* Posts by Esskay

569 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Aug 2011

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What gifts did ol' kitten heels May get this year?

Esskay

Re: Checklist

No, Farage leaves a flaming bag of shit on your neighbour's doorstep, rings the bell, and crawls away on his belly.

Tokyo rebrands 2020 Olympics

Esskay

Re: No giant robots?

Visit Odaiba - there's a giant robot on display permanently :)

Top VW exec blames car pollution cheatware scandal on 'a couple of software engineers'

Esskay

There's also the fact that the VW Group CEO has already stepped down - you don't step down as group CEO because a couple of software engineers in the US subsidiary of your company fucked up. This is Horn trying to save himself.

Crazy Chrysler security hole: USB stick fix incoming for 1.4 million cars

Esskay

Re: Muppets

Alternatively:

1. Don't buy a Chrysler

2. Fixed*.

fortunately most people have already taken this approach.

*assumes no other manufacturers think the internet is just a series of tubes

Singapore netizens slap silks for copyright bullying

Esskay

Re: Is there a reason

At a guess, it's because that would narrow it down - the intention isn't to be accurate, it's to make money, and being as vague and broad as possible along with threatening language is the best way to make the most money.

[EDIT]: In addition it might be the ease of identification - an ISP can give a nice big list of which postal addresses were assigned which IP address - making bulk letter drops a simple process. MAC addresses may be (not sure) harder to attribute to a single defined address or location for the purpose of sending out letters, but I'm just stabbing in the dark there.

No, Australian Small business AREN'T flunking out online

Esskay

5 Areas for IT Growth

It's interesting that the 5 areas "that present opportunities for future growth" (ie aren't using IT as much as they should) are the ones that tend to be dominated by large companies or multinationals - it seems it's the big guys with large market share/little competition dragging their feet.

BOOM! Stephen Elop shuffled out of Microsoft door

Esskay

Re: "Chief insights officer"

hmm I don't know... "Chief Insights officer" sounds like where you put the unwanted office equipment...

"Why are we losing market share?

Why aren't people buying our products?

Why didn't we see this coming?"

*Entire boardroom turns to 'Chief Insights Officer'*

"erm...."

NASA: Check out this TWIRLY SPACE DWARF – and NEVER moan about our budget

Esskay
Thumb Up

This is where the fun starts...

It's amazing to think that these are the most detailed photos ever taken of the dwarf planet at the outer reaches of our solar system... and if all goes well, they'll continue to get better as the lil ship gets closer. And we've still got Pluto to come!

It's been a good 12 months for long distance probes!

Plane crash blamed on in-flight SELFIES

Esskay
Facepalm

Re: So wait

Yeah, I hate this vain selfie culture as much as the next person... but they're drawing a mighty long bow here, particularly when it's stated that they found no footage of the actual incident on the murder weap- sorry, camera.

BAE points electromagnetic projectile at US Army

Esskay
Mushroom

Can't wait to see photonicInduction get his hands on one of these

Archaeologists and robots on hunt for more Antikythera pieces

Esskay
Pint

"With two vessels, including the yacht Glaros..."

"Yeah, so I know we did this in 2012.... but....ummm.....there might still be bits down there....so...we absolutely *have* to take a yacht around the Greek Isles - it's for research, you see...

SpaceX FINALLY lobs six sats into orbit (don't mention the landing)

Esskay

first Learn to understand before commenting

It's always amusing when a commentard takes space exploration more seriously than the dude whose rocket just went (to use his words) "kaboom".

Esskay

Re: "(aka kaboom)"

It's about time "kaboom" and "body slam" made their way into space exploration parlance.

TV sales PLUMMET. But no one's prepared to say what we all know

Esskay

Re: They're living in the 90's

True, a PVR has added life to the TV, but the functionality usually comes from spending a couple of hundred on an extra box - not from splashing out a few grand on a new TV. Not to mention that you still have to wait for a show to air at it's programmed time before the PVR can grab it.

