* Posts by EddieD

1117 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009

Hollywood has savaged enough sci-fi classics – let's hope Dick would dig Blade Runner 2049

EddieD

Re: The Thing?

Sweet...thanks!

EddieD

Re: The Thing?

Preference is an individual thing, but the Carpenter version far better captured the paranoia of Campbell's short story "Who goes there" - which if you can find it is well worth a read.

European Commission refers Ireland to court over failure to collect €13bn in tax from Apple

EddieD

"The Register has asked Apple for a comment. ®"

Hope beats eternal in the cynical hearts at Vulture Central.

What is the probability of being drunk at work and also being tested? Let's find out! Correctly

EddieD

Depends what you do for a living:-

Bus driver - 100%

Banker - 0%

HP users moaning over 10-minute login lag during 'Win 10 update'

EddieD

Lucky sod.

In March, HP pushed out a BIOS update that killed the motherboard on over 100 of our HP 840 G3s, and their customer service is crap to the point of insanity - one of the contracted engineers they eventually sent was only able to replace 3 motherboards in a day and was an utter prima donna. The contrasts with Dell customer service are night and day - Dell send polite, punctual, efficient chaps who get the job done.

At the time I was in hospital, bewailing my lot, but when I got back I found my poor colleague had it far, far worse than anything I had.

And that was just one incident - there have been others

Unfortunately the equivalent Dell on HE list is over £300 pounds more expensive, so we can only get them in special circumstances.

Bugger all to do with the 10 minute login black screen, but I need a good rant of Saturday, gets me set up for relaxing the rest of the day.

SpaceX releases Pythonesque video of rocket failures

EddieD
Pint

Kudos to SpaceX

Have one of these --------------------------->

It takes balls to show your mistakes - and style to set them to music.

Boffin wins (Ig) Nobel prize asking if cats can be liquid

EddieD

Re: hmm

It just means that gynecologists like to have good sounds to listen to whilst they're working.

Who doesn't?

EddieD

D'oh - it's obvious

As Schrödinger pointed out, cat's occupy two states - solid and liquid - and just collapse into the required state when observed.

Cops' use of biometric images 'gone far beyond custody purposes'

EddieD

Re: Napolionic

"The police would even ask participants if they wanted to be present to witness their destruction.

What happened to that practice?"

They got computers.

'Don't Google Google, Googling Google is wrong', says Google

EddieD

Re: Verbing weirds nouns.

Aye, but that was from someone who thought that GROSS was an initalisation of Get Rid Of Slimy girlS, so what does he know.

Verbing embiggens vocabulary

EddieD

Re: Hmm..

This is why I'm a crap programmer - syntax and spelling and tenses are mysteries to me.

EddieD

Hmm..

When I worked in Linguistics I once read an excellent academic paper entitled "I've never met a noun that can't be verbed".

I can be bothered googling it through Google Scholar, but amen to that.

Microsoft fixing Windows 10 'stuttering' bugs in Creators Update

EddieD

Re: Facepalm! Windows 10 1607 Aniversary Update "Defer Updates" setting is back to front.

No, I didn't miss it, and offered you a beer.

The problem is, in the 1607 update, the defer update has been removed from the Update section of settings in Enterprise (and by extension, Education) versions of Win 10, and can only be accessed via GPEDIT, and using that has had no effect.

And, I am on the insiders program at work, but this is about the first Creators Update being applied to my home machine, not the second.

EddieD

Reasons to be cheerful

That Microsoft have fubar'ed the pushing of Creators Update and I've not received it.

(I'm beginning to suspect it's because I'm running the Education variant, from the Imagine site...Business and Education users need not apply...)

Microsoft says it won't fix kernel flaw: It's not a security issue. Suuuure

EddieD
Pint

Re: Facepalm! Windows 10 1607 Aniversary Update "Defer Updates" setting is back to front.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

With thanks!

