Posts by Roger Kynaston

Siri's maker finally unveils dev-tastic universal AI interface Viv

Not just the Young Ones

All the Vivian's (Viv Richards) and Viviennes (Vivienne Leigh) are not going to be too happy about being reduced to a bot.

Brit polar vessel christened RRS Sir David Attenborough

I pity the poor radio operator

Falmouth Coastguard, Falmouth Coastguard, Falmouth Coastguard. This is RSS David Attenborough, RSS David Attenborough. We are giving notice that we will be deploying diving operations with ROV Boaty McBoatface in Lat blah Long blah. They will trip over everything all the time!

At last: Ordnance Survey's map wizardry goes live

Map geek

I'll have to sign up for the paid one though I am going to continue my quest to get all 204 sheets in the Landranger.

Any chance the Admiralty could be persuaded to do something similar given how awful ARCS is?

Beer because a pub should be the end destination of all walks.

Remain in the EU and help me snoop on the world, says Theresa May

Re: Kryptonaut

Theresa May most definitely *Cannot* have her wicked way with me!

US congresscritter's iPhone hacked (with, er, the cell networks' help)

Re: Maybe it is time for....

I read that as SSB first. I am sure we would all love a return to HAM radio! No privacy but no one has to hack it as it is broadcast in clear for the whole world to listen to.

Chilling evidence emerges of Kilocat weapon

First class

Very enjoyable and I for one welcome our thousand feline overlords. Add my virtual beer to the jars for this evening though were I happily in Spain I would like to have a nice bottle of Navarra wine.

Hey, Atlantis Computing. What the heck is this in your EULA?

The first rule

The first rule about EULA is that you don't talk about EULA.

I'm off. Got an office party of all things.

Prof Hawking to mail postage-stamp space craft to Alpha Centauri using frickin' lasers

funding of projects

If Milner wants to fund an interesting research project - I would be happy for him to get me a Rival 41 and I will verify the effects of rum punch on humans while they sit an anchor in palm fringed anchorages in the Caribbean.

This would need to be a long term research project and of course we would need to check the effects of all sorts of alcohol all over the place. On the upside, the return would be somewhat quicker than a 20 year mission to Alpha Centauri - I estimate 8 to 10 years would allow a thorough investigation.

Dropping 1,000 cats from 32km: How practical is that?

cat types

You'll be grinning from the other side of your face when they land, or not.

Definitely Friday and getting on for beer oclock

Class article. Also playmobile or it didn't happen.

OT can we have a real ale beer icon as well?

Truly crap exhibition dumped on Isle of Wight

Re: Also a Waste of Humanity

just google Gilbert and George for shit art. NSFW though.

Here's a great idea: Let's make a gun that looks like a mobile phone

I know that the gun debate is a bit more nuanced than many make it (NRA and control people) but ... No!!

You can't dust-proof a PC with kitchen-grade plastic food wrap

discussion thread on a sailing forum

Back in the day of newsgroups there was a rather noisy one I lurked on once in a while. It was very east coast US oriented which made it rather boring for someone in Blighty.

Still there was one thread where someone suggested that they could weatherproof their PC by filling it with closed cell foam. There were some jokes about how it could double up as a lifejacket but I never heard how quickly it cooked itself.

Bill Gates can’t give it away... Still crazy rich after all these years

If he wants to unload

$1.6 million (~£1M). I have my eye on a Rival 41 and ideas about going cruising for a few years. Mine's the red one with reflective tape on it.

GCHQ spies quashed this phone encryption because it was too good against snoopers

Re: MP letter-writing time again

I totally agree with you but the current state of our representatives is altogether highly lamentable. I have a long history of writing to my elected representative and in the past was able to get some sort of reasoned response from them. At the very least they would pass my letter to the relevant department so some lowly and overworked civil servant could draft a letter coming out with the accepted flannel of the day.

Now all you get is a stupid email from him saying he sympathises with my concerns but he is still going to do whatever stupid thing they are voting for because you have to balance the interests of blah blah blah.

BTW my MP is Chuka Umunna and it is only since he has left the front bench that he replies at all.

Time to run away to sea methinks.

Beer because I need one now.

Server retired after 18 years and ten months – beat that, readers!

a few years ago

A SPARCServer 1000 finally gave up the ghost and Oracle or it may still have been Sun didn't have the parts so we dug out a slightly less aged E450 to move the app to. It had been running since 1993 I think. Oddly, the disks were a dreadful setup with a series of small disks mirrored onto one larger one using disk suite.

The users hated the application as well as I remember but it took years to migrate to the new one.

Boffins switch on pinchfist incandescent bulb

How will this work with 12v DC?

I replaced my navigation lights with LED a couple of years ago and love only burning 6W at the masthead rather than the original 25W. Also, will they burn out regularly as a trip up a 12 metre mast involves a lot of winch grinding for some poor sod (my wife can't do heights).

Interesting thing though.

Planet-bonking rock hunt armed with humanity's cruellest weapon: bureaucracy

Optional

Have a beer for the headline

Microsoft's 200 million 'Windows 10' 'devices' include Lumias, Xboxes

200 million devices

So will this be revised down to 199,999,999 when I get around to defenestrating the laptop I bought in December?

How long until we can build R2-D2 and C-3PO?

I for one

Welcome our bullet shaped overlords complete with gold plated humanoid interpreters.

'Powerful blast' at Glasgow City Council data centre prompts IT meltdown

Business Continuity

I wonder if they tried to invoke an underfunded and fundamentally unworkable business continuity plan.

