Posts by Andus McCoatover

Explain digital ID or watch it fizzle out, UK PM Starmer told

Re: "they are choosing us, they are choosing Hartlepool, Warrington, Belfast, the East Midlands"

Make good bpffee shops, tho'

Taliban impose tele-ban and take Afghanistan offline

Students, bloody students

Same when Enver Hoxha 'ran' Albania. The world couldn't care less. Got back to normal after he left.

Barmy ban on businesses, Brits based in Blighty bearing or buying .eu domains is back: Cut-off date is Jan 1, 2021

Finland OK?

Well, I live in the EU, so I can register a .eu site.

So, nice little earner - bung us a grand, I'll register your site here, then you can continue to use/admin. it as you wish.

Lovely Jubbly! (Should, as a disclaimer point out I'm 64, and expected to croak at any time, due to health, but...one of my kids is Finnish, he'd take it on.)

Problem solved?

Brit consumers still holding off on buying new PCs until that Brexit thing is over and done with

Dunno...

Got my 'workhorse' PC from my local pub, they paid €30 for it, they decided to upgrade it (why??) and gave it for me for nowt (albeit the modules, case, screws, etc. were in two plastic shopping carrier bags...)

Anyway, got the bugger home, put it together (surprisingly easily, as it was a Lenovo desktop), Then was fortunate enough to find I still had a couple of days to go to upgrade its Windows 7 to 10. Worked perfectly

(Then realized what crap I'd downloaded,so also stuck Linux Mint on it). NIRVANA!

Now, I'm a very Happy Camper! (Oh, the monitor came from a skip. Also perfect).

Pushed around and kicked around, always a lonely boy: Run Huawei, Google Play, turns away, from Huawei... turns away

This is nothing but protectionism. Trump barks, and Google runs to heel.

I hear the slavering of anti-trust lawyers champing at the bit!

I couldn't give a Greek clock about your IoT fertility tracker

El. Reg. You complete and utter B*ast*ards!

Having been tickled by the concept of the Antikythera Mechanism, I've just wasted a perfectly good Friday afternoon's VDT* reading up on it!

(*VDT - Valuable Drinking Time)

It's Pi day: Care to stuff a brand new Raspberry one in your wallet?

Re: Dates

Yeah, let's infuriate the "Barking Mad" country dwellers by specifying the time as MM/SS/HH.

Makes as much sense - middle/smallest/largest rule.

UK third worst in Europe for fibre-to-the-premises – report

New law to supplement Godwin's Law

Crofts' Law:

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a person blaming Brexit for something totally unconnected approaches 1"

Homeland Security drops the hammer on Kaspersky Lab with preemptive ban

Re: Oh, come on

"Equally, the NSA would drool at the chance to expose evidence of Kaspersky wrong-doing if they actually had any"

Truth never bothered them. If they had no evidence, they'd just manufacture their own!

(Stupid child!)... :)

€100 'typewriter' turns out to be €45,000 Enigma machine

Re: There is quite a bit of that floating around Eastern Europe

Bit like my Dutch friend, proud of his English skills, 35 years ago after an argument calling me a "Bunch of shit".

SpaceX nails two launches and barge landings in one weekend

So, chuck a couple of drainpipes onto two boats...Not exactly rocket science.

Re: @John Brown Even old curmudgeons are happy!

Stood on the shoulders of...

V2 Nazi rockets. I know.

Sometimes the expression written on my porridge syrup tin "From the strong comes forth sweetness" (Book of Daniel) comes to reality... Truly sad, but equally true.

Blighty's first aircraft carrier in six years is set to take to the seas

Bit stunned to find it's not nuclear

Diesel, powering generators, running massive electric motors for propulsion.

Gas turbines for 'auxiliary' poke, but Wärtsilä* diesels for normal running.

Nuclear rejected due to cost. So, it's range is 10,000 miles - ish. Nuclear would've meant never refuel for 20 years or so. But, it could never visit Japan, as I understand.

*(Finnish company. Bit odd, that...)

US engineer in the clink for wrecking ex-bosses' smart meter radio masts with Pink Floyd lyrics

Was it Goonhilly, or Martlesham satellite stations, where, BT being a bit miffed with flyers getting too close to the dish, painted a large message on it.

Basically, it said something like "Your 'nads have been fried!"

(Anyone shine any more info?)

DXC Technology puts reluctant office movers on naughty step

Re: Not getting this....

2½ miles? Closer than my fave pub! (Or further from theirs for a 'liquid lunch'?)

Boeing preps pilotless passenger flights – once it has solved the Sully problem, of course

Well, with computers flying the thing, and (presumably) no flight attendants, at least you won't be dragged, screaming and bloodied from the thing.

