Posts by Steve Crook

Pong, anyone? How about Pong on a vintage oscilloscope?

Enough!

This sort of thing is amusing, interesting, inspiring. But I just feel inadequate, uneducated, ill informed. A bit like a taster version of the Total Perspective Vortex.

Head of US military kit-testing slams F-35, says it's scarcely fit to fly

Re: There have been planes like this before.

Yup, that'd be my choice as well. Best plane from WWII by a country mile and very possibly the best combat aircraft ever built.

Great airframe design & build coupled with engines from the gods. Went to the Mosquito museum and was quite astonished at how small it was. I've built a few models of the plane, but until you see it in the flesh it's incredibly difficult to appreciate just how tiny it is.

Dishwasher has directory traversal bug

Re: Bewildered. (That's grown-up speak for "wtf")

We get internet connected dishwashers because Miele think there are idiots out there who would choose their model over one without an internet connection, and that fewer people will refuse to buy it for the same reason.

In that sense I think Miele are entirely correct in their assumptions. If we (in the widest sense) are living in hell, it's one we made...

Come in King Battistelli, your time at the Euro Patent Office is up

Rumour is that...

He'll be joining the EU Brexit negotiating team...

Can we have a false news icon please...

Watt the f... Dim smart meters caught simply making up readings

Re: pah....

How much of a premium are you prepared to pay to not have one? You can bet that as soon as they can, they'll start to really sting those who chose not to switch to encourage them to change their minds.

Vapists rejoice! E-cigs lower cancer risk (if you stop smoking, duh)

What's needed is regulation of the vaping liquid content to control nicotine levels and other chemicals. ATM most liquid contains chemicals who's behavior is well known.

The idea that vaping is going to be a bad or even worse as smoking is just stupid and flies in the face of any sense.

People who use the precautionary principle should first use it on their idea to use the precautionary principle.

Why does it cost 20 times as much to protect Mark Zuckerberg as Tim Cook?

Sharp Objects

Have to be removed from any space Mr Z occupies in case he hurts himself. Or a chicken.

Who do you want to be Who? VOTE for the BBC's next Time Lord

Tom Wrigglesworth

Doesn't exist. He's an actor playing a part written for him by a 75 year old woman living in Letchworth. She doesn't like Dr Who.

Watch: MIT's terrifying invisible gel robo-eels snatch live fish

Anyone reminded of the...

The water tentacle from "The Abyss"?

Coming to the big screen: Sci-fi epic Dune – no wait, wait, wait, this one might be good

Re: Not. Holding. My Breath.

In other breaking news Valve announce HL3 for Q1 2018

Not. Holding. My Breath.

Got paperback copy of Dune in the early 70s. It said "soon to be a major film"

HA. HA. HA.

Fake History Alert: Sorry BBC, but Apple really did invent the iPhone

Unfounded optimism

> We look forward to hearing how the BBC responds.

Don't hold your breath. If they respond at all, it will be to explain patiently (and slowly) that they were right and he was wrong.

On another note, surely it's neither the state nor inventors that are responsible for these inventions, but the ancestors of those who gave birth to them. They own the genes. But then of course the flying spaghetti monster created everything, so perhaps it's the true innovator.

Vegans furious as Bank of England admits ‘trace’ of animal fat in £5 notes

Re: But Why?

Lubrication. Steric acid. Cheapest source. Others sources are available, but can change characteristics of plastic, making it softer for example.

Tallow is for Steric Acids, as a lubricant.

So I'd assume that it's not just the fivers that are the issue, it'll be pretty widespread. It may well be that the vegetarians plastic shoes have those same traces...

There are non animal alternatives, but they're more expensive and can (I believe) make the plastic a little softer (less durable?).

IoT worm can hack Philips Hue lightbulbs, spread across cities

Trump/Brexit angle.

No doubt this worm has been in the wild for some time. Coded messages flashed into the brains of voters compelling them to go and vote 'the wrong way'. All very Manchurian Candidate, anyone fancy a game of cards?

What should the Red Arrows' new aircraft be?

Spruce Goose

I'd just want to see them take off. That'd be enough...