And a PVR might record 2 programs simultaneously, but my BitTorrent client can "record" a lot more ;)

Esskay
Thumb Down

They're living in the 90's

When TV was the only way to consume media, and when a shiny new TV came out everyone needed (wanted) it.

We've transitioned from kids wanting a TV in their rooms to kids being happy with a laptop/tablet/smartphone, not to mention the 24/7 avaliability of streaming content from the internet, and TV's reluctance to accept this fact. Even smart TVs make a clumsy effort to acknowledge the superiority of the internet when it comes to consuming media.

Tornado-chasing stealth Batmobile set to invade killer vortices

Esskay
Facepalm

What is it with Americans

And massive cars?

I'd have thought something that looked like an upturned saucer would be the best shape - not just with edges as close to the ground as possible, but with the smallest frontal (and side) area presenting itself to the wind - whilst armour plates close to the ground will stop wind getting under, the bluff sides of a Ford Van present a large area for wind to push against, increasing the likelihood of disaster (Not to mention providing a larger and more perpendicular target for any debris to hit).

Something smaller, lighter, shorter and with air suspension would be the most intelligent thing - increase ride height to drive through tornado-hit areas, before dropping down to touch the ground for enduring a tornado head on. The technology is pretty widespread these days too...

If you wanted even more security, a Brabham "Fan Car" solution would help - what little air did get under could be sucked out through the top (but would have to run constantly through the tornado, and probably has a high probability of debris getting sucked in and destroying the fan anyway).

Even better again, smaller "not-flying" upturned saucers (remote controlled, loaded with enough batteries for a few hours driving and full of cameras) that could be loaded onto a truck, offloaded quickly near a twister and move up to investigate the twister whilst relaying info back to the mothership (ie truck) could potentially provide more telemetry, footage and understanding at smaller risk to personnel.

Star Wars movie to start shooting in UK this summer

Esskay

Re: 'PLEASE... NOT Jar Jar Binks'

Perhaps they could find his grave, dig him up, burn him, then piss on the ashes? At the very least it'll make the fans happy (which means Lucas almost certainly won't do it).

Blighty goes retro with 12-sided pound coin

Esskay
Coat

I read that as "Dogecagon". much sides.

Fibre fanaticism overrode proper NBN planning says report

Esskay

Re: >lessening its focus on addressing black spots.

A problem with black spots for both sides of government is that they usually cover a small population in rural Australia - which means any cost/benefit analysis is going to come up "not worth it", and their political advisors will tell them the same thing.

It's too easy for any opposition to spin black spot spending into a white elephant/ poor decision making and so neither side will want anything to do with it.

Esskay

Re: Who wears duty of care ?

It opens the possibility of not needing a classroom - for kids in semi-regional areas who might not have access to high quality education, or kids with learning disabilities who struggle in a traditional school environment, high quality broadband opens up avenues for education where the kids don't even need to leave the house - and therefore are under their parent's legal supervision.

This city's smog is so TERRIBLE, people are told to stay indoors. Beijing? No – PARIS

Esskay

Proof

That there really are too many french people in France.

Remember when SimCity ABSOLUTELY HAD to be online? Not any more – fancy that!

Esskay

I think I've put about 5 hours into the game since I bought it just after launch. Might be time to fire it up again...

UNREAL, dude: Nvidia uncloaks Tegra K1 graphics monster for your mobile ... and CAR

Esskay

I can see it being useful for video camera side mirrors (something every manufacturer would want to have legislated as it cuts drag by something like 15%) and for augmented reality GPS hud - instead of looking at a screen you can get an arrow or highlighting over the exact exit or turn you're supposed to take as it approaches... definitely some great applications in cars in the future.

It's interesting that computing power in cars, whilst it has increased, hasn't seen the increase in capabilities or features that we've seen in, say mobile devices or home PCs. Hopefully that'll start to change as people see the benefits of computerised cars (as long as they can be built reliably/ with redundancy of necessary safety parts).

