* Posts by MyffyW

2013 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2013

Northrop Grumman throws hat in the ring to design NASA's next-gen Lunar Terrain Vehicle

MyffyW Silver badge

Fail Fast

@aristotles_donkey I wish you well with that very Agile testing phase. I went through something similar in my late teens.

Ubuntu desktop team teases 'proof of concept' systemd on Windows Subsystem for Linux

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: @karlkarl - I don't think so!

Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire:

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

A 'national security' issue: UK.gov blocks Nvidia's Arm deal for now, inserts deeper probe

MyffyW Silver badge

The only trial that Nadine has shown aptitude for is that conducted in the Australian jungle presided over by Ant and Dec, for which she trousered £20,228 whilst absent from parliament.

I hope her judgement on company law proves more sound.

Tech bro CEOs claim their crowns because they fix problems. Why shirk the biggest one?

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: But it's up to us

6 quid daughter card for my Samsung A40 fixed a wobbly power connector. Even throwing in the half hour of labour from my fair hands it was way cheaper (for me and Gaia) than a replacement that actually wouldn't have been much better in spec.

As a sidenote: my previous 2016 Samung J5 can still run security-sensitive apps, although it does require a little bit of patience as they load.

MyffyW Silver badge
Linux

Re: But it's up to us

Zoom (and Google Classroom) run fine on my 2009 Dell. You don't need to ask which OS it uses do you .... ?

Now that's a splash down: Astronauts spend 8-hour trip to Earth in diapers after SpaceX capsule toilet breaks

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: I'm sure BOEING would have gotten the toilets to work

The 787 that last took me to Disneyland had a toilet largely held together with silver gaffer tape, which I took at the time as a pragmatic response to an in-service failure. The fact that the same gaffer tape was in place on the return 14 days later suggested this was either a very common occurrence or TUI simply couldn't afford to take the aircraft out of service for repairs. Perhaps they should have issued a pair of TENA pants and complementary tub of Sudocrem?

Locked up: UK's Labour Party data 'rendered inaccessible' on third-party systems after cyber attack

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Let there be smug....

An attack on the leader of said party could possibly be taken in that way. But a cyberattack on the Widdecombe-under-Moped* local conservative association's annual jam-making contest, possibly less so.

[* a fictional village in Geoffrey the tube train and the fat commedian and not a besmirchment of the one-time Minister for Prisons]

What a Mesh: Microsoft puts Office in the Loop, adds mixed reality tech to Teams

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: 12 step process

was the first step admitting you have a problem?

It's the 12th one that involves signing up for a 3 year Enterprise Agreement that is the most painful...

Zuckerberg wants to create a make-believe world in which you can hide from all the damage Facebook has done

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: "If this is the future you want to see..."

Reagan and his ilk started from an abject horror at what big government did in Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR and then drew a free-hand extrapolation to any government initiative.

Sentimentally I would prefer a small, effective government (P J O'Rourke's guard the coastlines and let UPS deliver the mail), but I'd always emphasize the effective over the small.

Facebook posts job ad for 10,000 'high-skilled' roles to 'build the metaverse' – and they'll all be based in the EU

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Faecesbook are getting involved

I know ... I mean I was more than happy to pop my metaverse cherry in intriguing ways on Linden Labs, but the idea that that my Uncle Knobhead would find out about my antics in a Facepalm-derived construct is highly unappealing.

Windows 11 in detail: Incremental upgrade spoilt by onerous system requirements and usability mis-steps

MyffyW Silver badge

Chloe and Fred would build a better OS. I think Hamble went on to study software engineering at Leicester Poly.

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Notepad

ty @Pigeon, appreciate your public spirited suggestions, indeed I have Notepad++.

Moaning for the sake of it? I resemble that remark :-)

MyffyW Silver badge

If my Windows 10 build had Notepad or Paint I'd be happy. Well not happy, exactly. Just slightly less pissed off....

Pretend starship captain to take trip in real space capsule

MyffyW Silver badge

Uhura to orbit

Elon should up the stakes, transporting Nichelle Nichols (Lt Uhura) comfortably into orbit and back down again.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the BBC stage a very British coup to rescue our data from Facebook and friends

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: BBC

As a contrarian, the Beeb frequently annoys me, which probably proves your point. It's not perfect, but it's better than all the other forms of state media that I've seen.

