Posts by Pyros

Koreans develop smelly, blushing penguin-droid

For a moment there...

I thought its name was "Porni."

Mine's the paincoat with the Penguin Peepers rag in the pocket...

Info on missing White House emails to remain missing

Ladies and gentlemen

This is a shining example of a significant portion our nation's goverment at work. </sarcasm>

There is nothing more important than accountability--if you don't have proof, you're pretty suspiscious of some sort of wrong, even if there's no specifics.

Would I give my left big toe to live in Canada, but I hear there's a relatively strict work-force policy for immigration...

Disgruntled admin gets 63 months for massive data deletion

Where do I send my resume?

Apparently I, even with only a small amount of experience, can actually do a helluva better job than that new sysadmin!

Kremlin pushes Cyrillic alphabet net

People, people...

Don't worry--Art Lebedev (Russian design studio) did put out the Otimus Maximus Keyboard, after all. Need Latin? No problem. Need Cyrillic again? Instant change of the keys.

Too bad about the price tag, but I'm confident it'll go down somehow...

Gates' last act: frees IE 8 and Silverlight second betas

LOL

How apropos that Balmer showed up as a robot.

I, for one, welcome our new Vista-powered robot overlords.

Safari practices self-love, claims code monkey

Ooo, C++ questions!

@Stephen Knox: "Okay, here's a hint: for starters, you have to know the difference between 0 and null AND false AND undefined."

Hrmmm... I'm rusty at this, but if I recall correctly--you're reffering to how the value is determined in terms of size and bit order (with the exception of NULL.) 0 is an actual integer, FALSE is a one-bit value, and UNDEFINED could pratically be *any* value/size (which is why you don't find this statement in good code, unless some numpty made it a global constant.)

Only NULL doesn't encapsulate any value/size, as it simply states "there is no defined value assigned to this variable." You can have some pointer remember some random address in memory and it'll return some gibberish based on the size of the variable it's using--it'll never return NULL because there's *always* something there.

@Daniel B.: "Reminds me of that BOOL someone posted in the Daily WTF"

Shouldn't it be "enum BOOL {FALSE, TRUE, NOT_TRUE_OR_FALSE }; based on bit order?

But, then again, this is a moot point; it's basically adding an actual '2' to raw binary '01' code. (Enums also don't take constants very well, as it's bad coding pratice to do so.)

$8.2m study to probe medical benefits of videogames

@Pete

I take it you've never read anything of Jack Thompson, the world's craziest lawyer from (and I'm ashamed to admit this) Florida.

Look... from your PoV, which is safer after an exceedingly crappy day--polishing your rifle muttering depreciations against your idiotic co-workers, or blasting some noob's head off in multi-player HALO?

Mine's the SPARTAN-II armor, thank you...

Virtualisation titles for virtually nothing

Upside

We can pay with virtual money! Who here has a few Simoleans to spare?

Mine's the one with the list of WoW gold farmers on the back...

Bonce-antenna education downloads foreseen in 30 years

My prediction...

...is to make this Perry fellow read Charlie Stross' Accelerando for a change.

And so can all of you numpties as well! It's a good cautionary tale, IMO.

(And I gotta stop speaking Britanese, it's too damned catchy.)

Naomi Campbell charged with assault

Shouldn't she have said...

"Are you godd*mned retarded? Don't you know who I am? I'm the Naomi Campbell!"

Mine's the black plastic-contoured armored one with the little 'toggles' on the chest, withe the attached cape-and-cowl...

BOFH: The Batcave

That's easy...

Ever heard of a white van after-hours without Security, a sack of carpet, and quicklime pits?

I knew you'd do.

You owe me a pint of Stella, shipped to Florida--it's warm down here.

Re: How do I make a pinch?

I believe the idea is basically some hefty batteries, a large (say, roughly a foot, mebby foot & half,) coil of ferrous material (not iron! Ask for ferrous rings, crack one open, and you'll understand,) and miles of copper wiring. (Given the price, you might want to look for alternatives.)

