* Posts by TRT

9611 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Sep 2009

CMD.EXE gets first makeover in 20 years in new Windows 10 build

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Aha!

So it now matches the 8 bit ZX Spectrum palette of the Metro UI. Nice move.

Four techies flummoxed for hours by flickering 'E' on monitor

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However the new matching solid wooden furniture set in the commandant's office was utterly stunning.

WannaCry-slayer Marcus Hutchins 'built Kronos banking trojan' – FBI

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Re: Possibility of US prison?

Putting the penitentiary into pen test.

Microsoft breaks Office 365 sign-in pages ahead of surprise update

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It would be nice if...

instead of arseing around with UI, they'd fix some basic stuff like Apple Mail's Exchange Connector not working properly anymore. And before anyone says that's Apple, not MS, I'm reliably informed that it was MS wot broke it and it's them wot's gotta fix it. You just don't know how important it is to be able to ditch as much MS crap as possible. I've had to revert to using Outlook for Mac, and it's pants, or OWA, which is also pants, but the UI is slightly more fun to play "guess the hyperlink / interactive region" on.

Grab a fork! Unravelling the Internet of Things' standards spaghetti

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Good point. Hm... I think I'll just go for installing a cabinet with DIN rails and relays next to the incoming data network. Manual overrides on everything... a Raspberry Pi with an onto isolator on the GPIO... custom web interface that's responsive and can be webapp'd onto the home screen... should last a decade or more. I pity the fool that has to rely on Google et al supporting their shit for the lifetime of the house.

Brace yourselves, Virgin Media prices are going up AGAIN, people

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Second this. Never had much of an issue with Virgin. Took their TV & BB, but there were no spare phone lines available. Started off at £20 a month 10 years ago for 10Mbps, then about 4 years ago it started going up and up and up, and although I get consistent 70Mbps, I'm paying £80 a month. When I move, they can go whistle.

The ultimate full English breakfast – have your SAY

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Ooh! The kidney option. Not seen that in a while.

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Bacon, smoked back or middle

Lincolnshire sausage (or other with a light herb)

Baked Beans

Fried bread

Fried tomato

Fried mushrooms

Fried egg, over easy, runny yolk,

Black pudding & mustard (if north of Watford Gap)

Chips, hash browns or potato waffles (if south of Watford Gap)

Brown sauce

Toast, butter & marmalade (optional)

Massive mug of hot tea, builders or English Breakfast or Assam (white, no sugar for me).

Hackers can turn web-connected car washes into horrible death traps

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Very useful...

as a front to launder money from selling crystal meth.

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Automated car wash?

I always go for the hand job.

An 'AI' that can diagnose schizophrenia from a brain scan – here's how it works (or doesn't)

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Without reading the original paper...

It seems to me that the protocol was "spot which of these fMRIs you've seen before."

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Oh! I see...

f MRI... I was wondering how gross structural morphology was going to be a correlate of schizophrenia.

Microsoft ctrl-Zs 'killing' Paint, by which we mean offering naff app through Windows Store

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Re: Windows 3.11

DeluxePaint IV on the Amiga. Ah, what joy!

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Re: As usual .....

I wonder what the reality will be concerning announced "High Speed Connections" projects?

Adobe will kill Flash by 2020: No more updates, support, tears, pain...

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Re: Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

Ask Brian Blessed over.

Flash is alive!!!

I know, I know, Gordon's alive, but hey.

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Re: Why wait?

Identity Services Engine Admin portal from Cisco, for example. At least the version our network group have just deployed. Seemed most bizarre that the very thing I'd been tracking down and killing on my user's machines for the past year over security concerns was suddenly required to be on my machine when the network team implemented the new authentication system.