Microsoft warns: Active Directory FoggyWeb malware being actively used by Nobelium gang

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: There has been major eventful development ... for media to deal with

@amanfrommars1 have an upvote for the use of multiple interobangs. Can there be a brighter start to ones day(‽)

More than three years after last release, X.Org Server 21.1.0 RC1 appears

MyffyW Silver badge

Agree X is still there, although I did have to check - wondered if I'd missed the memo or something...

Fix network printing or keep Windows secure? Admins would rather disable PrintNightmare patch

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: What is affected?

Printing direct from PC to network printer without a print queue sounds great until you want to handle the "follow me" printing that most users now expect. Or have load balancing of print queues. Or reporting on overall print volume and type.

This nightmare is probably the biggest Microsoft clusterfsck of my long and inglorious career, because months after the original problem they are still unable to offer a reliable patch.

Forget that Loon's balloon burst, we just fired 700TB of laser broadband between two cities, says Alphabet

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: X

+1 for frickin lasers and another +1 for avoiding the river where the endangered sharks live.

WTF? Microsoft makes fixing deadly OMIGOD flaws on Azure your job

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: "fixing deadly OMIGOD flaws on Azure your job"

Ah "responsibilities that remain with the customer" ... it's the Calrissian conjecture of cloud hosting.

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair: British home computer trailblazer dies aged 81

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Literally a legend

Jack Tramiel's products were my introduction, but I was always amazed at the invention, innovation and lateral thinking from Sir Clive.

This is AUKUS for China – US, UK, Australia reveal defence tech-sharing pact

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Tiananmen, Hong Kong, Uyghurs

@AC I celebrate Chinese economic success. I'd just like my Chinese friends to be able to ask certain questions, commemorate certain events or practice any religion without persecution.

Amazon says Elon Musk's wicked, wicked ways mean SpaceX's Starlink 2.0 should not be allowed to fly

MyffyW Silver badge
Coat

All this has happened before...

Tesla, Edison.... all we need now is a pandemic respiratory tract infection, a moribund economy and a crisis of confidence in western democracy ... oh dear, mine's the one with a copy of On Liberty in the pocket.

Spring tears down math geek t-shirt listing because it dared to mention the trademarked word 'zeta'

MyffyW Silver badge

What about Troy, who tells me he's just here to fix the refrigerator?

More cracks found in Russian annex of the International Space Station

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: It is an old module

Perhaps some two-armed enormo-module could hold the two parts just far enough apart to insert a replacement? I know it sounds bonkers, but there is at least one crazy billionaire who has the rocketry to launch massive chunks of metal into space.

Windows 11 will roll out from October 5 as Microsoft hypes new hardware

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Eh?

Won't run on 7th gen Intel Core? I write on a perfectly serviceable 3rd generation Intel machine. But then I got to choose what OS I put on it, and it hasn't been Windows for many a long year.

International Space Station actually spun one-and-a-half times by errant Russian module's thrusters

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: There is something they did tell us

Every nation has their euphemism .. in British English "tired and emotional" means the same.

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: cant help it

My casual habit of reading and mild dyslexia achieved the same morphing.

MyffyW Silver badge

Or...

Carly Simon - Coming around again

US govt calmly but firmly tells Blue Origin it already has a ride to the Moon's surface with SpaceX, thanks

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Go Fever

Really unfair - it achieved 10 minutes of weightlessness for the inspirational Wally Funk, an over-privileged youth, a rich twat and said twat's brother.

Right to repair shouldn't exist – not because it's wrong but because it's so obviously right

MyffyW Silver badge

Right to upgrade

Recently doubled the RAM on my desktop PC with a simple clip-in of a DIMM. If only my daughters iBoxen would have such an easy path.

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Nothing new

Even the push-bike is like this - friend of mine had a problem with his brakes and first up was advised to sell his bike as the cost of repair was uneconomic. After the local bike shop took a look it turned out they were fixable for not much more than the cost of a couple of inner tubes.

AWS growing so fast its revenue makes it bigger than Cisco or HP

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Get them Pitch Forks out!

