Posts by John Brown (no body)

Re: What bigger companies are gonna do

I think you just described what is known as the VAT carousel. A well organised one doesn't even need real physical product, or at least the product doesn't have to actually move from one location to another, just the paperwork needs to look like it did :-)

Re: Seagate UK

"Technically, the company is not a customer of Seagate at all, they're a customer of whatever reseller sold them the drive in the first place."

Maybe. The drive has a two year warranty under consumer law between the buyer and the seller. Seagate the manufacturer provide a 5 year warranty. So after year 2, any warranty claims are with Seagate, not the seller. Since this was a business customer, the warranty between the buyer and seller might be different to that which a retail customer would get. Likewise, there may be a longer implied warranty for retail customers based on a "reasonable lifetime" of the product which comes with further, more restrictive conditions such as partial refund, or parts only repairs etc.

Re: In hindsight

"who actually wins with Brexit,"

They are usually known as "war profiteers" or, slightly less controversial these days, "crisis profiteers".

Just look at the recent highs in electricity prices in Texas during a crisis.

Re: In hindsight

"As things stand, it seems that precious few who ticked that box really had the foggiest of what it would result in,"

Prior to the referendum, pretty much every farmer interviewed on TV or other media was strongly in favour of Brexit. Now it's happened, almost without exception, pretty much every farmer interviewed on TV or other media is strongly against Brexit.

Re: Indian Railways

"For every seat row in an AC (air conditioned or first class) carriage, British Rail would cram two rows into one of their coaches."

Travelling 1st class on railways in the UK is quite nice too. You may be comparing Indian 1st class with UK cattle class. Maybe it's quite a while since you travelled 1st class on a train in the UK since British Rail was dismantled and privatised a long time ago.

Re: Mars probe success rate

Well, this mission will be leaving samples podules for an eventual collection mission to come along and bring them back to earth. On the other hand, the timeline isn't to snappy and Elon might just get there first and offer to pick them up for NASA :-)

Re: Holy shit that was awesome!!!

Yeah, watching the CGI when they first used this method was awe inspiring. Now we get to see it for real!!!!

Re: ...two miles of cables that miraculously remained untangled.

It appears parachute lines have a special anti-quantum coating to restrict entanglement.

Re: What a surprise

"Well, it has been. In 1967, apparently."

That treaty, although it talks about commercial use of space and stellar bodies, didn't really properly consider actual, independent commercial operations in space. I get the impression they were still thinking multi-billion dollar government based operations doing mining and stuff. While corporate space operations are tied to Earth, the treaty can be enforced. But what happens if or when there are self-sustaining operations out there?

Re: 2K??

"Because by leading a life of a fool they have somehow become wealthy."

...or still live with their parents and still can't afford to move out because a) it's expensive to move out and b) they can't save because they keep buying new shiny on "cheap" monthly rental plans.

After all, it's "only" £xx per month for a new phone. And "only" £xx for Spoify. And Netflix. And amazon. And a nice new car. And, and, and all the many other $something as a Service that people end up paying for nowadays instead of saving up and buying outright.

Re: 2K??

A 48K ZX Spectrum was about £140 back in 1983. That's about £500 in todays money. And that was a cheap computer. The Compaq Portable was about £2100 at launch, something like £7500 in todays money.

Re: Nothing

"As noted, pholdables are in the R&D stage but they'll be useful at some point."

Absolutely. Some of us remember when having a mobile phone was only for rich poseurs! Likewise laptops.

Re: Ignisecond, n.:

High IQ up around genius level does often seem to come with very strong levels of focus on an area of study to the almost absolute exclusion of everything else around them. We've probably all met the equivalent of the rocket scientist who can't tie their own shoe laces (assuming they remembered to even put their shoes on!)

Very good. Clearly the El Reg sub-eds need to branch out from the TITSUP backronyms :-)

Re: Quick turnaround for the 777?

"Maybe they need a better better inspection procedure?"

