* Posts by John Brown (no body)

25255 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2010

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World's richest man posts memes as $44b Twitter acquisition veers off course

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: I'm going to need more popcorn

I suspect the bottom will drop out of the popcorn market by Tuesday. I'll be selling all my holdings on Monday, probably before the peak, but holding on too long might be a bit risky :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Waah

The Twitter meltdown achieved the same thing in weeks."

Just imagine, in a year or so, a newly minted PFY being issued a second hand corporate phone and wondering what that undeleteable Twitter icon is for :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Waah

He's still publish the equivalent of SFTW, but not always every week at https://autosaveisforwimps.substack.com/

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Catch-22

"I think there's a better than even chance Twitter will be permanently done before the end of the year."

This! Although I do think you are being remarkably optimistic :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Catch-22

"That would include the fatasses, I supposes. Can you even run Twatter on that?"

If you render down the fatasses [sic] and use the resultant fats as fuel in the generators, then yes, for a while.

Musk (in the bowels of Twitter HQ): "Keep shovelling the lard boys, we need to keep the servers powered!. More fat! Get me more fat!!"

India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Great

The plan is to stop bundling chargers/PSUs with devices. The upside is you have fewer chargers sitting around and more or less any you do have will work with any device. The downside is that many people buying a new charger/PSU will buy based on price and some will be buying "fake" chargers from Ali Baba et al for £2 including shipping from China.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: The bar will be VERY high for that

The EU legislation has been specifically written to allow for future changes in technology. The Indian legislation is very likely to be a cut'n'paste with localisations. Future US legislation is highly likely to be butchered by special interest groups and end up optional but set in stone so people can point to it as unworkable and probably not even be ratified until it's out of date anyway.

Z-Library operators arrested, charged with criminal copyright infringement

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Textbooks...

A friend of mine once related a story about a course he was on. The lecturer basically "read" a chapter from the book per lecture and, being a "busy" researcher, disappeared at the end, no time for questions or discussion. The class attendance got smaller and smaller over the course of the term as students realised they got just as much information simply be reading the book and not bothering to turn up to have someone read it to them!

Many, many years ago when I went to university, one of the first things we were told was to head off to the Student Union bookshop where we'd almost certainly find second hand copies of all or most of the books on the reading list. From what I understand of "modern" education, that's less of an option these days as the "current reprint" version of text books is the only acceptable version due to changes and updates in some cases, especially when the lecturer is the author.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Wrong Target

Did he? I never noticed a sudden and sustained 20% price drop. I wonder where the extra money went? Not even a small price drop related to economies of scale as the market suddenly increased.

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to 11 years in prison

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: A CEO being held accountable?

And there's no "time served" to take off that either since her lawyers kept her out of pokey.

Israel sets robotic target-tracking turrets in the West Bank

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Thanks to the commentards above

It was the s-called "adults" who made the promises and created the situation in the first place.

FTX disarray declared 'unprecedented' by exec who cleaned up after Enron

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

I think I may have mentioned something about how Musk should avoid trips on his superyacht a few days ago :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: What a time to be alive!

Shame they're so far away otherwise I might be able turn my heating down and bask in the warm glow :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"sort the stock markets out"

There are no Stock Markets, as such. There are large numbers of people who come together and collectively become a stock market. That means it's not an organisation that can be controlled, rather you need to apply crowd psychology to the masses.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Delaware

For some odd reason, I remember a section Geography lessons at school where we studies the origins of US State names , eg English, French, Native etc. That, and possibly a film or two about Indians as we used to call the First Nations, are about the only time the State od Delaware has impinged on my consciousness untill all these stories I see in El Reg about shady companies, patent trolls and similar dodgy dealings. So, is it just me or is Delaware only "famous" for being the US own internal version of the Cayman Islands except without the beaches?

Security firms hijack New York trees to monitor private workforce

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"The correct way to solve this is for the city to fine the company for the replacement cost of each tree"

Or, alternatively, it being New York, use it as a revenue stream by issuing lucrative licences allowing them to mount their trackers on the trees. Unlicensed trackers will be removed and the offenders fined. And, of course, it being New York, this scheme will run at a loss because of the costs in enforcing it :-)

Microsoft makes a game of Team building, with benefits

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Team building

Yeah, and Minesweeper. As you rightly alluded to, neither are team games. At best, maybe get competitive over best times or whatever. Of course, there will always be the one person who has to "beat" everyone else and gets no work done at all :-)

Multi-tasker Musk expects to reduce time at Twitter, seek another leader

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: he expects the major restructuring work to be done this week

"But I'd get nervous if a black Tesla started following me, if I were you."

Just walk under a bridge on the crest of hill or past where a large truck is pulling out across the road. Problem solved!

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: run Twitter permanently on a full-time basis

"Then... he locks everyone out until Monday."

