* Posts by Rick Brasche

522 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Aug 2007

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Tesla driver dies after Model S hits tree

Rick Brasche

interesting

so if a low volume Ford crashes do we let Ford investigate the whole thing and then let Ford release the results?

Wouldn't that be the same as letting GM do all the ignition key investigations and let GM release the findings?

Would people find that a little bit shady or at least suspect?

An anniversary to remember: The world's only air-to-air nuke was fired on 19 July, 1957

Rick Brasche

Re: Second Aircraft - England be Proud !

I wasn't even aware there was an American/"B" version of the Canberra-I was only aware of the British version. Shows what I know

Rick Brasche

every arcade junkie is well versed in these

I ran 3 silos of these for the sole purpose of intercepting incoming warheads. Many quarters were sacrificed for Missile Command. Catch the incoming in the blast radius and make sure ya don't run out!

Behold the ROBOT RECTUM... medics' relief

Rick Brasche

and there goes the youthful mispronunciation

been hearing young children mispronounce "robot" as "robut" most of my life, to which many parents have corrected them with the response of "there is no such thing as a robut".

their objection is no longer valid. the Robutt does exist!

Sterling's post-Brexit dollar woes are forcing up tech kit prices

Rick Brasche

and yet still

yet still superior to the dollar. and when I try to find something about where the Euro is post Brexit all I get is pages of google results talking about the pound sterling. Best I can find is "forecasts" but I want to see what happened "the day of" and it's positively BURIED. Best I see is Euro vs dollar and while theres a huge spike "the day of" as currency speculators jumped in, there's a drop right after.

If Brexit was such a bad thing why is the Euro *stronger* against the dollar for the last week than before?

when our President or other world leaders announce something and there's market drops, we're told its about "covering ones bases" or "ignorance" or "reactionary" or any sort of dismissive term when those in the biggest echelons of power and money want to promote whatever is spoken of.

When something those Consortiums do not wish to see happens and there is an economic drop suddenly it's "indicative" and "proves" that whatever happened was a "bad thing".

Post Brexit fecal deposition is because a lot of money and power players are finding they have less control than they did before, and their subsidiary mouthpieces are here to make the peons believe it.

An organization that created the money first, then the trade agreements, then a few years later bothered to start thinking about a Constitution that the people would live under and potentially be protected by, anyone with memory not ruined by social media or recreational chemicals knows the order of priority as this was established.

the hype and intentional confusion between the EU and NATO is just another bit of icing on the FUD cake.

Norway might insist on zero-emission vehicles by 2025

Rick Brasche

Re: Zero-emission vehicles

electric bicycles. even just a kilowatt means some pretty impressive speeds and range on a bicycle sized platform. Enough for most people to actually commute and get to work on weird hours or to runs in to replace a missing co worker on a moments' notice, things regular working folk deal with on a normal basis. Most of the benefits of the bicycle with the speed of a NEV. Or more if you follow some home builders LOL

Norks' parade rocket fails to fly, again

Rick Brasche

it's all fun and games

until one actually works.

A cracked window on the International Space Station? That's not good

Rick Brasche

kids with BB guns

gonna shoot someone's space station window out with that!

Cops deploy StingRay anti-terror tech against $50 chicken-wing thief

Rick Brasche

actually, it's used almost all the time

you only hear admissions of its use when the evidence from the wide area surveillance is needed for a case. the rest of the time it's slurping quietly away hoping to get something useful. If the trolling net doesn't bring in any fish, you won't hear about it at all.

Back up the trucks for Zuck's bucks: Facebook revenues up 52 per cent

Rick Brasche

makes me wonder

if the companies selling the products and paying for ads are seeing significant sales increases/returns on all these $billions$ that actually justify the constant expenses, or is the advertising Emperor still naked and too much inertia keeps the adclick industry from failing?

SpaceX's Musk: We'll reuse today's Falcon 9 rocket within 2 months

Rick Brasche

Almost perfect

needs a bit more flare and some garish colors on the thing, and then we're finally in Buck Rogers territory. :)

Sick to death of mighty rocket launches? Avoid these dates

Rick Brasche

if anyone is truly sick of these launches

then you simply can't be my friend anymore :P

Apple fires legal salvo at FBI for using All Writs law in iPhone brouhaha

Rick Brasche

Come see the violence inherent in the system!