Then it's all a matter of looking up the basic principles on the internet (The Bastard's Cookbook, anyone?) and plenty of elbow grease...

Remember folks...

Fire makes EVERYTHING better!

(I mean, fire to records, fire to scare lusers away, fire to draw Security's attention, fire to the Boss' groin... )

So how will the new US prez handle IT issues?

Bleah

None of the canidates in the nomination are really worth it. Oh, we DO need a huge change just to kill the Republic-tators, but I wouldn't trust either Hillary or Obama with my six in a firefight, much less in office.

Obama may have the right idea with IT policies, but his other policies aren't just worth voting him into office. (Perhaps if we had an Office of IT in the Cabinet, then he'd be a good choice.)

My only option is Stephen Colbert. >P

Deadly Oz snake bites tourist's todger

I'm suprised...

...that the list doesn't include our perrenial favorite--the cottonmouth, or water moccasin as it's usually reffered as--it bites more frequently than rattlers along the Eastern Starboard US. Not fun--pygmy timber rattlers may be a scad more deadlier toxin-wise, but they're more wilder than their long black kin.

Now, if you want exotic and even more poisonous, try hunting up a coral snake--they look a fair deal like non-poisonous kingsnake, right down to the head and fangs...

ID fraudsters soak the rich

Hypothetically...

In a way, you *could* pull some interesting indirect methods to defraud the affluent. My idea revolves around taking only $100 from each victim and passing it to a temporary account, and quickly liquidate the proceeds to cover your trail.

Lather, rince, repeat.

Granted, you need access like mentioned above, and some mileage on your travels, but that's just ONE way to do it. There's so many ways to defraud people that sometimes it just doesn't pay to have credit.

Personal control is the best, IMO--use your head, verify your purchases, and review your statements. I've had it happen to me before.

JPG hole cuts RAZR open

Oh no!

I must update my RAZR!

...but I can only do that if they actually HAVE a driver for their d*mned phones!

Just because they stick a Firewire port on it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be used to upload your own custom wallpapers, right? *grumbles*

UK to outlaw cartoons of child sexual abuse

Schultz...

They're talking about UK taking the Goddess-given right to look at nekkid ladies (drawn or not) on the Internet at home, where it's *far* more private.

Get on the program, and do what's (in)decent, man.

Control your PC, with a lemon wedge

Pointing out something...

Given the "gun" in that fellow's hand, I'm thinking that's a bit limited for the application in question (FFS)... so if you could wire up a simple battery-powered LED diode that flashes on when you squeeze the trigger, and the cam registers the flash or loss of "contact" as an offical input.

Which already happens with light guns--it's an infared detector that picks up the result as it is, tho. But is it cheaper? Only if you can solder some wires together--I can make this with a joule thief design and a plastic squirt gun. :P

Paypal glitch hits merchants with 12-day headache

Huh.

Raise your hand if you've saw this one coming.

Aussie droid planes in Barbados hurricane probe

@Rob

True, but I see you've never looked at the insurance premiums for hurricane damage in Florida, have you?

It's bad enough when the storms hit the coasts, but when it hits inland, it's nastier. I'd be happy to spend a bit more cash to understand the driving force of hurricanes as long as we can prevent another Charley-Ivan romp. And the added benefit is that there's no one's actually in the aircraft this time--you know how dangerous manned aircraft at 3k above a hurricane gets? It's worse down *there.*

Phoenix beams back Martian postcards

Re; Meric Death Star

Well, if you go by semantics, they use the Imperial unit of measurements. >)

In the SW universe, it's now established that the Death Star is 1 Lunar in size (as defined by the basic area of a sphere.) Just keep in mind that it's roughly the same size as Yavin V, which in turn rotates around a gas giant also roughly the size of Jupiter, perhaps larger if my movie-watching eye is seeing it right.

But let's not get into the geekery of Star Wars, we'll save it for the appropriate articles in the future.

Mine's the one with the Pendant's Reference in the pocket.