Virtual reality is actually made of smartphones

Who cares? If it wasn't going to be Jobs, it would've been someone else...

Osborne, Psion, even Sinclair. The all had a crack at producing a 'handheld' computer. The value of computer combined with a phone was pretty obvious to all, what was missing was technology and a perception of a market at the likely price of such a device.

Apple happened to be in the right place at the right time technology wise and produced a quality product. I think what surprised many was the willingness of people to part with £450 'just' for a phone. That was where Apple's genius lay, they *really* understood the size of the market *and* how to sell to it.

I know that for some, the eighties are ancient history, something only known from the mad ravings of the parents or history books. But really, a bit of technology PERSPECTIVE please.

Hey! spies! Get! in! here! and! explain! this! Yahoo! email-scanning! 'kernel! module!'

At least Scunthorpe's email is safe

As it's not smut they're scanning for....

Lily Cole: You'd hate me more if Impossible.com were a success

She's redefined success...

And made Orlowski part of her success story. The more criticism she receives the more successful she is. It fits in so well with Trolling and all the other internet hate memes, almost like mining bitcoin. Before long, she's going to be so successful that Facebook will probably buy her.

She's a fool and I hate her. I'm also proud to be part of her success. Also, my head hurts.

Hollywood offers Daniel Craig $150m to (slash wrists) play James Bond

All right then.

I'll do it. Anything to stop Craig ruining another couple of films with that constipated monkey face he does when he's trying to look concerned. Or cool. Or worried. Not a penny under £100k per film and I want a big caravan on set. One of those shiny aerostream jobbies.

I don't have any experience of acting, but then that's never exactly been important has it.

When do I start?

BBC detector vans are back to spy on your home Wi-Fi – if you can believe it

License per concurrent device connected.

With discounts for buying multiple licenses. They've already conceded that the license isn't for the TV or for the house, just to be able to stream the content, the next logical step is to tie it to the software.

Then, if I want to buy a license for 6 concurrent users I can.

But that's beginning to look a little like a subscription. Which is a bad thing (apparently). While a poll tax is a good thing (apparently).

My partner doesn't have a TV license. I do. **Hypothetically**, I regularly stream live broadcasts at her place (on my laptop) which we both watch. Is that a contravention of the law? Would I be complying with the law if I stopped her from watching the programs I stream while using her BB connection?

Windows 10: Happy with Anniversary Update?

Re: Don't care!

> so perhaps there's some merit in it?

True, but would make more sense if it was part of a 'what's the best Linux GUI for my wife' thread. It's about as tiresome (from repetition) as the M$ that was (is?) so dear to some commentards.

At least Eadon had class....

Blighty will have a whopping 24 F-35B jets by 2023 – MoD minister

Space to spare

> It is important to note that the Queen Elizabeth is capable of carrying up to 36 F-35s in her hangars

I have several boxes of paperbacks I'd like to store somewhere secure. If the MOD/Navy want, I could store them in a corner of all that unused hangar space. I could probably probably afford to pay around £10 a month...

Otherwise, without a steady income it might look like the whole exercise with these carriers and their aircraft has been a complete fucking waste of money.

Idiot brings gun-shaped iPhone to airport

Taser?

Immediately, and then a couple more. Just to be sure.

fMRI bugs could upend years of research

Wee 'P' values

There's an idea that a small 'P' value always means something, and also, an idea that statistics isn't something that needs a specialist, that your graduate course in stats and Excel functions are enough to see you through...

I can't help feeling that every science team needs a statistician or three to analyse their data and produce results. Sort of like system/acceptance testing, members of the team, but kept apart so they can at least make a show of independence.

As for publishing code and data to allow reproducibility, why would anyone want to do that unless they're forced to? IMO for peer review to be worth anything, every published paper should have had its code and data analysed by at least one independent reviewer and should be published to allow anyone to reproduce the results.

Remember a paper published last year that claimed to show that people who held right wing views correlated with people with psychotic tendencies? Someone got hold of the data and showed that a bug in the researchers Excel spreadsheets meant they'd got the 'results' the wrong way round.

http://retractionwatch.com/2016/06/07/conservative-political-beliefs-not-linked-to-psychotic-traits/

If forcing reproducibility during review means that guff like this never gets published, job done.