Help help, I'm being repressed! -Apple

Land Rover Defender dies: Production finally halted by EU rules

Rick Brasche

"ironically"..

those who created and pushed for those regulations that eliminated future Defenders, are the ones that will be doing their damndest to buy them up for themselves, and be able to afford them even as prices skyrocket. because they "deserve" better than the rest of us.

Watch: SpaceX Dragon capsule breathes fire during crucial hover test

Rick Brasche

Next up for SpaceX...

1) Launch Falcon Heavy with bigger more powerful second stage.

2) pack SuperDraco with instrumentation and an autonomous rover (sourced from Tesla)

3) soft land it on the Moon.

4) for the "stretch goal" that is the SpaceX we've come to know, return samples to Earth.

Going on a date, and it's just the two of you? How ... quaint. OkCupid's setting up threesomes

Rick Brasche

dozens of gender types

and they're all mostly chat bots.

Did North Korea really just detonate a hydrogen bomb? Probably not

Rick Brasche

Re: Ever heard of Guantanamo Bay?

like the Brits and India or the "troubles" in Ireland?

For people to point fingers about what Americans did during their civil war, and for a few hundred individuals captured in the battlefield while refusing to follow the Geneva Convention and uniform their soldiers, whilst barely a generation away from oppressing the world's next economic powerhouse and still playing hob trying to maintain a "united" Kingdom thru decades of occupation, the British have sadly, little to say either.

Rick Brasche

the other questions to be asked:

1) if it is a real device detonation, did they develop it or simply buy/borrow it from an ideologically friendly nation?

2) Is American leadership going to keep enabling this by pretending that the Norks will "dismantle their nuclear program" and claiming "great success!" in diplomacy by buying another 5 years between the next big "foreign aid" cash payoff, in which the whole thing goes around again?

Anyone with a memory has seen this scenario a half dozen times already. Nothing has changed except the amount of money paid for appeasement of the pocket tyrant. Except now possibly he can actually hurt other than his own people when he has his next tantrum.

We could've ended this decades ago, and even the "worst case" the handwringers predicted will have been less than what an actual thermonuclear device can do now, even if it's just an immobile "chemical factory with a fuse" (best description EVAR! All the Middle East has to do is make "baby formula" alongside the fusion parts and the Western Media will destroy any leader that tries to destroy it!) it will take out enough NK civilians to make a body count that WWII would whistle with respect.

Who will buy our darn DRAM? Micron smacked in wallet again

Rick Brasche

how things change

when I got out of tech school in the Seattle area a couple decades ago, people who went down to work for Micron were the objects of envy. Always stories of what seemed to be opulent year end bonuses and, for the area, high wages.

Now, almost nothing.

So people wonder why I counsel extreme against it when something like a government decides to tie in with some "big company" to handle it's internal data systems...when the Biggest and Baddest have been around for less time and often fail spectacularly, but had anyone said anything bad about Micron over a decade ago and said it would be failing fortunes in a little over two decades, I would have been the target of much ridicule.

a hundred and fifty year old government funded and mandated service completely dependent on a 20 year old private company that has only had this capability for about 8 years? yeah makes perfect sense. :P

The ball's in your court, Bezos: Falcon 9 lands after launching satellites

Rick Brasche

the ball is in your court, El Reg SPD

we await your contribution to the "what goes up must come down exactly where we planned and with lots of controlled fire" club!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Star Wars Special Editions

Rick Brasche

nope

it stopped being "George's Vision" the moment he sold it to the public. The public paid for what was delivered.

Physics uses warp theory to look beyond relativity

Rick Brasche

Yay we discovered a dimension where FTL is possible!

but water freezes at 30 degrees centigrade and time passes roughly 5x faster.

so you get there in 1/5 the time according to the outside universe, but it took you the same amount of time relative, and your biological life processes don't work.

Dammit! :P

Let's shut down the internet: Republicans vacate their mind bowels

Rick Brasche

or, "since when was Feinstein a Conservative Republican"?

so California's definitely liberal definitely Democrat senator Feinstein also bloviating about breaking down privacy rights over FUD:

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/262658-feinstein-vows-to-offer-encryption-piercing-bill

Rick Brasche

Re: Encryption

don't make the mistake about there being ANY "misunderstandings". this is deliberate.

reducing encryption and begging for backdoors is a BIPARTISAN effort and desired at the highest levels of government.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/262658-feinstein-vows-to-offer-encryption-piercing-bill

British woman loses £1.6 million to romance scam love rats

Rick Brasche

wealth and wisdom are not necessarily entwined

for to get scammed over a million, one must have well over a million to lose, after expenses.