As long as the robots realises the difference between 'at airport' and 35,000 feet?

- Just asking...

Forgotten the obvious?

We seem to be talking about lack of pilots, aircraft reliability, etc.

But...as a passenger, there's NO FUC*KING WAY I'm getting on a flying machine without a couple of folks at the front, and a few well-trained Flight Attendants on board. Oh, and an Air Marshall, in case some nefarious terrorist decides to (somehow) CTRL-ALT-DEL at final approach.

Manufacturers and airlines may love the cost-savings.

Passengers will simply vote with their feet - and wallets.

-Simples.

German robo-pastor preaches the GNU Testament

My CPU runneth over....

Re: In my life

Ramen!

Drugs, vodka, Volvo: The Scandinavian answer to Britain's future new border

Erm, am I just a bit soft in the head...

...but anyone with a printer could just make a fake number plate to tape over the real one?

(Sigh). Problems with automation...

74 countries hit by NSA-powered WannaCrypt ransomware backdoor: Emergency fixes emitted by Microsoft for WinXP+

"XP systems are patched in the SMB1-doublepulsar vuln if their user followed the (simple) instructions provided here by El Reg reader(s) a couple of weeks ago."

Unfortunately, it seems the NHS' outsourced IT department doesn't read El Reg.

More concerned with keeping flies off their sacred cow...

Decapitating Rockall: How a 1970s Navy expedition blasted the top off the Atlantic islet

Get it right, BOY!!

There's Fuc*k all on Rockall

Yeah, rename it Haines Island. Deserved title.

Munich may dump Linux for Windows

2004?

Well, heck, 13 years of Penguin Rule ain't bad! It served them well, obviously.

But, times change. That pendulum does have a habit of swinging back, however....

Euro space agency's Galileo satellites stricken by mystery clock failures

Re: Forgot?

yeah, realised my mistake. Typing one-handed and a Bluetooth keyboard from LIDL.

(I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous)...

Re: Forgot?

Downvote for saying the bleeding obvious.

The wait is over ... Nokia's BACK!

Re: Welcome back!

Jolla is their successor?

Just went to Jolla shop. Everything's out-of-stock. Are they still going? Hope so.

Re: They still have a couple of loyal customers here and there

Nokia huge in China? Surely you're joking? How can a Japanese company* possibly succeed in China?

*Every 'merkan knows Now-keeah is Japanese. I've been corrected many times on my visits there when I said it was based in Finland ("Fin-land? What state is that in???").

Bank robber reveals identity – by using his debit card during crime

Re: Curious

Get his ID from Motor Vehicle records? Where's the fun in that?

Now, his new mate Bubba knows...Oh, dearie.

Don't believe the 5G hype! £700m could make UK's 4G better than Albania's

Re: Shoddy.

Hope you meant Second-gen! First-gen was the old analog, a-quid-a-minute system!

Re: Been saying this all along

I pay about £15/month, unlimited 4G (look, mum - no wires!) data in Finland. When I bought it, I asked about 'data capping'. They looked at me as if I'd come from a 3rd world country.

Which, of course, I had. Left Blighty 20 years earlier.

My fortnight eating Blighty's own human fart-powder

Huel? Gruel?

Fanny Craddock would be spinning in her blender...

Mind you, less than a fiver/day to lose some weight has gotta be cheaper than those tupperware-party-promoted crap products that come out of the Good Ol' US of A, methinks.

Maybe I'll give it a whirl - I'm 8Kg overweight, after all.

The Life and Times of Lester Haines

I must've been under my rock too long

I honsetly just found out - at first, due to the deservedly light-hearted start to the excellent Obit. I thought he'd just moved on job-wise...

S'funny, even now when I reach for HP to put on my bacon butty, his 'nosh' articles come to mind.

Grief, I even mentioned him in a post a couple of weeks ago, without knowing. I'd suggested a bacon buttty icon "a la Lester"

RIP.

Facebook's internet drone crash-landed after wing 'deformed' in flight

They expected failure???? Not disappointed, then...

"As a result of the aircrafts design (skid landing gear, low-slung engines and propellers), the operator expected some damage during normal landings."

If God had meant Amazon to use drones, He would have made the sky brown...

Galileo! Galileo! Galileo! Galileo! Galileo fit to go: Europe's GPS-like network switches on

How long before...

...we can buy a receiver for an Arduino for the price of a pint from Banggood, etc?

(Icon, because it looks a bit like a GPS module I've got).

Samsung, the Angel of Death: Exploding Note 7 phones will be bricked

Re: Is this even legal in the EU? - short memories?

"In fact is this the first time in history something like this has been done ?

1. company sells A

2. company then effectively kills A remotely with no user choice in the matter."

Apple and Error 53?