Vendors suspend tech orders as Brexit slaps Brit pound

Re: Hedging

Amazed you got anyone to take on a transfer. Transferwise had put up the shutters from first thing yesterday.

The markets going to the shitters was always going to happen with a Leave. If things behave as normal, the £ will rise over the next couple of weeks to close to where it was prior to the vote as people (traders) come to realise the Four Horsemen are not abroad.

Rejoice, fatties: Giving chocolate electric shocks makes it healthier

I'm sure there's a Mick Jagger joke in there somewhere

> Scientists have reportedly managed to reduce the viscosity of a Mars bar by 43.5 per cent

Energy companies aren't going to slurp your personal data. Honest

Re: Murphy's Rule of Personal Data

Regardless of what's said now, at some point they'll ask (MI5, MI6, Police whoever) to be allowed to slurp and it'll be granted either because terrorism or because climate change. Or whatever we're supposed to be afraid of in 10 years time. Then it'll be the data from your smart thermostat and the monitoring device they've insisted you fit to the toilet bowl.

Still, as someone's bound to point out, if you've got nothing to hide, what's the harm????

Developer waits two years for management to define project

Management...

Are almost as bad as sales. Sales always change their minds, management never make theirs up.

Management wait until the last minute before making a decision and then want whatever it is delivered in less time than it took them to decide what they wanted. So, generally, if you say a project starts from the "I think we should..." moment and finished at the first release, 70% of the time passes before any development is even planned.

Welcome to the jumbo: Axl Rose tries to take a bite out of 'Fat Axl' internet meme

Slander: "the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation".

He's indisputably fat. Therefore any statements implying it or stating it are true and not slander. What he wants is a law to prevent people from speaking a truth he doesn't want to hear...

Re: in Axl's defense

You mean apart from not eating as much and moving a bit more? Always worked for me, though it's always nice to know that black tar heroin is out there if I get really really desperate....

Streisand rides again.

Not heard anything about this until I read the article, and there wouldn't have been the article if Rose hadn't tried to get the stuff taken down. Doing this sort of thing is akin to poking a sleeping bear with a stick. There's only one outcome. Still, I'm sure England will provide a court and judge happy to ban it from viewing in England to protect his children from harm. He doesn't have children? His pets then...

Will they never learn?

Oh, of course he has another option. Lose weight.

England just not windy enough for wind farms, admits renewables boss

Re: Knuckling under

It's NOT a reg hack conclusion. The full context is that, without subsidy, onshore wind will never be cost competitive with gas. Because the turbines don't generate enough electricity, because there's not enough wind...

Which is strange when you think that, 15 years ago we were being told that wind power would solve our need for low carbon electricity and that issues surrounding intermittent operation were idiotic because 'the UK is very windy, and the wind is always blowing somewhere'.

Now, we're confronted with wind and solar operators installing DIESEL generators to cash in on the need for short term power generation to meet peak margin requirements. You couldn't make it up.

Samsung: Don't install Windows 10. REALLY

Samsung, update drivers or firmware...

Nahhh, it's old hardware, and they just can't be bothered when there's all this shiny new they want to sell.

Won't ever buy a Samsung smart TV again because I don't trust them to post the fixes for the security flaws that are undoubtedly in their software or fix the bugs for that matter.

Re: Your files are still where you left them

I asked for the upgrade on my PC nearly a month ago and finally gave up waiting to receive any notifications or a download of the update and had to go to the MS site and kick it off manually.

The upgrade went without a hitch and was done in about an hour (excluding the download).

So, as ever with this sort of thing, YMMV...

$10bn Oracle v Google copyright jury verdict: Google wins, Java APIs in Android are Fair Use

Re: @tekHedd - I haven't downvoted a post in a long time...

Software I wrote trapped the exceptions and logged a meaningful error message along with the stack trace. Shoot the developer not the language. Next to security, error handling is the most neglected part of software development. Not that they ever produced a stack trace of course :)

I can remember working with versions of AIX that seemed to specialise in producing short, cryptic and undocumented messages like "Your dorkle has snarfed". At one point I began to wonder if it wasn't all part of some clever game, where if I collected the messages and re-arranged correctly them I'd win a huge prize.