I wonder if that's to install monitoring kit so he can check exactly what the remaining slaves are up to every minute of the day and night?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: run Twitter permanently on a full-time basis

Yeah, just read that myself. Maybe Musk is reading here, saw my post and wanted to "get back" at me for being snarky :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: run Twitter permanently on a full-time basis

All time zones. It's always between 9-5 somewhere in the world :-p

Remembers, only the most exceptional hardcore staff are welcome through the doors of Twitter nowadays!

Koch-funded group sues US state agency for installing 'spyware' on 1m Android devices

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

I think you are wrong in your assessment. Only asking for $1 in damages is a signal to all parties that they are taking this all the way to court and through any appeals if required and will not settle out of court.

Now, on the whole, the right are more likely to be COVID deniers but in this instance I don't care about that. The State did wrong and it needs to be on recorded at court that they did wrong, and that's the entire reason for the case. It's not about compensation for "victims". And with only token "damages", even the lawyers aren't going to get rich off this one other than their usual fees.

NASA's Artemis mission finally launches after faulty Ethernet switch delayed countdown

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

For the cost of the Artemis programme...

You could buy two Twitters and still have enough change a few superyachts :-)

Should the Twitter or the Artemis be a new official El Reg unit? Or bot?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Oh, that's good news. Last I heard they were way behind schedule.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Certainly a moment to watch live (even if only on YT), given all the set backs.

Any US resident ever seen a launch from 500 miles away? There must be people reading here who can give us an idea of how far away one can see a launch. On the other hand, this is a pretty small launch vehicle so I guess the exhaust will be less "impressive". I suppose we can only hope it will be a night launch, although I suspect not since the launch window is probably quite generous as they can easily adjust where they launch from to suit the time and intended orbit.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

According to Wikipedia "The Register is a British technology news website", although it doesn't often seem so these days. According to Companies House El Regs parent, Situation Publishing still has Drew Cullen as Director and a registered office in Southport, Merseyside.

So, only subject to the back and call of US lawyers to the extent they probably don't want to lose their 2 or 3 US offices or have them raided :-)

(I didn't realise the El Reg empire had extended out from SF to Boston and Denver or the Asia-Pacific office had extend out from Sydney, Aus out to Hong Kong and Singapore in their bid to take over the world. Where next I wonder? Luxembourg for the fine wines and tax breaks?)

This should have been a reply to Pascal Monetts comment ".. . and not beholden to US lawyers." But seems my log-in cookie expired while I was typing it and it ended up as a new post. Yet another "feature" that seems to arrived with the site update along with all replies to a removed post also going AWOL instead of just the offending one and those quoting the offending bit of the moderated post.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Machine tool operators who were that good commanded very high salaries where only the best will do.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"And I raise my beer to "The Red Team" engineers."

Yeah, saw them being interviewed. The older guy said he'd been on Red team for 37(??) years and this was is first time out onto a "live" launch pad :-)

I have visions of this guy coming in to work every day for 37 years, putting the kettle on, putting his feet up and wondering when he'll ever be called on to actually do something :-) Finally, THAT DAY has arrived :-)))

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Flawed

You;re right about the Starship booster only doing engine tests. Starship itself has flown and landed multiple times. You're also right about the launchpad and a probably re-design if it's to cope with a proper launch. They can build rockets but can't yet pour concrete to survive the heat and pressure.

On the other hand, SLS has been in development a lot, lot longer and has only just achieved it's first launch and NASA already has those skills and facilities that SpaceX are still learning. Mind you, it's an impressive launch, all the way to the Moon and hopefully back to a successful, if very quick, reentry. I hope they got their sums right on the heat shield.

I strongly suspect the first Starship launch will, at the most, be to orbit. The SpaceX track record so far doesn't indicate that they will go for a full size mission on a first launch. But I also expect SpaceX to move quickly once they are ready for a full stack launch and to repeat and improve quickly too, probably with some spectacular failures along the way.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Certainly a moment to watch live (even if only on YT), given all the set backs.

A rough guess based on the flight path of the aircraft suggests the drop & launch point is about 500 miles west of Newquay. I can't find any indication of the launch direction, but I assume it will be generally eastwards, but probably heading some way south of east. I have no idea if that means it will be visible at all from mainland UK assuming optimal viewing conditions. Maybe as a "shooting star" going up rather than down?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Yes. IIRC, the Artemis programme is based on the engine availability. I'm not sure what the plan is for when they run out of engines. Maybe they're hoping Bezos engines will be ready by then.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Even my wife noted the "animated" timeline showing the mission stages didn't move in real time. It just updated at each stage AFTER the event had happened. And the few times they tried to show live feed from "inside" the launch, it dropped out almost as soon as they started to show it to us.

