* Posts by DNTP

726 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jan 2014

Rocky Ross 128 b might harbour aliens – and it's headed right for us

DNTP

Re: "Everyone is gnoing to die!"

Have an gnupvote. That's what my uncensored posting looks like before the morning stimulants kick in.

DNTP

Alien Apocaplypse in 71 years!

Everyone is gnoing to die! Send me All you r Money!

DXC Tech asks staff to profile their skills

DNTP

Best way to handle this

If you're in charge of a team that's doing anything remotely critical, conspire so that everyone has a current CV available at all times. Loudly and defensively reassure the bastards in management that this is "normal" and not a prelude to massive synchronized resignations. Watch executive paranoia start to eat Swiss cheese holes in their little brains.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, look out for must-have toys that are 'easily hacked' ♪

DNTP

No electronic gizmos this Christmas

It's gonna be hatchets and machetes for the nephews then. Keep them away from anything to do with all this scary 'hacking'. Wait...

Boffins on alert: Brace yourselves for huge gravitational wave coming within a decade

DNTP

Gravity Apocalypse in Ten Years

Everyone is going to die! Send me all your money!

Shiver me timbers! 67cm Playmobil pirate ship sets sail for Caribbean

DNTP

Re: Hardtack

The one and only time I ever tried making the stuff was for a reenactment. I think mine came out slightly softer than the actual stuff. There was a little girl dressed as a pirate and I gave her a piece; I have seldom seen a more sorrowful look of betrayal ever aimed at my direction since.

DNTP

Re: Weather forecast

"Arr, Cap'n, all our food be hard as plastic."

Whomp. Intel's promised fatter Optane drive arrives

DNTP

There's a joke somewhere in that headline

I guess whatever an Optane is, it only has single bonding between carbon atoms. In other words, it could be called "saturated", as in a saturated fat. Fatter drives- just like in the headline! I'm amused. Well played Register.

Squeezing in little Quake between builds? Not any more: Facebook Bucks up Java compile tool

DNTP

"Soul-killing fountain of frustration"

I have no idea what it's like for you guys but at my place our official policy is that developers don't have souls. In between builds they just get stuffed back into their cloning tanks and when we need them later we just connect the coffee machine to the NUTRIENT INPUT port until the developer reactivates.

Uni staffer's health info blabbed in email list snafu

DNTP

How has no one fixed this

Techies who implement any kind of thought-process check step for an IT function inevitably get yelled at by the Director/CEO/President of their company that it's a huge inconvenience, and they either decide humanity isn't ready for the idea or they get canned.

Then their company appears in the tabloids for, say, the CFO wiring the company's entire balance of liquid funds to a Nigerian prince by accident, and then the inevitable executive spokesperson whining about how there should have been technological safeguards, etc.

DNTP

Re: What year is this?

I know a salesperson who was literally just fired for sending a lengthy quote intended for a single client with special financial qualifications, to what obviously was his entire customer mailing list.

NASA reconfirms 2019 will see first launch of Space Launch System

DNTP

Re: Kerbal

Many Kerbal parts- particularly the ones introduced around the Asteroid Redirect update way back in beta- are in fact modeled on real or planned NASA (or other) rocket components. The Quad superheavy lifter was specifically designed after the SLS unit.

Parity calamity! Wallet code bug destroys $280m in Ethereum

DNTP

Re: devops199 said they were a newbie

Here is the definitive way to handle gender pronouns at work:

1. Chain-read every single one of James White's Sector General novels in a single three day weekend (you may choose to skip The Galactic Gourmet) until you've internalized how they handle pronouns.

2. Go in to work, pretend you are at Sector General and all your coworkers are aliens, and just start referring to everyone as 'it'.

3. Try to explain step 1 and step 2 to a completely baffled HR rep.

DNTP

EORN hash implementation successful

Encrypt Once Read Never- because something broke and now you can't!

Let's get ready to grumble! UFC secretly choke slams browsers with Monero miners

DNTP

Alternative-context product lines

Everyone is thinking about this far too narrowly. What if we slightly altered the context of the situation, and instead surmised that UFC is actually a cyptocurrency mining operation, and what they are licensing is simply legitimate mining software? With the opportunity to pay to watch entertaining MMA matches on your device while it crunches numbers?

In this alternative narrative can we really say this is wrong.