Gillian Anderson: The next James Jane Bond?

Re: " will have to to beat off stiff competition"

"I mean if there's any article where you're going to insert an extra entendre, it's going to be one on Bond"

I mean if there's any place where you're going to insert an extra entendre, it's going to be one on Bond

" will have to to beat off stiff competition"

Really? I mean REALLY?

Chaps make working 6502 CPU by hand. Because why not?

There's probably someone already porting

DOOM.

Work begins on Russian rival to Android

Re: "Trusted"

Alexander Litvinenko agrees with you that Putin's reputation for dodgy dealings is largely a concoction of the state controlled western media....

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

Now, about that launch

Of a tonne of 1mm ball bearings Mr Bond....

36 idiots running SAP under attack after flubbing 2010 patch

Re: No, not really child's play

It's a choice, isn't it.

Either the enterprise decides to 'go down' for a time to get everything patched and up-to-date and risks pissing off customers when it all goes tits up, or it takes the risk of a security breach. No brainer, you take the risk of a breach because the financial hurt from a badly applied update (and the cost of updating) far outweighs the one from a security break, if it ever happens. I say this after hearing Dido Harding on the radio this a.m. gushing about TT's last quarter and how the business is bouncing back...

I don't see this changing any time soon. Probably until companies are forced to disclose *how* they were breached and, after that, the first successful class action suit from people who's data was stolen via an exploit that should have been patched years back.

Not holding my breath mind you...

At the BBC, Agile means 'making it up as we go along'

Envy of the World.

Yup, there must be broadcasters the world over who envy the BBC their ability to piss away the odd £75m - £100m without risking anyone's job.

Look at the timeline for this project and they started it almost at the same time as the Digital Media Initiative collapsed in on itself.

So they definitely learned a lesson, though probably not the one we were hoping...

Clucking hell! Farcical free-range egg standard pecked apart by app

And the information is...

Accurate? Just wait for the lawsuit when the app tells people that Brand A is clucking unhappy, when, in fact, it's clucking cheerful.

This has all of the reliability problems of any aggregation interface combined with an additional set presented by its immediacy.

As for getting involved in politics and showing contributions from businesses to politicians, jeebus.

Nice idea. but I'd imagine this has lawyers uninvolved in Oracle vs Google or Samsung vs Apple thinking that they might not have missed out after all :-|

Vinyl LPs to top 3 million sales in Blighty this year

By the Look Of The Best Sellers

It's the boomers that are buying them.

Still got my LPs, still play them, but the only thing I really miss are the sleeves and the notes and inserts that went with them. The warped discs, dished discs, off centre holes, mold release stuck in the grooves, plicks, plits and 'bedazzled' scratches I can do without. Ahh, how I fondly remember the repeated visits to the local record shops to exchange an LP for the umpteenth time in the vain hope of getting a copy that was remotely playable. Not.

OTOH, give me a free FLAC copy with my vinyl purchase and I might be interested...

China enacts 'real name policy' for internet addresses

Still,

Imagine how much worse it would have been if China hadn't hosted the Olympics....

Mal Men men hit LiveJournal with Angler exploit kit

Ad Blockers?

Want me to stop using them? Fix this sort of thing...

Is iOS 9.3 Apple's worst ever update? First it bricks iThings, now Safari is busted

Re: apple did release a range of plastic straps

You forgot "rain". God bless English.

Swedish publishers plan summer ‘Block Party’ to thwart ad blockers

Re: Good Luck

As a general thing, if that's what they want to do, then they can say goodbye to any visits to their sites for a month and, once I can do without them for a month, I can do without them at all...

Was that the intent?

Ad-blockers are a Mafia-style 'protection racket' – UK's Minister of Fun

Re: Takes one to know one

The operative word in that paragraph is "USE". If you can show them that, despite having the equipment, it's not actually in a position to use the service without significant effort, there's not much they can do.

Otherwise we'd all be paying just because we own a computer.

All of which points up just how much of an imposition this poll tax is. Subscriptions :-)