Posts by paulc

Blame of thrones: Those viral vids of PC monitors going blank when people stand up? Static electricity from chairs

so the monitors are susceptible?

Wonder how they managed to pass an EMI test as part of getting the CE marking.

The Register disappears up its own fundament with a Y2K prank to make a BOFH's grinchy heart swell with pride

new event coming up... 2038

Unix clock roll-over...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

Email blackmail brouhaha tears UKIP apart as High Court refuses computer seizure attempt

Re: @NeilPost

it was sarcasm... just not with an /s tag.

You looking for an AI project? You love Lego? Look no further than this Reg reader's machine-learning Lego sorter

Re: If I have enough lego to need sorting

"trying to get him to do any sort of tidying takes 10 times more effort than doing it myself."

just tell him he can't have a friend come over until his room is tidy.

Black holes are like buses: You wait for one – and three turn up at once in galaxy merger

Re: Smash???

I don't think anything can live within a thousand parsecs of these events...

Is your kid looking at GCSE in computer science? It's exam-only from 2022 – Ofqual

Re: pffft, does it matter any more?

"The labs got very busy and you had to book computer time"

lucky you. I had to put my code in for an overnight run as a stack of punched cards...

More nodding dogs green-light terrible UK.gov pr0n age verification plans

Re: Is this the stupidest idea ever?

the Wifi at my grandson's school has lots of blocks in it against various social media sites etc. very soon bypassed by kids in the know.

Oi, you. Equifax. Cough up half a million quid for fumbling 15 million Brits' personal info to hackers

Things will not improve until...

CEOs start facing jail time...

Brit armed forces still don't have enough techies, thunder MPs

'is more acceptable than a veteran returning in a wheel chair.'

at least you can see he's been wounded... it's those coming back and suffering recurring nightmares and flashbacks and dropping to the ground when a car backfires... they've also been broken... and expected to just get on with it... and they also don't tell you what services there are for you and that as a 'veteran' you have priority.

Infamous 'Dancing Baby' copyright battle settled just before YouTube tot becomes a teen

Re: Its too bad the EFF couldn't continue to fight in her name

"The courts have spoken, the mother won. "

she didn't win though, they settled..

UK taxman warned it's running out of time to deliver working customs IT system by Brexit

Re: A better Idea

"If it's too much to expect the Tories to grow a backbone, risk their political careers, and save the country, then why can't they allow the country to decide for itself?"

Because the owners of the Brexit pushing press have the dirt on them and would kill their Political careers dead...

NASA spots asteroid on crash course with Earth – with just hours to go

a strange definition of 'well ahead'

"predicted well ahead of the event itself"

yes, like a few hours warning...

Windrush immigration papers scandal is a big fat GDPR fail for UK.gov

at the very least...

they should have been transferred to the National Archives as matters of important historical record...

Microsoft has designed an Arm Linux IoT cloud chip. Repeat, an Arm Linux IoT cloud chip

so much nope here...

n/t

NHS Digital heads accused of being 'suppliers', not 'custodians' of UK patient data

Gordon said the body was only providing information “of an administrative kind” to those who were seeking to pursue criminal offences. He said the body saw the MoU with home office as “lawful and proportionate”.

I would expect the people pursuing criminal offences to come with a warrant asking for specific information based upon reasonable suspicion...

RIP... almost: Brit high street gadget shack Maplin Electronics

Re: See also Tat R Us (gone today) &

but that the US parent is in /much/ bigger trouble, and has been siphoning as much money as they can out of the UK part and then over to the US.

oh yes over half a Billion pounds 'written off' in a loan to a shell company based in a tax haven...

https://www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2017/12/19/toys-r-us-pension-trustees-kept-entirely-in-the-dark/

In letters sent to the scheme trustees and to The Pensions Regulator (TPR), Mr Field accused the firm of waiving a sum of £584.5m in loans owed to it by a firm in the British Virgin Islands in the year ending January 2017, when it made a pre-tax loss of £673.3m.

The firm had stated in its accounts this was part of a "group reorganisation".

Capita's UK military recruiting system has 'glitches' admits minister

Re: Cuts?