(EDIT: I just had the bizarre thought that may that flip is how they're limiting the rollout of Creators, folk think that they're set to auto-update, but a hidden setting somewhere is reversing the logic)

Everyone loves programming in Python! You disagree? But it's the fastest growing, says Stack Overflow

EddieD

Re: Very revealing

"Why should coding be any different?"

"Atari or Amiga?"

"PC or Mac?"

"Windows or Unix?"

(I'll get downvoted for that last one than a greyhound on steroids...)

Folk like to justify that which they have chosen as correct.

(For the record, I had an Atari, but missed the games on the Amiga, I don't see the distinction these days and have both, at home Windows for games, at work Unix for work...)

Retail serfs to vanish, all thanks to automation

EddieD

Re: Spanner in the works?

A Wickes tilldroid once asked me for my postcode, mobile number and email address when I was paying 69p cash in a store for a packet of mug hooks.

I just said, and I was remarkably restrained, by my standards, no.

UK.gov unveils six areas to pilot full-fat fibre, and London ain't on the list

EddieD

Re: Two Britains?

" Are Londoners special?"

They seem to think so

User thanked IT department for fast new server, but it had never left its box

EddieD

Re: Praise or accusations of work not done?

You can put Failed Under Continuous Test, which I believe was a genuine soak test fail status at a major computer manufacturer.

Microsoft sets the date for Fall Creators Update

EddieD

Re: A new creators update?

I'm wondering the same thing.

No creators update here "Good news! The Windows 10 Creators Update is on its way. Want to be one of the first to get it?" has been in my updates dialogue for months now. But it never arrives here.

I wonder if El Reg can ask Microsoft about how many machines are going to be even further out of sync after this update.

EddieD

Re: Will this turn out to be

I still haven't got the Spring Creators Update.

Not rushing for it though.

China: Cute Hyperloop Elon, now watch how it's really done

EddieD

Re: Something I think people have missed:

"So how do passengers embark? How do they exit? How do they breath?"

I belived Robert Stephenson was asked the same questions...

EddieD

I remember Eric really well.

He did about the best Royal Institution Christmas lectures "The Engineer through the Looking Glass" - it was that, and Attenborough the year before started me on the downward spiral into science.

EDIT: A short excerpt

Stephen King's scary movie reboot provokes tears from 'legit clowns'

EddieD

Re: Spawn Spawnned An Evil Clown

Nah, Frasier Crane even before Sideshow Bob...

US government: We can jail you indefinitely for not decrypting your data

EddieD

Re: And yet...

Not quite, the naked rambler was always arrested on a new charge of public indecency/breach of the peace after he'd served the time for his last charge of public indecency. Sometimes they vary the charges by finding him guilty of contempt of court when he turns up naked to defend himself in court.

An example "In July 2009, Gough, once again standing in the dock naked, was jailed at Perth for a further 12 months for breach of the peace. Sheriff MacFarlane was told that the bill for dealing with Gough had cost the public an estimated several hundred thousand pounds. The court heard how Gough had finished a previous jail term at Perth Prison and was released to enjoy freedom for the first time in several months. His freedom lasted less than 30 seconds after he walked naked from the prison door to Edinburgh Road. Gough was also sentenced to four months for refusing to dress before the trial"

From wikipedia...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Gough

So what's in the new Windows Insider build? Bug fixes, an AR goof-around, and a font

EddieD

Re: Windows 10 Updates? What's that?

"They are also still on the November 2016 update, not seen any sign of the April 2017 Creators update, but they are still getting security updates. This uncertainty over updates doesn't help planning or customer relations..."

About a third of the folks I know with W10 (including me) haven't received the Creators update.

I don't think any of us are missing it, but as you so rightly say the uncertainty is extremely jarring. You can go to the hassle of downloading it and manually installing the update, but a lot of SMEs, rightly or wrongly*, rely on the AutoUpdate to simplify their workload.

*Almost certainly, for a business, wrongly, but a lot of SMEs are single digit workforce, and employing someone to update the machines just won't happen.

