* Posts by Stoneshop

5951 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2009

Chilling evidence emerges of Kilocat weapon

Stoneshop

Re: Suicide Bomber Bats

I've worked in two companies run by students of Louis Fieser. Both were brilliant chemists, but bat-shit crazy. Now I know where they both got it from.......

It's all due to a trauma he suffered when he was a sboolboy. He was attacked by a bat.

Stoneshop
Go

Cats

Obviously you've been saying it for so long that you failed to notice that they were defeated in 1990. No cats required.

No? It was actually a border guard accidentally leaving the gate open after a moggie that wanted to be on the other side (there were no cat flaps in the Berlin Wall, big mistake). Then one phrase in the permission from Krenz "Yo, you cats are free to go" to install cat flaps was misinterpreted by Schabowski, and the rest is history.

'Cat-flap' pendulum offers 7x improvement for grav-wave detectors

Stoneshop
Go

getting the cat out of the LIGO setup

They should switch the lasers off as well, or at least aim the dot at the exit flap.

Stoneshop
Boffin

Re: Units?

Well, the gravitational force* between two bodies** is proportional to the product of their masses*** over the square of their distance****. So it would require two stadiums, the matter they are filled with, and also depends on the distance between them. A gravitational wave, as I understand it*****, is the variation in force due to matter shifting and/or being destroyed.

This suggests the Roundhouse Kick as the preferred unit.

* So, Norrises

** Say, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

*** Jubs squared

**** Brontosauruses squared

***** BIANAGFE

iOS 'date bug' can be exploited over Wi-Fi using NTP

Stoneshop
Coat

Re: Isn't it ..

Well, the programmers were clearly out to lunch.

Bay Area man forced out of his $400 box home

Stoneshop
Flame

Re: fire hazard

Some people, in colder climes than SF, go to sleep with a hot water bottle for comfort. Maybe he should cuddle up with a fire extinghuisher.

NASA prepares to unpack pump-up space podule

Stoneshop
Coat

Add-on

The pump needs to be enclosed in a membrane, attached to a tank with compressed air or a long hose dangling down into the athmosphere.

(the cape with "Bicycle Repair Man")

Stoneshop
Boffin

Two problems

To have it float in air (at sea level and 293K), it would have to weigh a bit under 20 kg, not the 1400 kg that it is. And, as mentioned already, there's the re-entry speed.

Prof Hawking to mail postage-stamp space craft to Alpha Centauri using frickin' lasers

Stoneshop
Coat

Re: No return

How to get it back? Just tell the philatelist community it's an actual, extremely rare, stamp.

Stoneshop
Facepalm

Re: Dear Earthlings...

Just the envelope; they have the stamp already.

Windows 10 debuts Blue QR Code of Death – and why malware will love it

Stoneshop
FAIL

Re: What will make this work

in fact it could be a series of QR codes.

Sure. And what will stop a fake crash screen to display a malware URL anyway instead of just crash diagnostic codes? What percentage of users (that have an Android with the app installed in the first place) will fire up that app first to let it grab the codes, instead of blindly pointing it at the screen and tapping the 'go fetch' button?

It doesn't matter that the QR from a genuine crash shows diagnostic codes only, it matters what a fake crash displays and how users deal with that.

BOFH: Sure, I could make your cheapo printer perform miracles

Stoneshop
Headmaster

Re: Tachikoma

go down to the central stationary store

There's no decentralised mobile store then? (aka office junior dogsbody with an office supplies cart)

1,000 cats await stadium-sized sandwich bag launch

Stoneshop
Headmaster

Re: Dimensions

the length of the area between the stumps,

Which one commonly calls 'distance'. Less words as well as clearer.

Stoneshop
Headmaster

Dimensions

thats more like the length of six cricket wickets i.e. the area between the stumps.

conformability error

Length and area do not match regarding number of dimensions.

You're also missing an apostrophe.

Stoneshop
Boffin

Re: And the obvious question is...