The overall launch was impressive and I'm glad they finally got it going after all the false starts, but yeah, NASA really ought to be at the forefront of outreach and so forth regarding a live launch system. As you say, only SpaceX seem to have got that part right and reliable. I mean, FFS, SpaceX were showing views from the launches and landings, all the way up and down and then people complained when the rocket engine vibrations knocked out the feed on most of the early barge landings! No other launch organisation come even close to SpaceX on that score. And all the live video makes for a much more exciting and audience engaging launch. It'd be interesting to get viewing figures for various launches, especially the long engagement figures. I'd bet a LOT of people watched the SLS launch, but also bet the viewing figures tail of rapidly once the live action was over. I suspect that tail off is much slower and lower with SpaceX launches where we get to see each stage separation and even the satellite deployments, almost all from live feed.

Twitter refugees seek asylum in an unusual place: The Matt Hancock app

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Thank goodness for "tooted"

As a Brit, my first introduction to toot as a synonym for fart was by Bart Simpson and beans song. So I'd say an American slang for fart rather than a Britishism :-)

Germany says nein to Qatari World Cup spyware, err, apps

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: A burner...

Considering the local security/Police just almost arrested a Danish journalist live on air, I'd think it best not to do *anything* that might attract attention.

You'd think they'd have ALL got the memo about being on the world stage and being nice to everyone and not Business As Usual. I suspect we will be seeing multiple "mistakes" by the Qatari security and Police folks over the course of this event.

Even Blatter is saying giving this to Qatar was a mistake now. I wonder if there were any brown envelopes or nondescript suitcases involved in the decision process?

Tesla reports two more fatal Autopilot accidents to the NHTSA

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Another goat?

I just watched a documentary about the Airbus that went down flying from South America back to France. Pilots being interviews talked about the "startle factor" when auto-pilot cuts out or switches to "emergency" mode such that not only are alarms going off, but the handling may change and limits normally enforced by the computers may no longer be enforced.

Pilots flying on autopilot are highly trained individuals and can still get it wrong when "startled" by the sudden change in circumstances and they usually have at least minutes to deal with the issue. A car driver on "autopilot" will be nowhere near as highly trained and probably only have seconds, if that, to deal with an emergency in a massively more complex environment than being at 36,000 feet with no other aircraft closer than about three miles.

Amazon founder Bezos to donate 'majority' of $126bn fortune

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: @Potemkine!

Amazon are also on record as stating they want to automate more to "solve" the upcoming labour shortage. That doesn't sound like they are bothered about retaining workers except as a least resort if the robots don't work as well as needed.

Shocker: EV charging infrastructure is seriously insecure

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Joke

Re: Cracking gas pumps isn't rocket science either

Must be hard times out in rural land. When I were lad we always used an old mattress in the back of the van.

Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Ex Employee Hardships

LOL --------------->

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Burned through $12 billions, losses of billions, and will never make a positive ROI..

"And then they might have a nice little healthy positive cash flow earner with no debt."

The first part may be possible. The second a lot less likely, at least for a decade or two if it survives that long. $1.4B per year in interest alone is a lot of profit to bring in just keep their head above water, never mind paying it down.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"You do have to wonder if he's *trying* to piss away $44b, or if he genuinely believes his way is The Right Way. Bizarre stuff."

Maybe he got advance warning of Bezos statement about giving all his money away before he dies and Musk is playing oneupmanship? "Hey Jeff! THIS is how to get rid of all your money!"

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: I would just go home.

That presupposes that the Chief Privacy Officer is also the DPO. Does anyone know this for sure?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: The Twitterverse will soon be silent

yeah, the twitter.com and associated domains are probably the most valuable asset if/when it all goes TITSUP

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Just a thought

It's the weirding way!

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Coat

Re: In other news

It was the perfect time to use bitcoin to buy popcorn shares :-)

Too bad you missed it.

(Posted from the beach on my iPad in the Bahamas)

PS, no not my coat. It's too warm for a coat. ------------>

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: I don't know

"Is he a genius or just nuts? Both probably. "

So, that would an UNstable genius then? Sounds about right for anyone who brags about being a stable genius.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: I don't know

Or, in my case the first time I tried, lose an arrow :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Waste El-Reg Space

Yeah, I used all my crypto to buy Butterkist shares :-)

I'm gonna be rich...RICH I tell you!!!

Swiss bankers warn: Three quarters of retail Bitcoin investors are in the red

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: FTFY

Although, interestingly, when "the market" talks about a "housing crash", they usually mean the prices have stagnated instead of going up. Property prices never seem to actually go down. At least not in the UK.

Croatian EV maker Rimac claims 412km/h speed record

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

You must be kidding. I suspect there's a warehouse full of them, slowly releasing them into the wild.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Not enough range.

I suspect anyone who can afford €2M supercar probably has a reserved parking space too :-)

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