ENTIRE NBN BOARD offers to walk the plank: report

Esskay
Thumb Down

Re: Not shocked

"Only a fool that wasn't paying for it would refuse to see the need to use those tens of billions for something useful, such as hospitals, roads, educating cyclists to follow the road rules, etc. "

The entire NBN is OFF BUDGET. The "savings" *can't* be used for "hospitals, roads, etc" because that funding comes out of the budget. The FTTH plan worked because at the end of the project, you had an entire network to sell off for profit/keep to return revenue to the government and despite the investment, it would return more than what was put into it.

Keep in mind the coalition plan requires the use of an existing copper network *that the government no longer owns* - never in history has any country ever tried to roll out a FTTN network using *someone else's* privately owned copper that the government needs to acquire.

Also, FWIW, the "$40 billion, with hardly any fibre in the ground" is a fallacy, and anyone with any idea would know it - most of the spend so far has been backhaul and planning, both of which had to occur, and are being used by the coalition's plan.

The coalition were brought to power on the promise of faster rollout and cheaper rollout - with the entire board resigning, and new contracts having to be renegotiated (not to mention the need to get Telstra's copper) that's looking further and further from reality.

Korean stealth-scraper plans will turn 450 metre tower INVISIBLE

Esskay
Devil

The reason invisibility only lasts for 30 mins

Once a few dozen birds have smeared themselves into the side of the building, the illusion becomes somewhat less convincing

Apple beckons fanbois back into its golden era... of, er, 2010

Esskay

^This.

From the article:

"but some people report that the photo-mangling service rejected connections from the elderly devices."

So the oft -touted slogan about Apple products and how "it just works" goes out the window. Apple had a small and loyal fanbase for whom the latest and greatest was worth enduring the short amount of time products stayed ahead of the curve. This, along with the iPhone 5¢, seems to mark the end of the uber-successful Jobsian era, and the beginning of the relentless pursuit of market share under the Cooksian regime.

Cold-blooded, INHUMAN visitor hitches ride on NASA moon rocket

Esskay
Coat

Re: I can see the Reddit posts already

Check out the rocket launch, they said.

It'll be fun, they said.

Apple slugs Australia with iPhone tax

Esskay
Unhappy

In other news...

Water is wet, Pope is catholic, etc.... Once again Apple fulfill expectations. But not in a good way.

Turnbull floats e-vote, compulsory ID

Esskay

Thanks for the clarification :) Sadly I only discovered this on the night of the election - after I already voted, and I'll probably forget it by the time the next election comes around...

Esskay

Re: None of the above

I worked for the AEC a few years ago ticking names off and counting votes - the number of informal votes due to incorrect marking was probably lower than the number of donkeys drawn on ballot papers.

Esskay

According to Antony Green's blog, there's a 10% allowance of errors if voting below the line- if you put a number out of sequence or double up one or two numbers, the vote is still considered formal. You can also vote both above *and* below the line, and the below the line vote takes preference - if it's invalid, then the above the line vote counts.

Hands on, er, heads on: We take a gander at Sony's gaming goggles

Esskay
Coat

Re: It's a calling

Some people may have found the journalist's repitition amusing; the El Reg readership being somewhat varied.

It takes all sorts, I suppose.

Myst: 20 years of point-and-click adventuring

Esskay
Happy

I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time before someone remakes Myst in Minecraft.

Mother/daughter team jailed for million-dollar internet dating scam

Esskay

Re: or in this case

The older one looks a bit like Sara Goldfarb.

"HAROLD, I'M GOING TO BE ON TELEVISION"

We've cracked riddle of ANTIGRAVITY mountains on Saturn's Titan - boffins

Esskay
Coat

Re: Mega-Geodes!

You mean rocks?

<Mine's the one with Breaking Bad season 4 in the pocket

Limbaugh: If you hate Apple then you're a lefty blog-o-twat hipster

Esskay

I'm struggling

To see how anyone could consider a blogger to be "mainstream"?! Presumably it's purely so that he can claim it's "mainstream media" bias, rather than just something someone said on the internet...