Assuming a spherical cow of uniform density who happens to have nothing to do with this calculation, and also assuming a slice of bread being 10x10x1 cm^3, with an average filling thickness of 5mm (less for a slice of cheese or ham, more for compound fillings like fried eggs with bacon or tuna with boiled egg), and each slice/filling/slice entity being cut diagonally to yield two sandwiches, you get 8 sandwiches per liter, or 4.619 per Bulgarian Airbag. With the size of the 1 kilocat lifter being 206.3629 Olympic swimming pools, I get a total of 4131992 sandwiches. The question now is: how hungry are these football-stadium visitors? Would they be content with two sandwiches each, or is the distribution of such a huge number of sandwiches to a somewhat less huge but still huge number of sandwich-eaters going to take long enough that they will want four or five?

Dropping 1,000 cats from 32km: How practical is that?

Stoneshop
Black Helicopters

a thick blanket of 1,000 wailing felines

So after the Iron and Aluminium Overcast, we now have the Furry Overcast as the next US Airborne deterrent.

There's oil in that thar … Chinese space probe?

Stoneshop
Boffin

With diesel engines

Air gets compressed adiabatically, so it heats up. Then the fuel gets vaporised by injection, and it combusts on contact with the compressed, hot air.

Just compressing 0.0017 milliJub of oil in a vessel capable of withstanding 103.95 kiloNorris per nanoWales, so quite likely rather thick-walled, and without any additional oxygen present, will not cause anything combustion-like to happen.

Field technicians want to grab my tool and probe my things

Stoneshop
Big Brother

Re: Things To Come

Your front door will have a Thing-flap so they can let themselves in and out

Which will then break down.

It also will not allow other vendor's IThingReplaceThings through or have it replaced by another IThingReplaceThing, never mind Third Party IThingReplaceThings, so each of those will require its own proprietary IThingFlap, which will evidently require an extension to your house consisting entirely of doors in which these IThingFlaps can be mounted.

You won't have control of these flaps, otherwise how can IThingReplaceThings come in and replace IThings when you're out? They don't want to disturb you have you around when they're "upgrading" your IThings.

Nest's bricking of Revolv serves as wake-up call to industry

Stoneshop

The end result is to reduce the clusterfuck of wires to just a few.

Exactly.

The home control system* I use started from the requirement that I needed to control two areas with two chains of workshop lighting from three locations each. Conventional switches and cabling would require four (of twelve) switches being quite expensive, and hard to get in a splashproof version. Pushbuttons and stepper relays appeared more promising, but it still didn't grab me as the right solution. The system I use now has allowed me to add movement detectors to switch off the lights in case I forgot, as a supplement to the manual switches. Door and window sensors will tie into the heating and ventilation, the awning windows and skylights will react to outside versus inside temperature, and all of it will depend on anyone being at home or not. But none of this is controllable from the outside, except maybe choosing some particular presets via SMS some time in the future..

* Two-wire serial+power bus, network connection to the local LAN only is used to display status and allows one particular system to load settings and logic into the sensors and actuators.

'Devastating' bug pops secure doors at airports, hospitals

Stoneshop
Devil

Response

The LED service Lawshae messed with is part of a reply door controllers would send to the central remote management service in response to a UDP discoveryd probe.

"Thank you for making a simple door and an access cracker very happy"

Brits rattle tin for 'revolutionary' hydrogen-powered car

Stoneshop
Mushroom

Re: Boy....

the hydrogen tank is _very_ exposed to a rear end collision.

Ah, the Pinto 2.0

Surprise! Magic Kinder app could let hackers send vids to your kids

Stoneshop
Devil

Re: I remember when software sometimes had Easter Eggs

Now it's Easter Eggs with software.

The New Disruptive Paradigm. Or something.

<deviled_eggs.ico>

Nest bricks Revolv home automation hubs, because evolution

Stoneshop

Re: Didn't think it through

here is the software you need to keep it going.

Without further safeguards, that would open the door* for some ne'er-do-well to set up a shadow cloud** for the Revolv hubs to connect to.

One way to prevent this is to set the hubs to disable all external connectivity on May 14, 23:59, and mail the customers how to re-enable it with a (trusted) new Revolver or a thingie on the local lan.