A reading from the second book of Codh

And spake did they:

"In what respect does your input enhance the four phase application lifecycle management delivery system threshold holistic architecture initiative deployment validation baseline best practice success driver?"

Owowowowow... I think that hurt my managerise-speaking funnybone.

Keep it up, dear, I look forward to your articles as frequently as the BOfH's--Goddess knows the IT community needs sharp whits like you (and Simon's!)

Phlashing attack thrashes embedded systems

Crackers benifiting?

Actually, if you're the sort of mind here, there's a SECOND party that can benefit from this exploit... the router manufacturers.

Think about it--you send out a wide AOE PhlashDance to brick a particular competitor's set of routers, then tout your own as PhlashDance-proof (whether or not they ARE, it's just a price-jack, and managers would drool all over the idea *itself* anyways.) Win.

It's devious, but it only works as long as no one catches on.

I wish there was an BOfH icon.

SF's green mayor dreams of electric car heaven

Goverment...

Coming from Jeb Bush's regime in Florida (although there's no other place where grander plans that CA have sprung up, IMO,) I can safely tell people two things here:

1) Someone's talking out of their OTHER ofrice. The best (and long) bet here is that, if it doesn't get shot down, then at least we'll know where the money nozzle is being aimed at.

2) If, for some wild reason it actually DOES get off the ground (so to speak,) let's also consider the possibility of any other city (and state) to actually do the same. Sillicon Vally, I can see--lots of throwaway money there--but anywhere else? I'll ask the Internet Oracle about that.

And then there's the other points the commentary pointed out--substations, power supplies, and so forth--which undermines said mayor's (lack of) planning.

I'll be waiting.

Asus Eee PC 901 spied on web... in black

Hrmmm...

Do they have it in yellow? >)

Cornish lingo gets standard written form

If Cornish is pretend...

Does that means Welsh is the same? That might explains a *few* things about that part of Britain... >)

Mine's the parrot print one with the bottled margarita and salt shaker in the pocket, please. Ta!

Amazon.com: Now with 50% less cockfighting

No more dogfighting?

Dang, there goes the out-of-print resellers of Werewolf: The Apocolypse.

(Research purposes--they have a better background than today's gack from White Wolf.)

Airbus jets could be converted to fuel-cell propulsion

Why...

...am I suddenly reminded of that little bit in "Man vs Animal" special a few years ago? Especially about the one with the elephant vs. a gaggle of midgets. All hitched to one or the other of two airplanes.

Personally tho, the dwarf horde would be a *great* towing service. Anything to keep down The Great Midget Rebellion. They'd be too tired to uprise against us tallists after an 8-hour shift of shifting planes.

Boeing raygunship fires first blasts in ground testing

I smell

...a Mythbuster exclusive!

Mind you, Adam and Jamie might have a tad bit difficulty in procuring an IR laser, but I'm sure they could whip one up ala MacGuyver.

Firefox developers tinker with new security protections (finally)

Good idea

Bad execution.

I *really* hope the peeps at InformAction OpenSource Software (the makers of NoScript) are working hand in hand with the weebls over there. Mozilla has a great thing goin' on, but a lot of good add-ons could stand to be part of the default interface that it's not funny anymore.

Bundle NoScript with FireFox!

BOFH: The PFY's comeuppance

Finally...

They have officaly opposed the legion that is... The Great Midget Rebellion.

Which, of course, will start... shortly.

Online ID checks to limit teen booze and knife purchases

Bah!

Give a kid his due of booze and boobs. They gotta learn SOMEwhere, right?

Knives, OTOH, I can agree with to an extent. Being a Boy Scout myself, I'd rather have all adolescents take the Woodcarving merit badge classes so they can *properly* handle the pointy bits involved.

It's like sex--you don't know how it's done until you study for it. (Although I frown at using knives for purposes other than carving wood, cleaning your deer/pheasant, and shaving.)

Romanian and Turkish scientists turn circuit boards into oil

Nothing new

Some boffins in the US have been running high-pressure recycling systems that can take in pretty much everything, including human bodies.