Terror cops swoop on couple who Googled 'backpacks' and 'pressure cooker'

Esskay
Black Helicopters

Thank god for the war on Terror

We don't have anything to fear anymore!

Oh wait...

Study finds open-source home 3D printer could save $2,000 a year

Esskay

Labour cost

assuming the people making these objects are also doing at least *some* designing themselves, and uploading their efforts (isn't that what open source is all about? Give *and* take?) then the equivalent cost of labour needs to be factored in. There's no point in saving yourself $4.50 by designing and making your own garlic press if you had to take a day off work @$30p/h in order to design, refine and build it (not to mention learning CAD skills, how to operate/set up the machine, etc.

As a hobby it makes sense, hell I'd love to fiddle with one once the price becomes a bit more accessible, but as a true cost saving device the argument is very shaky.

A drone that can walk home

Esskay

awwwwww

It's like a cross between a terminator and a baby turtle.

Confirmed: Bezos' salvaged Saturn rocket belonged to Apollo 11

Esskay

Re: If the Cosmosphere were on I70....

According to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Numbered_Highways

It's very simple:

Numbering

The two-digit U.S. Routes follow a simple grid, in which odd-numbered routes run generally north to south and even-numbered routes run generally east to west. (US 101 is considered a two-digit route, its "first digit" being 10.) The numbering pattern for U.S. Routes is the reverse of that for the Interstate Highway numbers—U.S. Routes proceed from low even numbers in the north to high even numbers in the south, and from low odd numbers in the east to high odd numbers in the west. Numbers ending in 0 or 1 (and US 2[5]), and to a lesser extent in 5, were considered main routes in the early numbering, but extensions and truncations have made this distinction largely meaningless. For example, US 6 was until 1964 the longest route (that distinction now belongs to US 20). The Interstate Highway System's numbering grid, which has numbers increasing from west-to-east and south-to-north, is intentionally opposite from the U.S. grid, to keep identically numbered routes apart and to keep them from being confused with one another.[6]

Three-digit numbers are assigned to spurs of two-digit routes. US 201, for example, splits from US 1 at Brunswick, Maine, and runs north to Canada.[7] Not all spurs travel in the same direction as their "parents"; some are only connected to their "parents" by other spurs, or not at all, instead only traveling near their "parents". As originally assigned, the first digit of the spurs increased from north to south and east to west along the "parent"; for example, US 60 junctioned, from east to west, US 160 in Missouri, US 260 in Oklahoma, US 360 in Texas, and US 460 and US 560 in New Mexico.[8] As with the two-digit routes, three-digit routes have been added, removed, extended and shortened; the "parent-child" relationship is not always present. Several spurs of the decommissioned US 66 still exist, and US 191 travels from border to border, while US 91 has been largely replaced by Interstate 15 (I-15).[7][9]

Several routes approved since 1980 do not follow the numbering pattern:

US 400, approved in 1994, has no "parent" since there is no US 0 or US 100.[7]

US 412, approved c. 1982, is nowhere near US 12.[7]

US 425, approved in 1989, is nowhere near US 25.[7]

In addition, US 163, designated in 1970, is nowhere near US 63.[7][10] The short US 57, approved c. 1970, connects to Federal Highway 57 in Mexico, and lies west of former US 81.[7]

While AASHTO guidelines specifically prohibit Interstate Highways and U.S. Routes from sharing a number within the same state[11] (which is why there are no Interstates 50 or 60), the initial Interstate numbering approved in 1958 violated this with I-24 and US 24 in Illinois and I-40, I-80, US 40 and US 80 in California (US 40 and US 80 were removed from California in its 1964 renumbering).[9] Some recent and proposed Interstates, some of them out-of-place in the grid, also violate this: I-41 and US 41 in Wisconsin (which will run concurrently),[12] I-49 and US 49 in Arkansas,[7][13] I-69 and US 69 in Texas,[7][14] and I-74 and US 74 in North Carolina (which run concurrently).[15]

Some two-digit numbers have never been applied to any U.S. Route, including 39, 47, 86 and 88.