Science sugar daddy extends data-sharing policy to software

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Re: Welcome move, code-wise

Agreed. We had code for a breadboard light sheet microscope, and I was called in to have a look at a dropped frames issue. I got all the stepper motor pulses on a dual beam scope, as well as the camera and shutter trigger pulses,it all looked good, but at some seemingly random point in time they went out of synch, skipping a frame and re-synching part way through the cycle. All the instructions and scripts were supplied by a collaborating laboratory. The set up of the script for the D to A convertor was fine, but they did have a bit of code they'd written themselves for the image acquisition, which they hoped to commercialise, so they only provided the executable. Turned out that it was that code that was causing a resource blip all down to a silly little timeout waiting for a response from piece of hardware that was superfluous in our rig and so wasn't on there. Took months and months and months to sort that one out by a process of trial and error, mainly because although that bit of code was the only one left where there might be a problem, they refused to acknowledge that there was anything wrong with it and in their opinion not having this bit of hardware wouldn't be an issue. We had the D to A system shipped back to the States for a full diagnostic, which took up a lot of the time. Turned out that WAS faulty as well, but not in a way that should have caused that fault. The frame dropping was still evident even with a replacement known, checked and recalibrated D to A.

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All very nice, but...

when you are looking at a study of, say, time course studies from 2000 zebrafish brains, scanned at sub-cellular levels on a high speed, multi/bi-photon matrix lightsheet microscope, generating around 200Tb of data alone, then ongoing storage costs are a real issue. How long should these data be made available? 5 years? 10 years? Forever? OK, it's nice a cheap to stick them on tape or freeze them in AWS glacier, but even then you are looking at a good few thousand pounds a year, and it's hardly freely accessible.

And putting it all on ice gets even more appropriate when you consider, say, keeping a set of plasmids in liquid nitrogen for the next 20 years. Space in the -80°C freezer, anyone? And you have to keep track of the samples as well. Barcodes and QR tags on everything, then there's the company that's going to rake it all in with a laboratory management solution - unless there's a reliable and flexible open source solution for that too. Has to be cross compatible with other institutions of course, because researchers are a mobile lot, and when they go, they tend to take their samples with them.

All told, this, although it's been on the horizon for a while now, is going to provide some real challenges.

Alexa, why aren't you working? No – I didn't say twerking. I, oh God...

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I'm waiting...

for someone to release a music track called "Hey Siri!" where the chorus goes "Hey Siri! Play track Hey Siri!"

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3, 4G: Tube comms trials for emergency crews

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Re: A whole heap of issues

If they only CAN work during possession, why would it be overtime? They're contracted at the rate they are and the hours of possession are very, very tightly controlled and defined in advance. Very predictable. Over-running a possession is severely penalised, so no incentives for overtime are offered.

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Nothing about...

the regular tube communication system though. I understand that relaying communications manually between two systems is a major issue with getting things done right. At the moment, I understand, the emergency service controllers can broadcast messages to TfL/LUL staff in a defined emergency zone using an override channel on their regular radios - it seems like a pretty advanced system in that respect.

Ten new tech terms I learnt this summer: Do you know them all?

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Re:That will be the beef sandwich that assures you its morally ok to eat it.

"I have been force feeding myself for weeks now, so my liver should be particularly tender".

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Re: Just call it by the technology used...

If there's ONE good thing you can say about Virgin, it's that they run an advertising campaign where they call their cable product DOCSIS3. Even if they only do that distinguish it from BT's offering and to make it sound sexy.

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Re: Fibre / POTS

Also:

POTS is analogue duplex voice frequency over copper / steel. i.e. DIAL-UP. We've all heard of that.

Broadband from the exchange uses ADSL/ADSL2/ADSL2+. Lots and lots of people have heard of that.

3G/4G. Internet for mobiles. Everyone has heard of it.

Fibre-to-the-cabinet uses VDSL/VDSL2. No bugger outside the telecomms industry has ever heard of it.

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Codex?

Dat's de fings wot lets you see vids innit?