Tobacco giant predicts the end of smoking. Panic ensues

On quitting smoking...

I desperately want to quit, as a 30-a-day gasper for 45 years.

So, went to doctor, prescribed 1x 28-day course of Champix, and another 56-day course after that.

Fine. First course was a swingeing €102 - I'm on the dole, get €520 every 28 days. KELA (our NHS/Obamacare/whatever) doesn't discount the pills. They worked. Take as prescribed (they increase the dose over 7 days - you can still smoke, until you no longer feel the need to - in my case, a Marlborough had no effect after about 10 days)

I did alright - maybe 2-3 ciggies/day, nil towards the end of he course.

Then I went to get the next 'course'. €220. I could choose to quit smoking, or eat. As 'roll-ups' are much cheaper, I simply carried on, even though sometimes I couch so much with 'rollies' that I sometimes pass out.

I CURSE the day I had my first Players #6 behind the bike sheds when I was 14...

Plastic fiver: 28 years' work, saves acres of cotton... may have killed less than ONE cow*

Re: Silly people

You B'stard! I'm on a diet, but the idea of a bacon butty....

As Oscar Wilde said, "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."*

OK, it's sizzling now.....(pause...) Search Great British HP sauce...check - OK it's from Holland, but it'll have to do...(pause)

Nam nam nam....

(Bacon Butty icon á la Lester Haines required.)

* Full quote, from the Picture of Dorian Gray:

“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.”

'Fessd up. Fair enough.

When I was working for Nokia - years ago, we made a basestation with integral antennas. One of the stipulation to the antenna manufacturer was that it didn't contain _any_ of a certain chemical. At that time, I was responsible for procurement of the antenna.

Supplier called me - sheepishly - and said that they actually _do_ use this chemical in a glue, but it was about 1 microgramme per antenna (it hat two). Is it a problem?

The reason this particular material was banned was that it was highly toxic when burned.

Did a bit of research (Google being in its infancy then) and I allowed my common sense to prevail. If about 100,000 of these antennas were to catch fire, simultaneously, and a fireman wasn't wearing his/her breathing apparatus, then, yes - (s)he _might_ get cancer in 20 years.

I decided "Go ahead and make it, folks"

'Elf and Safty somehow have no reason, sometimes. Bit like some "Religious Vegans" I see in the pub, supping beer clarified by isinglass...

User needed 40-minute lesson in turning it off and turning it on again

Re: Can you hold down the power button

My keyboard has a key that says "Enter", but for some strange reason, it also has Æ and Ø (where the ö and ä should be). Still, I nicked it from Norway, so can't grumble...

You work so hard on coding improvements... and it's all undone by a buggy component

Simples.

Try using an Atmel XMEGA series A/D converter to produce meaningful results.

If anyone can get that working, I'll buy 'em a pint! Even Atmel can't....

Re: Levels of blame...

GOTO 1.

There, fixed it for you.

Chinese 'nauts blast off for month-long space station scouting mission

....China has had to go the extra mile ....

I guess that's why the rocket is called "Long march"

Linus Torvalds says ARM just doesn't look like beating Intel

HUH????

...his early experiences writing 6502 machine code gave him appreciation of the way ARM handles instruction pipelines....

Instruction pipeline? 6502? Head, meet wall?

Arduino vs Arduino

Re: If you know how many Arduinos you have

I used to buy Chinese copies of the pro mini in 5's or 10's.

Never reckoned it a 'rip-off', just a small PCB, holding a '328, crystal and a few discretes. Think I got 'em for less than $3 each. None ever failed.

Dublin shopkeeper catches forecourt fouler with his pants down

Downloading some brownware?

OK....IT angle.

Alleged buggy software wrongly flunks wannabe lawyers from bar exam. What happened next won't shock you

How are these two statements compatible? (Unless you're a lawyer)

"There has been no problem with the software and services provided to the Georgia Board of Bar Examiners."

and:

"We have conducted a thorough investigation and have confirmed the causes of the errors in the scoring process," the Georgia Office of Bar Admissions said. "Those have been corrected and we are establishing procedures to ensure we will not make the same errors going forward."

Microsoft redfaced after Bing translation cockup enrages Saudis

Wasn't so long ago...

..that Google Translate translated an adjacent Finnish town to me, Kempele as Ghaziabad. Took 'em some years to fix it.

Windows 10 Anniversary Update completely borks USB webcams. Yay.

Seems to bork "Mouse Without Borders", too.

Odd, because it comes from the 'Microsoft garage'. No longer can I slam the mouse towards my other machine, use keyboard and mouse there.

China's moon rover dies of extreme old age, after two-and-a-half years

Yes, I'm one of those USAn dolts

You could be Libyan, and still use Fahrenheit.