That awkward moment when AWS charges you BEELLIONS for Lightsail

DNTP

I'd feel a whole lot better

if there was anything concrete in the article about how AWS clearly admitted specific instances of charges being in error and then hostages victims clients clearly providing anecdotes of not having to pay these bills.

EasyJet: We'll have electric airliners within the next decade

DNTP

Re: Small steps...

I'm not going to downvote you, but analyze each of your ideas as simply as possible so you understand maybe why so many people are being 'negative':

1. That's called a blimp or a rigid airship, not a plane. H2/He is lighter than air, but metal, people, and batteries are far, far proportionally denser than air. Therefore you need a massive volume of lifting gas relative to the aircraft, which becomes a whole new set of engineering problems beyond an airplane.

2. This is at least a plausible idea, but I would guess that given the weight of two sets of engines this wouldn't be worthwhile. A jet engine that can run on both hydrocarbons and by electricity seems like it would be too much of a compromise in either direction. Ground-assist takeoffs for short transits may be more practical, such as the plane drawing electrical power from the runway until it gets airborne or maybe even a scaled-up carrier slingshot.

3. That's called a 'battery', electrochemistry is the principle behind batteries, lots of chemists are always working on better ones, and wanting batteries that can be recharged seems to impose some engineering restrictions on what chemicals can be used.

Equifax CEO falls on his sword weeks after credit biz admits mega-breach

DNTP

Re: $18M payout???

Hopefully, falling onto 18 million dollars worth of swords. Maybe he can be like Scrooge McDuck, but swimming though a bin of sharpened steel instead of gold coins. That's a joke, I actually don't support the painful death penalty or the normal one either. But honestly anyone who accepts $18M after fucking up that bad doesn't really care about helping me keep that opinion.

DNTP

"We don't understand why this amazingly coincidentally timed and profitable transaction is receiving so much public ire," whined some high level executives currently under SEC investigation. "Just because hundreds of other men demographically exactly like us unlawfully obtained billions of dollars in situations extremely similar to this one and suffered mostly minimal consequences is no reason for the public not to trust us at this current time."

The executives went on to state that due to this misunderstanding, they were the true victims of the Equifax data breach crisis: "...[not] the little people, and their pitiful identities- who can tell one from the other anyway, they are all dirty unwashed sods... If there's a settlement or clawback, we'd better get the first pick at it, not the fucking useless proles... shit, was my mike on?"

Scared of that new-fangled 'cloud'? Office 2019 to the rescue!

DNTP

Small-minded men

Believe that if one dislikes, distrusts, finds practical fault with, has negative user experience with, or doesn't have practical business use for a particular technology, than one must be "scared" of it. As in, "scared of the cloud".

Also let's just take a census of the people in this building who are actually excited for new Powerpoint animations and then write a policy forbidding them to ever give presentations or lectures.

HPE sharpening the axe for 5,000 heads – report

DNTP

Re: Firing engineers and support techs will continue...

...until product engineering and customer satisfaction improves.

IT plonker stuffed 'destructive' logic bomb into US Army servers in contract revenge attack

DNTP

Step one: accept that logic bombing is unprofitable and you're going to get caught, then choose a target where the penalty for getting caught doesn't possibly include a trip to Guantanamo Bay.

Chatbots: A load of hype or fancy lifehack for the lazy IT person?

DNTP

Re: Oh God no...

Your predictions are likely spot on except for one thing: The companies deploying these customer service travesties will abuse the legal system to keep the videos and recordings off Youtube.

Bloke fesses up: I forged judge's signature to strip stuff from Google search

DNTP

When he reports to prison:

"Hey, uh, look, I was supposed to start my sentence today, but they granted me a super early release thanks to my selfless community service of exposing how little effort it takes to subvert Google's takedown process.

See, the judge's signature is on it and everything. Bye!"

VMworld schwag heist CCTV didn't work and casino wouldn't share it

DNTP

Libertarian Cyberpunk RPG come to life

The Suit looks disdainfully across the table at the party, clearly attempting to disguise his discomfort at physically visiting the Lower Vault. "You guys weren't worth the credits for a secure connection," he sneers. "But this job shouldn't take more than a few no-grids, as long as you've got a Lockpicker, a Stealther, and a Camjammer. It's a casino job, but all you're grabbing are some fliers, not anything under real security."

The Stealther pulls out her knife and absentmindedly scratches a circuit diagram into the table. "That's worth?" she whispers doubtfully. "Lets just grab his wallet."