Mind you, I wouldn't mind being reprocessed to make up a 100 new iPod cases, so I can haunt them to play N'Sync at inopportune times. >)

DVD smut malware blights US forces in Iraq

Not new

Everyone sniffs at porn--that's what the Internet is for. Even your mother.

It's just they don't know how to use anti-virus products and good anti-script methods properly. It's like condoms and pregancy.

I fancy a new business or two arriving within the Mid-East in the upcoming future!

Paris, because she'd be a good spokesperson for those new start-ups...

Weapons, oil prices driving worldwide atom ambitions

Let's also take a quick note here...

This push is actually a good thing--if we removed such needs, we can sustain the oil float further. (Yes, oil float--where do you think the plastic that makes up your Coke bottle comes from? It isn't always recycled.)

The tricky bit is how to manage nuclear power--we don't need goverment burro-craticies running them, IMO. Civilian power, dedicated ONLY to civilians, is idea, since you can do a good market drive simply accepting enriched fuel from, say Australia (which, admitidely, isn't a real world power in the sense that USA is one.) Fissile material can only come in really low amounts if some nutjob wants to play "Bomb the Embassy," which would only put out, hurmm... a block or so? of property damage/body counts. That's actually a low enough risk to begin with, and we know dirty bombs aren't as big a factor as some people scream about. Too many variable.

In conclusion, I'm all for it--just put some REAL good independent oversight on the systems!

Blighty to become old-time Inundation Nation

I'm suprised

I'm suprised that there's some nutjobs up there in Britain who don't know about this *very* regular event... but I guess they don't watch the Sci-Fi channel enough. (Interesting megadisaster movie involving London flooding out there.)

Here, in Florida, even those deep into the rainy interior are always wary of our climate--even Jimmy Buffet wrote a song about it. Heck, Huricane Ivan was a very good case in point in doing so. (Mind you, for some reason the very tall plantlife in Florida leans heavily toward shallow roots, as sand pines and live oaks, when tipped juuuust right, fall on cars and houses. Fortuantly, most just lose branches, even if they get pretty big.)

Id Dooms gamers to new shoot-'em-up sequel

@Chris C.

Well, true, we like the eye candy, but we're actually hoping for actual improvements in the physics and graphics engines (like past material--I'm thinking of the newer Quake 3 and the UT series.)

I did mention DN 3D, which is pretty much similar but with more fun in it. (Need Shadow Warrior, tho. Got Lo Wang, anyone?) Of course, I did enjoy all those older games, too--Raptor was really fun to muddle with, but you can only go so far after you've obtained the Odin laser.

Hrmm... now where's that copy of DOS-Box? I feel like installing Noctropolis once more just to try that again.

Not very sure of D4

Still looks like the orignal, only with crisper texels.

It's be a huge improvement if they did actual 3D character models for a change. Plus, a great deal could be done once the levels were given a good once-over as well.

Ah, well... if only they'd do a systems mod for Duke Nukem 3D...

Lithuanians whip out their WILI-S

Well, the size is impressive...

But do their product have a compatable docking port?

myCoat* = goto(Door)

Inventor of first practical transistor dead at 91

Interesting

Just to note, it's been recent that IBM's been playing around with a new type of transistor for high-bandwidth WiFi networks. (Current ones run on 2.4 gHz, but this one may handle transmissions at 60gHz--it's just the volume that's the question. Enter the new transistors.)

Just lettin' you know--I think Sparky's happy to know that someone's *really* pushing his work now.

Lancashire plodcopters in laser dazzle outrage outbreak

Hrmmm...

Max Allen: "For about £25 you can buy a 200mW red laser capable of cutting black plastic bin liners a few inches away."

But that's if you can keep the power going to cut more than an inch of flimsy plastic. If I remember correctly, there's a limit on power consumption for 300w (Class 3) lasers. The ones from Big Sky Lasers that I've handled before can only be set to fire for milliseconds so that it doesn't attempt to burn a hole in the mica ceramic that it's fired at. (And have you seen the size of its controller system? It actually needs to be watercooled with a built-in pump and a pair of hoses connecting to the core.)

