Posts by Captain DaFt

Re: No contest

> "My vote for best goes to Bab5."

> And mine goes to Battlestar Galactica.

Pfft! Firefly was best.

Re: "it doesn't work"

"And no funky working lightsabers. Sometimes, reality sucks."

It's not an issued item.

To become a full fledged Sith (or Jedi) you're supposed to build your own lightsaber from scratch.

@ Sanctimonious Prick

Pro tip:

Refrain from eating and drinking while reading El Reg comments.

- "make insert pci correct" was my favourite.-

Mine was: "Warning! Low battery may cause errotic(sic) function"

Re: Confused units

"Perhaps someone in this thread has had their mind twisted enough to tell me why a raven is like a writing desk?"

Oh, that's simple: The notes that they're normally noted for are not musical notes.

Re: post from someone from Texas

"highest point in Texas"

Some would argue (mostly from Arkansas) That the highest point in Texas is the sign that says, "You are now leaving Texas".

FWIW, I've been to Texas, and still can't understand how someplace so far south can get so freakin' cold in the winter!

Re: Confused

"and if NASA's various mishaps are anything to go by, they still seem a bit schizophrenic about it."

Well, the Kasson Act officially adopted the metric system into the US in 1866, but I'm afraid they've been a bit of a negligent parent.

Re: Don't give me no static ...

Wintergreen lifesavers are best. The wintergreen oil in them really lights up!

Re: Maybe we don't need too many humans in space yet...

"and then we did nothing much ever since"

Every time I contemplate that humans are currently limited to Earth (ISS at a mere 400Km high still counts as 'on Earth' to me), but (semi)intelligent machines are exploring every nook of the solar system, and beyond, the X-files theme starts playing in my head.

Gesundheit!

Re: Last I read...

"In addition, at what point do you say that, to all intents and purposes, the feckers have won?"

October 26, 2001, when the USA PATRIOT Act of Congress was signed into law by President George W. Bush.

Re: Welll . . .

If you're a British taxpayer, looks like you've just been!

Re: Believing BT bollocks

"These figures result in population densities of about 17,000 per sq mile and 52 per sq mile respectively.

At which location is it (a) easier, and (b) economic, to provide high - speed broadband to individual customers?"

Depends. Which one is the company being reluctant to do?

If Urban: Negotiating right of ways and permissions is prohibitively expensive and time consuming. We should be nearing completion sometime in the next decade. It's far easier to install in the rural areas, where there is more public right of way and fewer permissions needed.

Ir Rural: It is cost prohibitive due to sparse population to reach every household in a timely manner. We should be nearing completion sometime in the next decade. This would be far easier in Urban areas, where population density is higher.

Re: "although wikipedia states"

"IIRC you are not supposed to use Wikipedia as a source, but to go to the citations."

And it doesn't hurt to check that the citations don't just end up referencing Wikipedia!

Yes, Jiun-Haw Lee has revealed that he is Captain Obvious!

He will soon find himself at the mercy of The Obfuscation Overlord!

Re: "There's more premium original content than consumers can even watch."

"If it's always been the case, broadly speaking, that only 3% of TV was worth watching,"

From my perspective, you're being very, very generous.

For my entire lifetime, I can count the number of must see shows on one hand, and still have a finger left over*, and probably another dozen shows, at best, that were worth wasting time on.

*And those were animation, AKA cartoons.

It's funny how so called 'Children's shows' actually aim at a higher mental level than crime dramas, sit-coms, 'reality' shows,and and other so called 'Adult fare.**

**You were expecting a joke about which finger, weren't you?

Re: A new meaning to

Really? Wile E. Coyote's only ever been a danger to himself.

I would have thought this Fustercluck more along the wiles of Larry, Moe, and Curly.

Re: A Question of style

"For some reason everyone lost interest after that."

Simple, easy and functional; anathema for a modern 'Usability Designer'! ☺

Re: Maybe if Gwyneth started selling carbon-fiber movie tickets...

Nah, the theatre would need to pass out copious amounts of "High level spirits" to have that effect.

Re: Punishment

What did the sharks do to you that you'd want to punish them this way?

Re: How would Storm know?

"they could always try asking me :D"

Well, stateside, there's a reason there's not many exit polls:

"According to our latest exit poll numbers, Fuckoff has a 27% lead over Pissoff, with Gotohell trailing."

Re: There are alternatives

"You have alternatives and your choices are getting richer every day."

Is that another dig at Oracle's pricing? And you work for them? Brave!

Re: Hmm

"Looking even further ahead, build some kind of ad server into the phone, which downloads targetted ads in advance when plugged into the mains and using wifi, and delivers them effortlessly during the day when you are on battery and a mobile connection."

There's a word for that.

If I discover any device in my possession doing that, it will immediately become very tiny bits of ex-device!

Re: Sod it

"time to dust off my old Amiga"

Ugh, if you think Microsoft is a pain to deal with, try dealing with the half dozen or so* competing companies that allegedly support Amiga Software/hardware these days. It's enough to drive you to doing computing on clay tablets with cuneiform!

*The number is always changing due to lawsuits, bankruptcies, buy outs, and just plain disappearing with with your money.

"I detect a sixth sense...."

As in: "I see unfed people"?

Re: Stupid is as stupid does

"It boggles my grey matter that companies of this size are still making silly security mistakes."

It's my observation that the bigger the company, the more they adhere to the mantra: "Do it cheap, deliver it yesterday, fix it someday." that tends to produce results like this.

Re: Only 1 million?

"Hmm, I don't know. Can we handle a war with mightily pissed off Martians?"

So you're saying that fossilized bacteria will reanimate and crash evolve into interplanetary warriors if we send Trump to Mars?

Geez, he's bad, but not quite that bad... I hope!

-that when I reply "Two days, including testing, once I've finished this epic piece of coding I'll get straight onto it for you." I get "I could do that in Excel in, like, an hour".-

"Then why are you pestering me for it, then?"

Re: New forms of "encryption" introduced EVERY DAY

"The bad guys will assume that you are reading the mail, and work something else out."

Well, I'm no evil genius, and here's what I came up with off the top of my head:

Use emojis as code characters and send messages in Mayan script.*

At least that way, those annoying little pictograms would actually be useful! ☺

*Seriously, give that page a read. Those Mayans really knew how to obfuscate their text!

Re: I think we need to know...

"I'm sure there are men out there getting ads for pregnancy testing kits."

Back when I got lots of spam, Breast enhancement spam ran neck and neck with \/iagra spam.

I guess my lack of personal info on the web caused them to hedge their bets. ☺

Re: I don't see problem with hard-coded knowldge

No problem.

But the babies will go through life expanding their knowledge beyond their original instincts.

This 'AI' is like the maze robot that's just hardwired to turn 90 degrees left when it encounters a wall. It navigates the maze, but learns nothing.

Think misdirection about the real purpose of the additive.

I don't think it's real purpose is to stop the counterfeiting, but a quick way to spot the non distorting counterfeits.

"The 2000 or so staff who are about to be "Resource Actioned", won't consider Mayer's reign to have been "inspiring", at all."

Oh, I'm sure she's inspired them to create a few oaths/curses/epithets of their own for her.

Re: Everyone is missing the important issue here...

worse: "Pineapple!?!? I keeell you!"