You missed an option:

4) Review the MoD and how it works and cut all the time-serving wastes of space (usually former high-ranking service personnel) that infest its carpeted corridors..

perhaps we need to shoot an Admiral or two...

to encourage the others...

Use Cases in the Customer Requirements Sspecification?

didn't they consider any as part of the 'requirements set'?

Desktop PC shipments dip below 100m/year

My next machine at work will be a laptop...

can still run multiple displays and the only reason I'm even getting an upgrade is that I need to run large memory sized virtual machines...

the 4 year old 8GB desktop currently doesn't cut the mustard...

Here we go again... UK Prime Minister urges nerds to come up with magic crypto backdoors

Re: as easy as staying in EU and exiting the EU at the same time

>As we all know, this exciting field allows something to exist simultaneously in a number of apparently contradictory states at the same time.

like most members of the Tory Cabinet

New Capita system has left British Army recruits unable to register online

Use Cases?

Didn't they do any?

Once again, UK doesn't rule out buying F-35A fighter jets

Re: Why go totally F-35?

"If a Sea Hornet couldn't do an unassisted take-off from a deck the length of the QE Class I'd be stunned."

fully armed and fuelled?

Prosecute driverless car devs for software snafus, say Brit cyclists

Re: While were at it....

"especially if he is one of most who do not stick to the prescribed 1m from the curb and then get all self righteous when somebody only leaves them a "door's width" (i.e. as much as you would leave if overtaking a car) of space when overtaking them."

prescribed distance of 1m? Nope, no prescribed distance... two positions, Secondary and Primary.

I take the Primary position when it is not safe for your to even attempt to overtake me and relax back to Secondary when I DEEM it to be safe enough for you to overtake me.

Why do cyclists ride in the middle of the road?

Watch this video which explains it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htZMbiCRNT0

also this web article:

https://www.regit.cars/car-news/cyclists-why-do-they-ride-in-the-middle-of-the-road_62617

I would suggest to you that you go and download a copy of the current Highway Code and re-familiarise yourself with the contents and not with the muddled made-up rules in your head.

There have been a lot of changes since you probably threw it away after 'passing' your test...

Re: While were at it....

"At the same time, you get so uppity that somebody is in your way when it's a faster vehicle that will be gone and out of your way and waste far less of your time than you would of theirs?"

faster only over the short distance between the back of each queue....

average speed of motor traffic is now slower than horse and cart days...

meanwhile, people on bicycles can maintain a much higher average speed by means of filtering...

Hardware has never been better, but it isn't a licence for code bloat

"This is no surprise, of course, as it's the same on every platform known to man. The new version is slower than the old"

nope... not with Linux. My Mint LXDE has been getting faster and uses less RAM with each update...

Now Firefox... that gets slower and uses more RAM though with each update...

F-35s grounded by spares shortage

Numpties

"Officials from one squadron said that the troubleshooting data are sometimes insufficient to pinpoint the issue with the aircraft, which can lead the maintainer to remove a component, order a new part from the contractor, and subsequently find that the new part does not fix the issue—a scenario that is both inefficient and costly."

numpties... swap it with a known good item and see if the fault goes away...

Bad news! Astroboffins find the stuff of life in space for the first time

"They just install warning beacons around our system announcing: Warning! Terrans!"

I'm pretty sure our inane television broadcasts are warning enough...

Re: The stuff of life found everywhere

"Heck, even Barack 'no pulse' Obama slipped thru!"

but Barry inhaled... as that was the point...

French general accused of nicking fast jet for weekend trips to the Sun

Tornadoes diverting

almost every Friday one or two Tornado GR1s from Honington would divert for a snag that mysteriously vanished when the groundcrew got to Newcastle airport to rectify it and have the dubious honour of spending the weekend guarding it until the aircrew, who conveniently happened to have friends or cirlfriends living close to Newcastle, returned on Monday morning to fly it back to Honington.

Tesla death smash probe: Neither driver nor autopilot saw the truck

$50

"yet if trailer had had $50 of bars welded to it,everybody would have been fine."

nope... far more expensive than $50

https://www.nationwide-trailer-parts.co.uk/collections/side-guard-systems-hgv-trailer

DUP site crashes after UK general election

clicking that link gives me this:

"Your connection is not secure

The owner of web.archive.org has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website."