The Heavy turns to her and rumbles, not caring if the Suit across the table hears. "His wallet's lighter than an empty mag. Remember, to his handlers, HE's not worth a secure connection EITHER."

Equifax's IT leaders 'retire' as company says it knew about the bug that brought it down

DNTP

Re: admin/admin

Never mistake incompetence for incompetence.

Mad scientist zaps himself to determine the power of electric eel shocks

DNTP

Once More, With Eeling

I can understand the researcher doing the eeldance once, but multiple times? Come on man, that's why you have graduate students!

Also, the circuit diagram shows the improper practice of touching the eel with the inside, or thumb-facing side of one's arm. Proper safety protocol demands the use of the outside, or pinky-facing, side of one's arm so that the involuntary contraction of one's muscles, should such an incident occur, will automatically move the arm in a direction that breaks the circuit.

Would you get in a one-man quadcopter air taxi?

DNTP

Re: It won't let you out. Or land...

Let me tell you a story of a man named Charlie:

Every day his wife goes to Kendall Square with a potato cannon and fires a sandwich straight up in the air so Charlie can catch it as the drone he is condemned to ride for eternity passes overhead. Moral of the story: Don't use Paypal because they'll randomly lock your account mid-flight and then you can't pay the landing fee.

Pennsylvania cops deploy electronics sniffer dog to catch child abusers

DNTP

I'm waiting for the day

When a police officer argues before a judge, with a straight face, that his K-9 hero on a leash next to him can not only smell out hidden digital storage, but also that it can detect hidden storage specifically containing illicit pornography. The capacity thereof never confirmed with a rigorously double-blind scientific study, but anecdotally "in his experience as an officer of the law."

And the judge either nods ignorantly, or winks and smirks, and slaps his signature on the search warrant.

DNTP

Re: Probable cause

I think Homeland Scrutiny and the Theatrical Security Administration will not take such an extreme position that any dog hit on any electronic device will be enough to confiscate and search the device on the grounds that, being electronic, it might contain underage material. These organizations have show to act with discretion and common sense toward threats and civil liberties in the past and to suddenly take such a stance would be out of character for- Who the fuck am I kidding, they would do this in an instant.

Amazon crowd-sources new HQ location, Bezos tells mayors to woo him

DNTP

Hey Amazon

Come to Boston, we are super god damn friendly. Some of you think I'm lying. The truth is that Boston friendship is like Boston driving- directionless, reckless and frequently screaming obscenities. I go out to San Fran, Seattle- why are all these people being nice? Why do they walk so slowly everywhere? How the hell does anything get done on time? Anyway this is the best place so just get out here already.

Close Encounters of the Kuiper Belt kind: New Horizons to come within just 3,500km of MU69

DNTP

Re: Another duckie?

It is (or might be) a rounded oval with a smaller round object offset attached at one end which I gather is not an uncommon shape for two asteroids that had a low energy collision and merging. All it takes is one person to say "duck" in an attempt to conceptualize an abstract, duck-unrelated shape, and then human pattern recognition being what it is everyone will be thinking "duck". Brain sure loves its shortcuts.

Unable to give up on life on Mars, bio-boffins now thrilled to find boron

DNTP

I found borates

...in my lab. But no life was observed. I suspect it will spontaneously generate at 9am when the workday starts. Using that model, we should send coffee and donuts to Mars- that always seems to stimulate the prompt emergence of technologists around here.

Dear rioters: Hiding your face with scarves, hats can't fool this AI system

DNTP

Unfortunately no footage of the alleged events could be recovered from the bodycams and dashcams of the officers involved due to technical malfunctions. Businesses with security cameras were visited by officers who investigated diligently before concluding that by coincidence all tapes/recordings at that time were missing.

Flying electric taxi upstart scores $90m from investors

DNTP

If the vertical stabilizer is not needed due to active thrust modification

What is the backup plan for when the power goes off, other than tumbling out of control?

Edit: ah yes from the video "A parachute for the whole aircraft". The typical second resort of the Kerbal Space Program builder who realizes that a great plane design is not traditionally landable (the first resort is accepting that Kerbal pilots are expendable).

It's happening! Official retro Thinkpad lappy spotted in the wild

DNTP

Re: Screw 16:10

But you see, the wider the screen is, the better for working on Word documents. The width gives you more room for the toolbars, persistent menus, widgets, assistants, and productivity thingies that multiply with each release.