T-Rex tooth find shows dino may have been a pussy

Esskay

Great white sharks have rows and rows of teeth that routinely fall out/get lodged in prey - I'd hardly call one a pussy though. In the T-Rex's case it could have been the opposite of being a pussy - that scary motherf*cker might have walked around sinking it's teeth into everything that moved (if Jurassic Park is to be believed) regardless of whether it was too big/too small/not really hungry/etc. This one just got lucky/ something else came along/T-Rex got a headache/etc

Internet evildoers stitch together vile ransomware-survey scam chimaera

Esskay
Happy

So... That El Reg survey that just popped up - I should keep on ignoring it?

'Clippy' coup felled by Microsoft twitterati

Esskay

It's the punishment for mentioning Microsoft's share price in front of Ballmer.

Chromebooks now the fastest-growing segment of PC market

Esskay

Re: Marketing "research" BS

I've a friend who recently bought one - although not as "useful" as a fully fledged PC, they do what they can do extremely well - if you're interested in something you just want to do youtube/email/web/a bit of doc writing on, and don't want to lug a big/valuable piece of hardware around (valuable in both the financial and data sense) it makes sense. It's like a tablet, but without the wank. Or the price. A niche product, perhaps, but cheap enough that many can see if they're in that niche without a lot of outlay - I've got more friends who have bought tablets for more than triple the price, and openly admit that half the time they don't even know where it is.

I was also about to quote the same line that you quoted, for a somewhat similar reason - namely the idiocy of an analyst basically saying "before it launched we said it would tank, but now that it's selling well, we're predicting it's selling well". Being an analyst must be the most lenient job in the world, because even when you're stone-dead-wrong, you just have to "revise your outlook".

Apple adds Yves Saint Laurent CEO to executive team

Esskay
Joke

Re: iSuit?

I believe apple's legal team already own the rights to the iSuit, and it already more-or-less involves kicking one's self in the groin. Expect to hear from them soon.

Innovative solution to modern art found: Shoot it into space

Esskay

""The iron, metal and dust inside have been reformed, and the layers of its cosmic lifespan – the intermixing of space and time, the billions of years of pressure and change – have become collapsed, transformed and then, by the hand of human technology, renewed,” explains artist Katie Paterson, the brains behind this idea"

What a massive wank. Pretty sure most stoners have come up with more creative things to do whilst face down in their own vomit.

“These are important questions, and space exploration together with art are helping us answer them.”

“These are important questions, and space exploration is helping us answer them.”

fixed.

Schwarzenegger says 'I'll be back' for Terminator 5 reboot

Esskay
Terminator

Re: While time + gravity give no quarter

Looks like he was a T-1000 all along... the temp was just a bit too high that day.

British lord sets new world electric vehicle speed record

Esskay

Re: Crash

True, puncture risk is much higher - but there are methods of preventing punctures, kevlar blankets for one, carbon fibre casings, and battery design means they can be put in places unlikely to get punctured. The fact remains that it's only an issue because it's an alternative to what we're used to dealing with. If we had batteries for the last 100 years, developing and improving their safety continuously, the idea of putting combustible liquid in a tank next to the driver, which can potentially leak, crack, rust, or in the event of an accident, spill its contents onto the roadway, we'd probably see it as being a deadly option.

Not to mention the idea of getting the highly combustible fluid from the tank, under the car in a fuel line, into a hot engine bay, past a spark ignition system, next to a hot exhaust manifold and into a hot Cylinder head...

Voyager 1 'close' to breaking through to DEEP SPACE - boffins

Esskay

Re: Just think

But would the return postage costs be worth it?

Esskay
Joke

Re: This tiny vessel

"Only things that have a something around it can gape"

You say that now, but when voyager bumps into the backdrop you'll be sorry...

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