User filed fake trouble tickets to take helpful sysadmin to lunches

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Re: sexy rewards

Sex isn't everything it's up-cracked to be.

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Earlier this week...

as an on-spec add-on to another call out...

You know the sort of thing. "While you're here, do you know anything about these? I mean, I know you're computers, but... ", "Actually, I didn't start out as a computer technician, I'm an electro-physiology technician but the pay's better. So yeah, I'm pretty familiar with these."

I disassembled their signal amplifier, continuity tester confirmed the fault, three minutes with a soldering iron... find the replacement part... another three minutes to solder the new one in and test it all - (cost £20 for the switch incl shipping & duty from the US). When they asked me about it, they were just in the process of reluctantly packing up the (out of warranty) equipment to send back to the United States - the OEM's repair estimate? £4,300 incl shipping, about two-thirds of the cost of a new one.

So I wait with baited breath - I think that's worth a thank you or two.

Authorities go hard on coffee maker for stiff Viagra-powered brew

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Re: So that's why my plunger

cream & sugar.

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Yeah, tried that stuff...

but I couldn't get the lid of the coffee pot to stay down.

HMS Frigatey Mcfrigateface given her official name

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Re: Type numbers?

HMS Underwire?

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Re: Type numbers?

With the variant subclasses being suffixed alphabetic characters.

I'm looking forwards to the launch of the Type 36DD. HMS Maidenform, HMS Silhouette and HMS Kiss Me Deadly being the first three down the slipway.

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Re: You don't have to be a dreary, boring git to work here... but it helps!

Jokey McJokerfaces.

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Re: Bunch of Hunts

Berkshire Hunts.

'Coke dealer' called us after his stash was stolen – cops

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Re: Field test positive

It's a swab that changes colour.

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Re: The Aussie bird was right

My mate nicked a lorry load of incomplete ones en route from the iron casting place to the factory. Couldn't sell them like that, so I had to finish them off myself before we could sell them. I got done for handling stolen items, and he was charged with dealing in forged goods.

Segway hoverboard hijack hack could make hipsters eat pavement

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Fun LOGO scripting that! Does it have remotely operated handcuffs as well? That would be epic fun.

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Re: I mustnt be a hipster...

The two concepts of phone and personal transport might not be linked with a smooth logical step, or segue...

Disneyland to become wretched hive of scum and villainy

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To be fair, the Cantina Band are actually heard to play two tunes. They sound pretty similar, I'll give you that, but they are different tunes.

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In theory, sounds like a great place!

Imperial troopers and rebels battling it out in character around the resort, droids rolling around...

In practice... Jar Jar Binks, Ewoks and Mickey Mouse.

UK regulator set to ban ads depicting bumbling manchildren

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The pen is; meatier than the sword.

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Re: Quite Right!

Ah, but that's the lie in the advert, you see.

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Re: Vagisil

They should bring back the one pound note, and make it Solent Green flavour.

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Re: Vagisil

Oh yes! That's out today. Does anyone know what flavour this one is? The beef ones were delicious.

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Re: Stereotypes

That advert for Currys music systems was FULL of them.

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Re: Vagisil

Let's talk frankly about vaginal dryness.

No, let's not. Take it to the GP or something.

Mind you... seeing that advert go back to back with one for Tena Lady.

John McAfee plans to destroy Google. Details? Ummm...

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Re: Who is number 1?

Well I think a large communications company could be involved. "Orange alert!"

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He'll have trouble selling Sentinel effectively.

Find it hard to pin down the target demographic for the product. If only he could find some way to make his advertising more effective...

Security robot falls into pond after failing to spot stairs or water

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Re: You've met RoboCop...

Rust in peace.

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Re: Design cues

Now I know where I've seen that shape before!

Probably just got bored and thought it would act out part of a movie.

Jesus walks away after 7,000lb pipe van incident

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Re: Antisemitism...

Well he was nearly killed at an overpass rather than a passover... dangers of being a first born.