Ex-MI5 boss: People ask, why didn't you follow all these people ... on your radar?

Re: Not the Internet?

" and if you print handbills or a secret newspaper then the printer puts the date, time, and probably place of printing on every pages in nearly-invisible ink (pale yellow). "

why the downvotes? This is true...

BA's 'global IT system failure' was due to 'power surge'

Re: Ho hum

I was on the commissioning team for the GCHQ doughnut... redundancy was taken very seriously there...

the building does not run directly off the mains supply, instead, the mains was used to drive motor-generators to provide a very stable supply and in the event of a power cut, diesel motors would start up to drive the motor-generators instead...

Italian F-35 facility rolls out its first STOVL stealth fighter

Re: There's so much here...

>For example a VW made in Germany might be sorta OK but the ones made in Mexico can go all out Carrie on you.

they will do as they are built to different standards, the Mexican built one will most likely have far less crash resistance and no doubt no rust proofing either.

Re: amazinbg how long Marham is remaining

>Pray explain? Either you're implying that the US want to bomb Sandringham, or that they are protecting it.

The Queen has a residence at Sandringham... Sandringham is close to Marham, the royals use Marham as their own personal airfield, flying in and out frequently.

amazinbg how long Marham is remaining

The only reason for it's continued existence is purely down to being close to Sandringham...

Uber cloaked its spying and all it got from Apple was a slap on the wrist

Re: How does Apple make money from Uber?

"because you are dealing directly with the driver of the cab."

you may be given one route for which you are charged, but the driver gets given another route for which he is paid

both of you get stiffed... you are charged for a longer route and he/she is paid for a shorter route...

Sysadmin 'trashed old bosses' Oracle database with ticking logic bomb'

WTF? Backups?

why didn't they simply restore from a backup?

Your internet history on sale to highest bidder: US Congress votes to shred ISP privacy rules

"so we're still using the 'Super'Hub as a router :("

I just hung my own router off theirs after changing the passwords on theirs and turning off wifi...

Re: And they claim to be the land of the free

"If the ISP supplies your modem and network switch, they know which PC in the house is doing it"

not mine... all my traffic goes through my own router before it hits their modem... my router, running decent firmware that I trust...

Beijing deploys facial scanners to counter public toilet abuse

Re: six squares ?

fold the square into four, tear the folded corner and retain, unfold the square, put finger through the hole in the middle, wipe orifice with finger, use the square wit wipe off the finger... and the important bit... use the retained torn off corner to clean under the fingernail.

that's how I remember we were to maximise the use of the paltry few squares of Izal we got each in a 24 hour ration pack...

RadioShack bankruptcy savior to file for, you guessed it, bankruptcy

Problem with online like Amazon is

that too often it is coming from China on what seems like a slow boat...

Munich may dump Linux for Windows

Re: Sales

Microsoft moved their German HQ to Munich?

HMS Queen Elizabeth is delayed, Ministry of Defence confesses

''If they'd built late delivery penalties into the contract and set delivery milestones we'd know exactly when the ship would be delivered. But no, typical MOD incompetence when specifying a contract.''

currently working on one contract with a foreign air force where there are late delivery penalties applicable and if we deliver it too late (unless there are extreme mitigating circumstances) they get it for free...

Astroboffins glimpse sighting of ultra-rare circular galaxy

Quick Googling gives pictures...

of the actual object, not Hoags Object

http://phys.org/news/2017-01-extremely-rare-galaxy.html

Re: Space is awesome

>The odds must be properly astronomical.

well with a big enough universe...

Radar missile decoys will draw enemy missiles away from RAF jets

Re: Security by melting?

not hard enough...

Florida Man's prized jeep cremated by exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7

Car interiors get hot in the sun...

batteries don't like heat...

Linux turns 25, with corporate contributors now key to its future

I would consider GIT to be

an even bigger contribution to the software world...

Microsoft has open-sourced PowerShell for Linux, Macs. Repeat, Microsoft has open-sourced PowerShell

Mirosoft's biggest mistake...

was not providing the windows desktop on top on Linux...

had they done so, they'd have cleaned up and Ubuntu/Mint would not have gained any traction...

pointy heads would have been going , 'yes, let's use that Microsoft Linux'...