* in all applicable senses

** first typed as 'clod'. Hmmmm.

Stoneshop
Coat

Re: So this is

Or having the Nest shit on you.

That's in Soviet Russia.

(the one with half a nanoWales worth of medals, comrade)

Stoneshop
Big Brother

Re: Hey, usually it's just "not supported anymore"...

I'm not quite sure what an IoT bench would actually do

It senses your posture when seated, logs this and sends the info to your physiotherapist.

An IoT couch would make everything you dropped down the back Google-searchable. Which most people would consider a good thing, and rush out to buy one.

Stoneshop
Holmes

So this is

Shitting in one's own nest, IoT-style?

Stoneshop
Boffin

Firmware

I hadn't heard of Revolv, but would at least hope that they (or any other bought out team) would be able to provide a last firmware update that decouples the unit from the cloud and operate locally.

I doubt that's as simple as people may want it to be. Even if the cloud-dependency is limited to the user interface (i.e. telling the home control unit how you want it to react to specific events, which it then continues to do autonomously) it needs to have that user interface added somehow, either on the control unit, or by adding that functionality to the control app on your phone/tablet/laptop. And if all the logic processing is done on the Revolv servers (local events are sent there, commands come back) it'll get even more hairy, as you then basically need to duplicate that Revolv cloud locally.

Maybe there should be laws that would allow users, in cases like this where the system they are using is abandoned by the vendor, to request the API (or even the entire code base) to be made available to them or a third party willing to continue support.

Stoneshop
Headmaster

To the downvoter

Try to grasp the difference between 'use' and 'rely on', will you?

Stoneshop

except the juniper

Which is actually a bush*, but close enough for guvmint porpoises.

* So, a shubbery!

Stoneshop
Facepalm

Why would you do that?

Because teh shiniez.

Stoneshop
WTF?

Re: Hey, usually it's just "not supported anymore"...

"I pull the plug on you, birch"

Weird, I've never seen one with a power- or network plug. Similarly oaks, poplars, eucalyptus, spruce and just about any other tree, except the juniper and the spanning.

Stoneshop
Big Brother

Re: "... you only have control of stuff you can touch." *

Well, as long as you can touch the PC, it's still yours.

Now, the W10 stuff on it, and similarly the apps on your tablet and the books on your Kindle are the stuff you can't touch. Which is indeed the stuff that can and will go away.

1984* anyone?

*in more than one way.

Stoneshop
Devil

Re: Disturbing

Pretty disturbing predictable behaviour from Google.

They have a reputation to uphold there, you know.

Stoneshop
Holmes

So, you were relying on systems outside your control

"On 15 May, my house will stop working; my landscape lighting will stop turning on and off, my security lights will stop reacting to motion, and my home made vacation burglar deterrent will stop working,"

Do not rely on somebody else's computers for critical systems.

April Fool decries Blighty's dodecaquid

Stoneshop
Holmes

Curing foot-in-mouth disease

is not done by shooting your foot.

Stoneshop
Flame

Re: fair game for a ribbing

could be curry-flavoured*

The correct sequence is to go for a pee first, then chop Madame Jeanettes.

Stoneshop
Coat

Made of corduroy

Indeed if his opinion needs to wear a uniform then let the ribbing start

Obviously

Flying Finns arm octocopter with chainsaw

Stoneshop
Pirate

You should have gotten around to building one of these some years ago, offering it to Steven Elop as a welcome gift.

With the chainsaw running, of course.

Stoneshop
Boffin

Re: Surrender!

Presumably these drones have some sort of maximum altitude. Can anyoine recommend somewhere to live a few thousand feet above such a limit?

Flying height for these things tends to refer to ground level, otherwise quadcopter fanatics would move to the Dead Sea area en masse.

But although 'copters (of any configuration) rely on air density for lift, more when hovering (would apply to nearly all models), less with sufficient forward speed (there are turbine-powered real life choppers that can reach FL250, or 826 double-decker buses put upright end-to-end), there's also the ground effect. So you might be safe only on the highest summits of the Himalaya and the Andes, or underwater*. And to be really safe, there's always the moon.