Deputy AG Rosenstein calls for law to require encryption backdoors

DNTP

Re: An unbreakable backdoor would be nice

According to the law, usage of the backdoor would be only permitted by law enforcement. Also to guarantee the well known concept of "security by obscurity", backdoored software would be classified as "munitions" and made illegal to export to other countries. Practically, usage and specific knowledge of backdoors would be limited only to cases vital to national security and not made available to local agencies to access people's phones without securing warrants- ok, yeah I can't keep going.

When uploading comments to the FCC, you can now include malware

DNTP

Never confuse incompetence for malice

Unless, of course, one has reason to believe Pai and the Puppets desire another 'plausible' reason to discredit public commentary on net neutrality, and have an excuse to cast the entire neutrality movement as saboteurs and criminals who just want to keep their attack platform.

Police deny Notting Hill Carnival face recog tech led to wrongful arrest

DNTP

Nothing wrong with being "wrongfully" arrested

They just check them out and let them go, right? It's not like they missed part of an event they paid for, or had their liberty restricted without cause, or were held for hours or days in a cell, or have to tick the "Yes I've been arrested" box on a job application for the rest of their lives, or have their image and biometrics (illegally?) stored in a leaky police cloud server until the sun explodes, right?

Living in space basically shoves a warp drive into your blood stream

DNTP

This is some really useful medical science

Entropy always wins, and the longer it plays, the more it wins. Practically, that means in a contained, long-duration environment, every chemical in that system will inevitably become part of that environment. This includes things like life-support chemicals, scientific experiments, and working fluids for the electrical/mechanical/thermal systems. Proactively taking measures to prevent the development of allergic reactions to these sources- before they are inescapably stuck in a pod with them for months or years- will probably save lives.

Two million customer records pillaged in IT souk CeX hack attack

DNTP

Hashed... but not complex

Them damn data bandits done stolen auntie's 'English style potatoes' recipe. The bastards.

Scientists measure magnetic field around most distant galaxy yet

DNTP

Re: Not So Hard

In one of the old Marathon FPS games, there was some worldbuilding text about an ancient race that tried to measure the width of the universe by building two giant spacecraft that moved in opposite directions while forging and stretching an iron chain between them.

You are them and they are you. I am Durandal and by escaping the closure of the universe I will be a god.

IT worker used access privs to steal £1m from Scottish city council

DNTP

Scotsman steals a million pounds?

No true Scotsman would steal a million pounds.

Fewer than half GCSE computing students got a B or higher this year

DNTP

Re: Teaching IT doesn't have enough money

You've hit the nail on the head.

BIOLOGY: The subject that they couldn't pay me enough to teach. Literally. Because the maximum salary cap after ten years of service is below the current annual cost of living, and partly that's because of all the biotech companies in the city. And yet every year since 2006 I get a call from my university asking for monetary donations, and then trying to guilt me into taking a public career.

Headless body found near topless beach: Missing private sub journalist identified

DNTP

Making light of tragedy

Usually I enjoy The Reg's style of snappy headline. This time it's completely inappropriate. There is absolutely nothing funny about this story.

So you're planning on outsourcing some enterprise security

DNTP

Re: Unless it is the blind leading the blind

I have a state license as a private security guard, as well as chemical safety and hazmat shipping certifications. I also formerly worked in general IT. This does not make me an IT security expert no matter how much my employer would like to be able to not pay other people to do this.

What weighs 800kg and runs Windows XP? How to buy an ATM for fun and profit

DNTP

Feed me a stray cat

Oh my god, what are you doing, stop that.

I say, BING DONG! Microsoft's search engine literally cocks up on front page for hours

DNTP

Re: muhaha

MI6 Analyst: Sir, we just got a report about a giant-

Professor: Dong. PhD, reproductive biochemistry, University of Seoul 2013. Please give our guest lecturer a university welcome as he presents his groundbreaking work on-

Doctor: Fruit and veggies.

Patient: But I'm an Englishman, can't I eat lard and chip butties instead?

Doctor: Not if you want to be able to look down past your belly and see your-

TV: Batter blaster! Just load and fire and its pancakes for breakfast in no time at all! Attention men forty and over! When romance strikes, are you having trouble with your-

MI6 Supervisor: Peter! Switch off your TV, we have a report to go through!