Still, makes me wonder if I can't play Evil Genius Inventor with a moterized universal joint, an X/Y layout setup, and some thin stiff plastic...

US boffins puff off 'living nose on a chip' tech

Man...

El Reg writers must be pretty bored to dress up the article with bad puns and interesting terms. Such keeps bringing me back, for some odd reason. :)

Mine's the one with "Pongware" on the back.

White House admits non-existent email backups

Not suprising

...considering that they're all covering their arses in one big butt-covering denial-fest. They DID keep a record, after all--it's just "conviently" left in a safe down underground (yes, there's pratically a city down under DC. Nuclear bomb scare, anyone?)

Oil companies are extreme penny-penchers and complete pigs. They never throw anything out--especially when they might need to "distance" themselves from the Shrub Gov, even if Iraq Freedom gives them tighter control on oil supplies. Curious George is from a family of oil brokers and ranchers, so it's not a far stretch that, even with an IQ lower than his pants inseam, that there's some means of accessing that ol' boy network and pass out those goverment contracts like gifts.

You get the idea. I'm not saying that we should, but a revolution sounds mighty nice these days...

Cops demand more time in marathon OiNK investigation

Actually...

You think they're trying to garner more time so they can finish their P2P sessions without anyone bothering to see what they're really up to?

I'd be suspicious if they didn't throw tantalizing "evidence" in their bosses' way.

Lords linger over extreme porn definition

On one greasy hand @ Mark

"Is there are need? I mean, what are you saying here - that someone should be punished with three years in prison for viewing or privately possessing goatse or tubgirl?"

Hrm, some clarification... Let's make some hypotheticals. Subject A does, let's say, beastality, He gets pictures taken with man's best friend in action, and posts them. Subject B sees these, and saves some for future enjoyment.

Now, who needs the finer points of obsenity smashed into him? IMO, it's Subject A. He provides a service to Subject B, of which is objectionable and disgusting (IMO.)

That's the point I was trying to make. Take it as you will, but obsenity needs to stay in the background.

On one greasy hand...

I actually agree on the need for this sort of legislation--not that we can't regulate ourselves, but given the existence of goatse and tubgirl...

However, there's a limit of what is considered "obscene"--as the saying goes, one's man meat is another man's poison. Who's to say that this fetish is someone's kink, yet repungant to another?

It's an enormously grey-line... and that's not counting actual atrwork, such as hentai!

Read, test, don't repeat - how to avoid code complexity

A thought

Personally, I'd build one overclass (Weapon,) and two subclasses (AbstractWeapon and RealWeapon) which you only protect one and build calls to the other in the overclass.

Why? Simple--readability. You only need to call Weapon if you're only gonna fire things externally, not internally. You can even dispense with all three suggested classes into one superclass if you used C++, thanks to its inherent private/protected/public section calls within the class definition.

If you want to understand this stuff better, I'd reccomend building your own GUI handler. It gets tricky up higher, but once you understand what every single element has, it becomes fairly trivial to abstract in function. (The hardest part, IMO, is the textboxes. You try implementing a word-wrap feature into a predefined size for a textbox.)

Hafta Man and the threat to agile design

Real programmers...

...write the Program's Bible--and stick to the D*MMED BOOK!

It's only *after* the initial work is over and there's time leftover can they indulge in building extra features. That's the "agile" part that the retards in Mgmt/Design that just don't get 99% of the time.

The Program's Bible is there for a reason.

Men could have kids with chimpanzees - gov must act

Aside from the incompatable DNA data formats...

...we already have a subspecies of human that closely resembles these "humanzees." We call them "rednecks," but I'm sure yonder Brits call them "chavs" over there.

Other than that, it does make sense to add the "vice versa" addenum. I'd just drop the Bible in the gov's office bin to make a strong point to the thumpers.

Too bad there's no Curious George Bush icon.