* of course there will be a Finn who has gotten hold of the plans for an AUV, which will then be grafted on to an UAV. With a waterproof chainsaw.

When should you bin that old mainframe? Infrastructure 101

Stoneshop

Re: ...shut down of the spares.(?)

Don't disagree, however, I've also encountered problems with systems that have been continuously up that have been power cycled,

Because of the vagaries of several of the software components these systems need a full reboot when being promoted from spare to slave (if the active master konks out, the active slave will become master), but they don't need a power cycle.

Stoneshop

Re: I think the headline ...

How difficult was the decision to keep the spares running 24/7?

Not at all. Mind, there are just five in the datacentres set up as warm spare (OS running and monitored, but not otherwise active), with fifteen more on a shelf in central stock.

And our rule is: if it's in a DC, then it's to be monitored. If it's to be monitored, it obviously needs to be booted up and running an OS. End of discussion.

Powering up once a month will very likely kill at least one, and probably more over the next two years. Letting them run not being touched until required will be the much better option, in our experience (the active master/slave systems don't have much of a CPU and I/O load either).

Stoneshop

Re: I think the headline ...

Some companies have to keep older kit alive.

We have such a case. It's five sets of two master/slave systems, essential in controlling safety-critical systems. These master/slave systems are not safety-critical themselves, but if both members of a set fail the actual control systems will go into a safe state, which means stuff gets halted. And if stuff gets halted there will be ministerial questions.

As the hardware these systems run on will be out of support end of this year, and the software for the replacement systems will not be ready until mid 2018 at the earliest, we have to keep these systems alive for two more years with most of them already having done eight years running 24/7.Fortunately we have at least 20 similar systems, decomissioned over the past year and a half. They will be configured to be identical to the current sets, tested, and then five of those will be put in the computer rooms next to the existing sets, one spare per set. Up and running with just the OS and monitoring software, so that we're not going to get caught with one of the active set failed and then trying to boot a spare and find that it won't. Each of those spares will be set up so that they can take over as either of its associated master/slave set, and all of this can be done remotely. The only manual operation necessary is the moving of a crossover cable from the failed system to the newly active one some time in the next 48 hours or so. Then one of the remaining systems will get taken from stock, tested, set up as the new spare for that location and moved there.

I think we'll manage.

The Register to publish Mindful Sysadmin adult colouring book

Stoneshop
Pint

Re: Nice one

An ever-increasing amount of my (packetized) thoughts seem to have exceeded their TTL, and/or my BGP has provided them with incorrect routing information.

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

Stoneshop
Devil

Re: Simple signs

Well, if part of its boot is already 2 feet high, then its crotch will be at at least forty feet, so little chance of even an average tipper truck with a raised bed tickling its balls.

But they could try things out with a hologram first.

Stoneshop
Go

Re: That

a Hall Of Fame slab with the

crumpled front license plates

of all the morons

Stoneshop
Thumb Up

Re: Didn't they . . .

Build the by-pass round Royston to prevent motorists running in to the Royston Cave?

Nah, it's probably one of those bypasses you build because you got to build bypasses.

<insert hhgttg.ico>

Stoneshop
Stop

Re: Simple signs

"slow obstruction in road".

That's a bit of an understatement. "Totally static non-moving (on less than geological timescales) obstruction in road" would be more like it.

Microsoft announces Windows 10 Anniversary Update coming this summer

Stoneshop
Linux

c:\windows\system> uname -a

Linux yourname.microsoft.com 3.16.7-35-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Feb 7 17:32:21 UTC 2016 (832c776) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Oz uni in right royal 'indigenous' lingo rumpus

Stoneshop
Angel

Marissa Meyer

No harassing her (while anyone's watching)

Stoneshop
Windows

Re: TV programmes on bush tucker would be very different

But would there still be the prize winning 'Cuiver Reserve Chateau Bottled Nuit San Wogga Wogga', with its bouquet like an aborigine's armpit?