UK research network Janet under ongoing and persistent DDoS attack

Are you suggesting

that El Reg is not essential for work!? Shame on you.

Fancy flying to Mars? NASA's hiring

why oh why

Can't a scientific organisation like NASA use real measurements. Height needs to be 1.57 to 1.9 metres.

Also why five foot two and not a round 5 (1.5m) feet?

</rant>

Reg reader post-pub chef brews superscharf currywurst

Wasn't there

a Franceshinha in there somewhere?

Balloon-lofted space podule hits 30,000m

WANT!!!

Beer because of the bar but I would be too busy watching to need a drink.

Could we jump out of it with a parachute?

Mostly Harmless: Google Project Zero man's verdict on Windows 10

Re: re. "ultimate bug bear"

Not quite a groan but ...

Caption this: WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Meanwhile in the networks office

Dave wondered if the new multimode fibre interconnect might have some compatibility issues with his existing infrastructure.

NASA deep space scope serves up EPIC Earth snapshots

Nice pics

Could they get the next probe to the outer planets (Pluto Lander?) to turn back and snap us from a very long way away?

Beer because the designers and operators deserve one.

Elderly? Disabled? You clearly need a .38" Palm Pistol

Can't they

combine it with a tablet and then do a tie in with palm pilots?

As others note, this tends to make you despair for the species.

Wheels come off parents' plan to dub sprog 'Mini Cooper'

hows about

A motorcycle nut (a number of years ago) called his children Vincent and Harley.

And of course you have to remember the late lamented Paula Yates calling her daughters Peaches and Fifitrixibelle.

Nippy, palaver and cockwomble: Greatest words in English?

toing the line

Being of a yottie (I have always liked the reverse snobbery of that word btw) persuasion I am always fascinated by how much of our vocabulary has a seafaring origin - Noting that palaver was imported by jolly jack tars from Portugal - presumably after imbibing quantities of the fortified wine from Portugal's second city.

Man goes to collect stolen-car court docs found in stolen car in stolen car

Re Only in Murica and in blighty

Many years ago i worked in an Off licence. One Sunday a bottle of our best burgundy (£31 in early nineties) went walkies. We checked the CCTV and identified a probable punter. I had two staff who had lived in the town all their life. Both of them said "oh yes. That is blah." Plod went round to his house and the empty bottle was on the draining board.

He was duly pinched, hauled up before the beak and pleaded guilty. He had to pay it back at £2 a week.

Slander-as-a-service: Peeple app wants people to rate and review you – whether you like it or not

F*wits

Is all there is to say.

NEW ERA for HUMANITY? NASA says something 'major' FOUND ON MARS

rock snakes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-X

NASA announcement of MAJOR MARS DISCOVERY imminent: WHAT can it be?

Jabberwock

They hast found and slain the Jabberwock!

Beer because I had a lot over the weekend but still need more.

Gold bugs, concrete bog roll holders and frolic-friendly furniture: What IS it with designers?

Don't let

that fake leafy pig anywhere near Downing Street!

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

model

The wireless model is much more comfortable

What should we do with this chunk of dead air? Ofcom wants to know

Dead Air? If farms are involved it will be deadly air. OK, I'm off or the associated methane could make for an explosive atmosphere.

MYSTERIES of remote ICE WORLD PLUTO: New pics BAMBOOZLE boffins

Re: "Is it just me or is that last close-up actually the Isle of Wight?...."

Time Warp

IoW

It could be but if so St Catherines point has got a sudden outgrowth into the English Channel. Would make the Round Island Race more interesting.

Prof Hawking cracks riddle of black holes – which may be portals to other universes

Re: Have you ever lost anything you wanted back

Biros find their way through wormholes in space to a planet which is uniquely suited to a biroid lifestyle.

Prognosticator, for one, welcomes our new robot work colleagues

Automation

If self service tills are the future, I want out! I loathe those bloody things and refuse to go to a shop that won't provide a human to serve me. Supermarkets are dreadful enough without a stupid machine saying "unexpected item in bagging area" (its cpu if I have my way). At least Brixton market is still going strong(ish).

</rant>

IT jargon is absolutely REAMED with sexual double-entendres

You forgot touch

At an early Solaris course (very laddish) we had a spate of touching Kylie and various other files.

Ashley Madison invites red-faced cheats to bolt stable door for free

Odd modus operandi

I wonder why they announced the theft. If they had kept schtum and just done the extortion bit on the punters they could have kept going for ages.

I predict a big upspend in security following this.

Ideal solar system for SECOND EARTH found – and it's just 186 light-years away

Re: So....

How do we know that our neighbours on HIP11915 haven't already sent us their own B Ark - complete with telephone sanitizers, marketing executives and management consultants. Do we have enough soap?

Adobe: We REALLY are taking Flash security seriously – honest

Dear BBC

I know that things are difficult for you at the moment but please find the resources to migrate iPlayer off Flash.

I wrote to you direct once and you said it provided a secure platform to provide protected content.

The secure thing is not true and there are other means of providing protected content whatever that means.

PLUTO FLYBY: Here's your IT angle, all you stargazing pedants

I want ...

... to do that sort of work.

Trouble is that the pay, relative to more mundane IT roles is very low but the work must be seriously sexy.

A beer because the team definitely deserve several.

FBI: Apple and Google are helping ISIS by offering strong crypto

UIS (aka ISIS) and encryption

I don't think that the bullets and swords that have been used to massacre the people of Palmyra have been hiding behind strong encryption..

Sysadmins rebel over GUI-free install for Windows Server 2016

Re: All of a sudden, my decision to learn Linux

But then you might top yourself.