Headless body found near topless beach: Missing private sub journalist identified

EddieD

Re: Obvious and stupid mistake

"And best of all: an ounce of gold does weigh more than an ounce of feathers!"

But a pound of gold weighs less than a pound of feathers.. 5760grains vs 7000 grains (only 12 troy ounces in a pound...)

Gotta love imperial, it makes you have to think.

Germans force Microsoft to scrap future pushy Windows 10 upgrades

EddieD

Re: "Optional"?

It's weird about these update thingies.

I haven't yet had the Creators Update (which is a bloody stupid name for an update), and neither have about a third of folk I know. With the Fall update coming soon, I have to wonder if a) Microsoft have stopped making OS updates for my age of machine (Haswell refresh) and will require me to go to their website to update in future, or b) they've mucked up the roll out.

I'm not too fussed - it's working okay on the current iteration and I'm not missing the "features" of the upgrade, but what is concerning is that if I go to "Update History" in the settings all it says is "No updates have been installed yet". So why do I have forced restarts every month? Am I getting security updates?

Methinks Microsoft has a few issues these days with their updates over and above quality control

Spotify cleared of exposing kids to self-love innuendo in TV spot

EddieD

Obligatory

When the ASA were asked what they thought was a suitable double entendre they gave them one...

For goodness sakes - this is the country that gave us Carry On, Mrs Slocombe's pussy, Round the Horne, I'm Sorry I'll Read that again/Haven't a Clue and many, many other such purveyors of innuendo and entendres. Filth that the whole family can enjoy.

Have we really lost our sense of humour to that extent?

Don't throw away those eclipse glasses! Send 'em to South America

EddieD

I kept mine

I got given a set by the French Astronomical Society when I went to see the eclipse at Haguenau in 1999, and I still had them when I went to Turkey in 2006.

Alas, they're long gone now.

US Navy suffers third ship collision this year

EddieD

Weird feeling of deja vu...

Earlier on this week I posted on another forum about the pirates in the Asterix cartoons, once again I think of them, this time the lookout in the crows nest - even if the US navy had one, he'd probably be ignored just the same.

Virgin Media customers complain of outages across UK

EddieD

Aye, but for us customers of VM he's a convenient Emmanuel Goldstein.

EddieD

That's a wee bit unfair - I'll admit that when my internet supplied by VM cuts out, I'm the first to grab the Uzi and yell "MY INTERNET OR YOUR FIRST BORN YOU BEARDY BASTARD", but if truth be told, the service is pretty reliable - I've had no outages that have lasted more than an hour for a long time, and normally I get within 10% of the notional speed.

There was a time - around 2007ish, when for period of about 1year I was getting about 10% of my notional speed, and being blanked by customer service, but since then it's not been bad.

Of course, if, when I get home from work, things aren't working, I'll be looking for a phase plasma rifle in the 40W range, or failing that, a General Electric Minigun.

Science fiction great Brian Aldiss, 92, dies at his Oxford home

EddieD

Re: The 1920s onwards

"However he made a significant contribution to sci-fi in 1909 with the short story "The Machine Stops". An uncanny prediction of the social effects of the World Wide Web."

Radio4 made a stonkingly good adaptation of that story.

On the same lines folk should read "The Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner - his vision from 1973 about how our lives would be online, and we'd run our lives from our mobile phones, was really quite prescient. It's a shame he died in such obscurity.

EddieD

Re: The Greats have gone

"Much as I enjoy Peter Hamilton, I find it hard to think of him as a "Great" - they're huge space operas, but beach reading rather than classics. And they could mostly do with a more assertive editor."

I couldn't agree more - what marked earlier sci-fi writers was that they could tell a gripping story, spanning generations and galaxies, and you didn't need a crane to lift the novel off the coffee table.

Cognitive Services, Clippy? AI's silent infiltration of Microsoft's Office stack

EddieD

The last thing MS translate came up with for me...