Vote for me, Hotspot Hillary – I'm your $250bn broadband builder-in-chief

Rick Brasche

Re: Ah the GOP!

and now it's an issue to you after 8 years of the DNC doing the same under Bush? Or were you just figuring out that's been the Way Things Work since the late 60's or even longer?

Rick Brasche

Re: I need more BB for my sinle mobe

"rich" means "employed with an income" these days.

Kids' tech skills go backwards thanks to tablets and smartmobes

Rick Brasche

Re: SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T3

what killed me was that my first Soundblaster needed TWO IRQs. One for the sound card I wanted to set up, and the other for the onboard MIDI controller. So I was initally always creating a conflict by setting the card up in a known empty IRQ but the next one was where Video lived and the soundblaster wanted to stick the MIDI into the next IRQ, so system tanks on startup.

singing as the Bunkers'. "those were the daaayyyys!"

Rick Brasche

Consumption is not Understanding

advertisers and pop culture have gotten people thinking because they can use Google and a music streaming service that somehow they are more "tech savvy" than others. But all they're doing is *consuming* what is often pushed to them. Tablets and smartphones are about *consumption* for the vast majority of uses and users, not about *creation*. An analogy would be the conceit that people are "farm savvy" because they eat foods grown or raised on one. And as any country boy seeing the city slicker in line at Whole Foods can tell you, that is not the case. Test any of the organic kale smoothie drinkers and you'll find just as many, if not more, unable to actually raise their food as anyone tested in the fast food mecca of the 80's. Sure one group can use a lot of marketing terms and "sound like" they know what's going on but the reality is, even their extra knowledge was simply produced and sent to be consumed. Hell, most people even get their tablets, phones and home wifi set up by someone else anyway.

BOFH: We're miracle workers. But you want us to fix THAT in 10 minutes?

Rick Brasche

it's not so funny

when it's practically a true story. only difference were the details and the "explanation" give to the PHB. :(

Ex-SpaceX tech launches class action over unpaid overtime

Rick Brasche

Musk in Dr Who?

beats the BBC adding the latest pop tartlet they're trying to gin up a music or acting career for.

an episode where we see Musk really wants to get to Mars because he's secretly an alien in disguise whos supposed to send humans to the Red Planet...as FOOD....:)

but defeated in the last minute by the Sonic Screwdriver (there will be NO "sonic sunnies" on MY watch! ) causing a simple pump to overpressurize a tank on a critical liftoff...

Doctor Who's The Girl Who Died ships in nasty Vikings floating atop a time-bending tidal wave

Rick Brasche

Re: Terrible episode

but no robot parrot?

UK drivers left idling as Tesla rolls out Autopilot in US

Rick Brasche

Volvo already stepped up to the plate.

Volvo has enough confidence in their auto auto product to say that any accidents due to their product are their responsibility.

Tesla should be willing to do the same. Unless they lack faith in their own hardware/software or the suitability of use they claim.

An airplane can have a software fault, a hardware fault that brings the plane down, and the aircraft manufacturer is held at fault regardless of which. The airline also bears responsibility whether its pilot error or not. Why should auto drive products be any different?

LASER RAZOR blunted by KickStarter ban

Rick Brasche

Re: Good for them!

or you can simply modulate the phase inducer on the deflector grid.

Geordi may claim Prior Art but Scotty beat him to a demonstratable prototype by over a decade.

'Walter Mitty' IT manager admits to buying gun on dark web

Rick Brasche

so the only confirmed buy of weapons from this scary "dark web"

is a fake seller created by the police?

no one's catching real sellers yet?

Batteries on wheels are about to reshape our cities and lives

Rick Brasche

Re: Also could present savings in aged care.

holy hell, this is an idea that needs to be monetized! seriously, I hate the concept of auto cars, but move a large diesel pusher automatically from one lot to another, parking it and lining it up automatically to utilities, at the press of a button? I'll be all over it when I retire!

The remote control from HELL: Driverless cars slam on brakes for LASER POINTER

Rick Brasche

Re: Not so different from a conventional car then

I don't know about you, but I can look away from a single light point source rather easily. Helps when commuting around sunrise/sunset.

Humans adapt. Hardware not so much, nor so quickly.

Cuffed Texan woman holsters loaded gun IN VAGINA

Rick Brasche

Re: Could that really have gone off?

most of these do not have an external hammer. rack the slide to chamber a round and you lock the striker back on the sear. Pull to go Bang.

tho unless the weapon has a damaged sear, or she's really diligent with her keigels, there's no way she'd pull the trigger while "holstered".

