2 for a campus site - 'nuff said), and I discovered that someone had been viewing lots and lots of porn vids at the time the problem occurred.

So, I passed the information on to the offender's department. To my surprise, TWO people 'fessed up - it seems that two machines had been swapped behind my back, and my records weren't up to date.

#1 offending IP now belonged to another staff PC, and "words were had" - but the person I had accused turned out to be #3 on the bandwidth report, and he realised that the jig was up.

I didn't believe on bringing disciplinary action down upon people for stuff like that - departmental secretaries giving academics the "I know what YOU did in the comfort of your office last night" Laser Stare of Doom was far more effective, and meant less paperwork for me.

Chris King

Re: How things have moved on

You get screen protectors for your phones ? Luxury !

(Scratch that - you get a work-supplied phone ? Luxury !)

So tablets, if you want to get anything done travelling get a ... yes, a laptop

Chris King

Re: The art of travel....

One solution to the wash-bag being too big or not folding up - bonsai toiletries !

http://www.gotiny.co.uk/

No point in carrying a full-size bar of soap for a two-day trip, when you can pack a couple of tiny ones. Many of their lines are similar size to what you'll find in hotel bathrooms, but brands you'll actually recognise - expensive compared to the full-size products in the shops, but you're paying for the convenience.

Having just taken one on a three-day trip, I can also vouch for the Asus Zenbook UX305 being able to charge up other kit quickly - I only had to take the charger for the Zenbook itself, and a Micro USB cable. No problem keeping camera, phone and Bluetooth headset topped up !

(I just hope this isn't going to lead to a series of Reg articles on "hypermilling" carry-on luggage !)

Chris King

Re: Uploading 'everything' to iCloud?

Does it matter, so long as YOU can run faster than them ?

Is Grant Shapps being naughty on Wikipedia – or did a Lib Dem stitch him up?

Chris King

Re: Just another minus grade

"At this moment in time I really can't see any point in bothering to vote at all. I'm almost convinced my time would be better spent sat in the garden watching the grass grow."

I haven't become quite that cynical yet, but I know I'm going to have a difficult time deciding where to place my "X".

It's no longer a case of "Which candidate will serve me best ?" - it hasn't been that way for a long time.

Now, it's more a case of "Which candidate will cause me the least damage ?"