My hovercraft is full of eels.

Foxit PDF Reader is well and truly foxed up, but vendor won't patch

EddieD

Re: Alternatives/ Replacement

Install it using the Ninite installer, and you don't need to go to their rather eye-catching website...

10 minutes of silence storms iTunes charts thanks to awful Apple UI

EddieD
Go

Re: Plagiarised..

The John Cage piece 4' 33" is purely meant to be "played" live - the ambient sounds that the listeners become aware of, are meant to be the "music".

This track, however, comprises a pre-recorded "silence" which is therefore completely different, and not plagiarism.

Having been to a "performance" of 4' 33", the main accompaniment was the sound of folks checking the time so that they could sprint to the bar as soon as it concluded.

Alien 'lava lamp' with dying magnetic field orbited Earth a billion years ago – science

EddieD

Re: When is the last time you used yours?

About 2 weeks ago, when I stayed with my folks (it's in the bedroom I use when I visit..)

Still works fine, and looks great.

Foot-long £1 sausage roll arrives

EddieD

Re: Whilst we're on the subject of food stuff from Morrisons.

Up north of the border, it's quite hard to find a butcher that has a decent supply of offal - most of lamb origin goes into haggis, which is a shame because baked lamb's heart is delicious.

EddieD

Unless the lass with her hands on the sausage is seriously diminutive that piece of pork is definitely heading towards 30cm

Feature snatcher Microsoft tweaks OneDrive

EddieD

Re: "Fall Creators Update"

I'm still wondering if I'm ever going to get Creators Update #1, as it has shown no sign of appearing on my Windows box.

There's no hurry, if anyone from Microsoft is listening. My box is currently working, I'd like it to stay that way.

Reborn Nokia phones biz loses its head

EddieD

All the same..

All phones now look alike, no individuality, no stand out features, nothing.

What can you do with adult VR, some bronze gears and a robotic thumb? On a Friday?

EddieD

It was three times as long as the instructions, also embossed onto bronze and thus sank without trace.

Almost certainly clause DCLXVI stated something along the lines of "The manufacturers cannot accept liability for wrath of Gods if used to predict divine events including eclipses"

EddieD

Re: Oh the hell with it - I'll post it and hope that Vulture Central does not send a hit squad.

on the forty fourth stroke

the bloody thing broke

and whipped his balls to a cream

Was the slightly less pleasant version I knew...

EddieD

There is a limerick, concerning the inventive prowess of a young man named McClean which highlights the folly of such devices (automated sex toys that is, not the Antikythera mechanism which is definitely int the top 5 of my awesome things catalog), but, even given the liberal and relaxed attitude of El Reg, I'm a little reluctant to post it. It's a proper limerick.

Top tip for all you insider traders: Don't Google 'insider trading' from your work PC

EddieD

Idiot

VM (optional, but recommended)

Tor

DuckDuckGo

Profit.

Sorry - not profit, privacy...

Anyone who searches for something illicit from a corporate network is an imbecile. The folk in charge of those are (usually) more paranoid and privacy invading than Theresa May.

Juno beams back first closeups of Jupiter's unsightly red acne

EddieD

Re: Mistaken?

One of the other problems, Hooke was generally disliked back in his day, his disagreements with Newton are well documented, and since then a lot of his notes and papers have just vanished. No portraits exist of him either, which for such a prominent person is pretty unusual.

Many astronomical observations from those days have been refined - Galileo originally recorded Saturn's rings as a pair of moons.

I'd like to see Hooke's reputation thoroughly restored - curmudgeonly aspects aside, his work demands respect. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Adult toy retailer slapped down for 'RES-ERECTI*N' ad over Easter

EddieD
WTF?

I'm shocked.

I've just read two pages of comments and not one person has asked if they received a stiff sentence.

Reg readers, I'm disappointed.

It's July 2017 – and your expensive HoloLens can be pwned over Wi-Fi

EddieD

Even so,

I still want one.