BOFH: An architect and his own entirely avoidable downfall

Rick Brasche

whew

that was almost a close one. Either someones getting sloppy, or the opposition is becoming slightly more clever.

Roll up, roll up, as LG launches stealthy Bluetooth keyboard

Rick Brasche

Re: Hmmm... not sure, personally.

yeah, they were awesome keyboards. But you can't get em anymore.

last one I had, I paid $80 USD for a *used* one that gave me about 2 years before it started having keys that wouldn't respond.

the only thing bad about the unit is the fact they're not being made :(

Rick Brasche

I had one of those for years

it finally started to wear out (a couple of the keys wouldn't work) and last I checked, they stopped making them. :( best portable keyboard ever IMHO

Still 3D printing with one material? We can use TEN, say MIT eggheads

Rick Brasche

how about gasket material?

is there anything yet that can print a fuel proof rubbery gasket material? for carburetor diaphragms on vintage motorcycles? Or the stiffer rubber carb-to-cylinder intake mounts?

'Web brothel' CEO, staff cuffed on prostitution rap – clue: the website is called Rentboy.com

Rick Brasche

it's not prostitution! it's an app!

it's an app, that connects people with a "ride" with people who want to pay to "ride". At least that's the excuse Uber uses, along with radio slots telling you that "you can make big money on your own schedule" by working for them. Their defense that they're "not a taxi company" should be applied by any decent lawyer to protect any sort of "app" that connects any sort of "legal when given freely" service with anyone willing to pay for it.

BAD things happen to GOOD robots in America: hitchBot DECAPITATED

Rick Brasche

Report all suspicious devices!

Homeland Security probably "defused" the poor thing.

Remember peeps, Americans are not their government. It's proven harder to remove the idiots now that more of us think rotten leaders will leave if you yell at them. We've forgotten that bad leaders only leave when they're afraid of their charges, and DC isn't afraid of twitter accounts.

Hacking Trump: Can we not label web vandalism as 'terrorism', please?

Rick Brasche

Re: It is simply direct "fair comment"...

or worse, somehow, he gets elected.

as a "rabid right winger" , gun totin' evil white conservative, Trump scares me. I expect something resembling diplomacy in a President. Don't need some A hole mouthing off and p*ssing off our enemies AND allies more than current and previous regimes already have done!

Save the A hole action for the general public, I say. Government doesn't need to do my intolerant commenting for me! :P

OFFICIAL SCIENCE: Men are freezing women out of the workplace

Rick Brasche

as we say around here

"it's a thermostat, not a throttle!"

Small number of computer-aided rifles could be hacked in contrived scenario

Rick Brasche

and still even with all the doors opened

they still cannot force the rifle to fire without user authorization. Which means the primary safety design was met. Better than GM cars which we were told not too long ago, "there was nothing to fear from car hackers" as they "could not" affect drive systems remotely.

as a recreational shooter the tracking point device is useless to me. It's like google glass. the only instance where as a civilian I would want a tracking point system is one where I *needed* it to put food on the family's table and missing a shot would have serious consequences. But if I had the money to buy the TP rifle, well, I have enough to make sure I have grocery money.

kudos to the design team to make sure that even user security stupidity does not significantly affect the safety of the rifle (the hacks at best would cause a significant miss at distance, but if you have people or animals behind your target within the scope's FOV you should NOT be taking the shot-and the hack cannot physically realign the scope mount for serious risks)

Giant Facebook SOLAR LASER DRONE to FEED interwebs into YOUR FACE

Rick Brasche

even better

every gasoline powered vehicle is a 12V generator. Even a little 2 stroke 50cc can have 12v tapped off it with enough current to charge a cell phone or small radio. If the place has a village tractor, then there's enough power for emergency use.

SPACESUIT, once FOUND ON MOON: Crowd action saves it for the public

Rick Brasche

Re: But, but, but ... What about the poor oil company handouts?

taking less from somebody is not the same as giving no matter how much you may wish it so.

You Musk be joking: Tesla's zero to 60MPH in 2.8 SECONDS is literally 'ludicrous'

Rick Brasche

which means

with proper hacking, the car can do more.

there needs to be a racing class where stock Model S's, Nissan Leaf's (Leaves?) and Prii are handed out to teams. Only physical modification would be roll cages and safety gear provided by the league.

Everything else is software and telemetry. Hack it like you mean it. Best hack and best driver wins.

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