Despite using a cloud provider or two in my daily beeswax, I, for one, don't welcome our cloudy overlords.

Happy birthday, Sinclair Radionics: We'll remember you for your revolutionary calculators and crap watches

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Oddly...

Turn the wheel configuration the other way round (two at the front, one at the back) and you're probably onto something.

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Calculator

"In typical Sinclair style" - cheap black plastic, beige and brown polyester?

Microsoft abandons semi-annual releases for Windows Server

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: now if only

Having cut my teeth (and broken the odd nail) on NT4 about 6 months before I first used Linux, I couldn't agree more, Nate Amsden.

But this is the difference between Microsoft ("Thou Shalt") and GNU/Linux ("It's your choice").

Steam-powered computers: Retro cool or old and busted?

MyffyW Silver badge
Alert

Re: Twenty years from now...

Come The Great Reset absence of 240v AC after might be a problem. Stick to a Raspi and at least you'll be able to power it from a phone charger, assuming you are willing to barter food or sexual favours with the feudal overlords.

</ApocalypticFearMongering>

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Magic Roundabout

Well the best advice I can give is to stop 100yds before and ask Florence and Ermintrude.

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: "who wouldn't enjoy a go on a steam train simulator?"

Another vote from me for the Severn Valley Railway and Bridgnorth-Kidderminster. It's the only steam railway I've seen a herd of elephants from.

In the '80s, satellite comms showed promise – soon it'll be a viable means to punt internet services at anyone anywhere

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Can't wait...

I've been tempted to propose an exam before people are allowed to vote, but I recognise I might be getting a bit Old Testament in my dotage.

Good news: Jeff Bezos went to space. Bad news: He's back

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Executive Summary

@Danny_2 oh the joys of explaining Welsh pronunciation. A common mistake is someone pronouncing the final syllable "-way" rather than "-wee". Plenty of toilet humour potential there.

On other occasions the "w" gets missed. Once thought of inviting some Indian colleagues round for a fry-up but the thought of "Breakfast at Miffany's" was too much to bear.

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Executive Summary

There is no getting away from the fact that New Shepard looks like a sex toy. Not one I'd care to insert, but very definitely dong-shaped.

SpaceX does not remind me of such a thing, although "Falcon Heavy" is now my favourite term for certain days of the month.

I don't get the comparisons between VSS Unity and a vagina. And I am something of an expert in these matters. Branson himself, on the other hand is a proper .... well I'll see you next Tuesday.

Richard Branson uses two planes to make 170km round trip

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My latent dyslexia first read that as virginobit and I was thinking "wow, that's a bit dark"

Smuggler caught with 256 Intel Core processors wrapped around him in cling film

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Polynomials

Something tickled me about there being 256 processors smuggled - as if powers of 2 are some how the natural order.

Radioactive hybrid terror pigs have made themselves a home in Fukushima's exclusion zone

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Three words:

Fukushima Terror Pigs!

Right on, El Reg!

Still giggling even now....

Former NASA astronaut and Shuttle boss weigh in on fixing Hubble Space Telescope

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: He's dead Jim

Damn it Jim, I'm an engineer not a doctor!

MyffyW Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: So you're telling me there's a chance

In fairness el reg do have a "coffee spilt on keyboard" icon, which is somehow more appropriate

As an eternally optimistic flapper, I hear "Robot Arm, Airlock, 6 people" as a challenge I'm sure certain private enterprises are equal to.

Leaked print spooler exploit lets Windows users remotely execute code as system on your domain controller

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: Again?

Indeed, @Binky, used that backdoor a couple of times on a workstation.

Which is why - when the century was still new - I had a server hardening procedure that disabled the print spooler on DCs and other boxen that didn't require it.

Three things that have vanished: $3.6bn in Bitcoin, a crypto investment biz, and the two brothers who ran it

MyffyW Silver badge

Re: How untraceable, exactly?

@fajensen as a conspiracy theory your proposition is most entertaining in that it fits with the scant facts. I like the speculative fiction possibilities this opens up.

Stop. Look... Install Linux? The Reg solves Microsoft's latest Windows teaser

MyffyW Silver badge

My wild guess: Windows to be a window manager and desktop environment atop a GNU/Linux OS (Debian for preference).