I caught a bit of CNN earlier this evening and they had an expert on stating that engines and engine parts like fan blade are generally only swapped out if a flaw is found, little or no consideration given to age. Maybe part of the "better better" inspection process is to examine very carefully their oldest engines and fan blades and try to see if there's any correlation between age and likelihood of finding microfractures. Then possibly put flying/running hours limit on some components (if they don't already, the experts implication being that there is no age limit)

Re: have an upvote

No, but I like it. Gobbledegook is inherently not understandable while bafflegab is intended to sound plausible while baffling the listener. Both great words b ut with different uses :-)

Re: Hopefully sanity will prevail

"and figure out how to do paid time off"

That's already enshrined in law for full timers, part times and zero hours contract workers. It's pro-rata based on average hours worked over a specified time period. Overtime isn't normally taken into account for workers with fixed hours contracts, but is for variable hours contract workers. They all get the equivalent of 20 days paid annual leave as a legal minimum.

Re: Hint? Class A controlled airspace.

Surely this "drone racing" is just a front for drug delivery.

And when they reach their eventual goal of flying in "manned" ones, they stop being drones by definition. But I bet they call it manned drone racing.

Re: CAA recommendation

"Approval for this flight was given without sight of a completely unknown craft from a completely unknown manufacturer, based solely on information provided by that manufacturer."

It also had approval from the Australian regulator, which was accepted by the CAA. After the Boeing/FAA debacle, maybe the CAA (and by extension, all air worthiness regulators) should be seriously considering not blindly accepting certifications from other countries until they've had another look at said procedures and at least spot checking some random samples to see if reality matches up with theory.

Re: If that had been...

"That means that every human alive on the face of the planet could have approximately 433 MILLION CAA registration numbers! For model aircraft!"

Clearly lessons have been learned from the IPv4 -> IPv6 thing. Just not by the people you expected.

Re: Arduino

"nor even necessarily with using perfboard to hold it - if it's done right."

That's what I came here to say too. The build method is not relevant so long as it's done properly. Not using a custom PCB for a prototype is absolutely normal. It just requires the correct soldering skills, attention to detail and proper testing.

Now, if they'd used the re-usable "push-in contact" type breadboard I'd be a lot more concerned.

Re: I suppose the big thing about this one

"In the meantime my employer had to borrow the money to duplicate the entire payroll and pay it to the correct people, and it was a decidedly non trivial sum in interest."

That sounds like a bit of a hand to mount situation if the company can only afford the payroll from that months income.

Re: FCOL

Facebook generation. "News" consists of a head line and one paragraph of "story". After that, the attention span deficit kicks in and the comment button gets hit.

Re: Double keying already used in some banking applications

"Citi bank do seem to care about their $500m, however."

And yet, it;s not, and never was, their money. They borrowed it to lend to someone else. Then they "accidentally" paid off the lenders early and now they are appealing a court decision so they can force those lenders to lend it back to them again. Weird.

The only thing that's slightly odd is that the lenders loaned the money to Citi on the understanding it was at a certain interest rate. By getting it back early, they lose out on the future interest payments. I can only assume they now think, having got it back from Citi, they can use it more profitably elsewhere.

que?

Re: oh crumbs!

Depends which country you live in. Smoking, including in the office, is still endemic in many countries.

Re: The human mind is a frightening thing

"I mean obviously, this "computer" thingy has a portal to the waste dimension, right ?"

Being the 90s, maybe it was running Win9x and had a teeny, tiny little waste bin icon on the screen so putting teeny tiny bits of paper through the slot was a simple way to put them in the waste bin? Who knows what goes through the minds of users and the weird half-logic that happens in there.

Re: USB Keypad

"Grump-ye-not, Dabbsy, from their Kickstarter it looks like their $150k stretch goal is indeed a USB keypad (doesn't say it it's E-Ink or not, but why do it if it isn't?). It must be on their radar at least."

It should be easy to program a key as "Num Lock" and create a number pad that appears and disappears as needed like using an extra shift key.

Re: Club 50+

"My second one disappeared in the post."

Post Office announces that "lost" envelope found down the back of a sorting machine is finally delivered after 73 year delay. Share price rises as costs on air fresheners at sorting depot slashed.