Posts by Thorsten

Germany went off the rails as wireless outage saw all trains cancelled

Word is that it might have been a software update gone bad. We hopefully get the details via "Who Me?".

Tech bro denied dev's hard-earned bonus for bug that overcharged a little old lady

Re: Not only startups lack proper testing

I can think of a couple of ways (from experience) how that could worsen the situation:

One: proper edge case testing for a complex function can easily take more than a single sprint. So testing will be made to fit the timeframe, instead of the other way round.

Two: there are systems where the "naive agile" way of bolting on user story after user story just is a recipe for disaster, because the end state was never properly defined and designed for. You will find out new edge cases for old functions as you go along, since you start to use and combine previously implemented functions in imaginative ways that take you out of the domains for which these functions were designed and tested. With added project pressure, hotfixes and workarounds will be implemented that will further constrain the future extensibility of the system for other customers. (just in case that needs to be added: e.g., systems that solve NP-hard LSCO problems)

Forget feet and inches, latest UK units of measurement are thinking bigger

Re: What the hell is a meter?

... 2.0066 s?!

Which, by some strange coincidence, is the length of one Osman in metres!

Spooky

We put salt in our tea so you don't have to

Who on earth would put milk in tea, unless making a masala chai?

The "weird floaty brown stuff" has two sources: using teabags with cheap CTC processed tea (only "usable as filler material for road paving", as someone once quipped), and using bank filtrate as water (looking at you, Thames Water).

It's best avoided by making tea the traditional way: loose green tea leaves in a cast iron pot, using soft water.

After 11 years, Atlassian customers finally get custom domains ... they don't want

Still waiting for shared components...

Components that are shared between projects: It's been asked for time and again, at least since 2002: JRASERVER-1072, JRASERVER-12241, ...

The answer was always the same: Won't Do. Because the manual process of recreating & linking tickets apparently is sufficient for Atlassian.

Epson zaps lasers into oblivion, in the name of the environment

Re: my Brother laser printer still working since 2007

I see your Brother from 2007 and raise you a Samsung ML-4500 from 2002. Bought for ~ £100, as came with Linux driver, which I needed back then.

Still going strong, as driver (now supported by HP) works even in Windows 11.

Survived two inkjets for photo printing. Definitely more sustainable than inkjet.

Only drawback: its not available as a WLAN printer. Family rather prints on inkjet instead of bringing their laptops to the laser. Haven't figured out yet whether a WLAN printer server would work with the old thing.

Oh the humanity: McDonald's out of milkshakes across Great Britain

Re: A number of sound decisions?

Small addendum:

The law regarding "Scheinselbständigkeit" is aimed at contractors who work for one client exclusively. These contractors could just as well be employees of their client, with all that entails (mainly social security stuff like health insureance, unemployment insurance and pensions, the payments of which is split between employer and employee).

That's where the 2-year-rule comes from. It's also mainly targeted at the lower end of the labour market, where companies have outsourced work to "contractors" who worked solely for them, still got their low wages, and were then supposed to pay health insurance themselves and save enough for retirement. Obviously, they would then have to live off social security when retired. The companies would have saved a lot of money, and the state would have had to pay. Hence the law.

The law does not affect "Freiberufler" who have more than one client. At our software company, we have contractors who have worked for us for over 15 years straight.

Family wrongly accused of uploading pedo material to Facebook – after US-EU date confusion in IP address log

Re: Bring back VMS Standard Date/Time...

"This is because there is nowhere in the world that has ever used YYYY-DD-MM as a date format."

Kazakhstan: "Short format: (yyyy.dd.mm) in Kazakh"

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country)

Boeing aircraft sales slump to historic lows after 737 Max annus horribilis

Re: It's not just the 737...

The relevant quote from the original article (https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/):

[quote]

“The new leadership didn’t understand processes,” Barnett told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. “They brought them in from other areas of the company. The new leadership team – from my director down – they all came from St. Louis, Missouri. They said they were all buddies there.”

“That entire team came down. They were from the military side. My impression was their mindset was – we are going to do it the way we want to do it. Their motto at the time was – we are in Charleston and we can do anything we want.”

[/quote]

Also, the "they" in the quote in the Big Think article relates clearly to the "new leadership team", i.e., the ex-military guys. The grammar couldn't be clearer.

Grammar nazi icon, because, well, obviously...

We did Nazi see this coming... Internet will welcome Earth's newest nation with, sigh, a brand new .SS TLD

Try this:

[e-mail]

Much more ambiguous than [e-mail]

German army fights underground Nazi war machine hidden in Kiel pensioner's cellar

here it is...

The army engineers finally managed to remove it. Apparently, they had to negotiate a bend, and since the tank had no tracks any more, they had to figure out how to pull it around.

BTW, the owner is quoted as having bought the tank as scrap in Britain.

Link: http://www.n-tv.de/panorama/Weltkriegspanzer-in-Ostsee-Villa-geborgen-article15433571.html

German NSA probe chief mulls spy-busting typewriters

Re: Actually, this may not be a bad idea...

"Just get a modern PC [...]"

Wrong. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_%28codename%29.

Royal Navy parks 470 double-decker buses on Queen Elizabeth

And why not?

Seeing that the ship is (basically) ready to sail, but there are no*aircraft available to park on it, you might just as well hire it out as RORO carrier for buses and try to recuperate a small fraction of the investment.

Firefighters deliver trapped student from GIANT GERMAN LADYPARTS

Re: What puzzles me ...

> Isn't the fire brigade in Tübingen a paid service?

No, it's a volunteer fire department. The town will pay for the operational costs as well as loss of wages for the volunteers. They may be able to charge the exchange student, though.

Re: What puzzles me ...

It's in front of the university's microbiology and virology institute (go figure!). It cost 120k€, and it's supposed to symbolise the "gate to the world" (although the title is "chacàn", which means something different).

As for 22 firefighters being there: apparently the emergency call went "there's a guy trapped in a stone vagina". I guess that none of the firefighters on duty then wanted to stay behind at the station. The only one unhappy was Tübingen's mayor, who, thinking of the costs, asked in an interview whether it was really necessary that all 22 had to be present.

Anyway, cue lots of comments in the German press about the second speleologist that had to be rescued from a cave within a week...

NASA quandary: Should Curiosity channel Fast and Furious for Martian dune-buggy jump?

Sigh...

Mount Sharp is still in Antarctica on Earth. Curiosity would have to scale that ramp pretty fast to achieve escape velocity and be able to make it to Mount Sharp. Eventually.

On the other hand, going slowly might get it on the road to Aeolis Mons on Mars.

11m Chinese engulfed by 'Airpocalypse' at 4000% of safe pollution levels

Re: Coal for heating, and clearing the corn fields

Parts sent from Europe to automotive factories in China (e.g. for CKD manufacturing) are shipped in cardboard boxes, not re-usable crates, as shipping these crates back to Europe would be too expensive. The cardboard boxes are then given to the workers as heating material. That's not exactly helping with the pollution problem either.

WikiLeaker-in-chief Assange refuses to meet Benedict Cumberbatch

Debauched?

Debauched? Does he really speak like that? He sounds like he is channelling Ignatius J. Reilly, another pompous ass, but much more funny. I bet his valve closed when he read about the film being made.

Android adware that MUST NOT BE NAMED threatens MILLIONS

Re: And yet....

You're right about that horrible Americanism, but:

"Couldn't care lass" - which actually makes sense.

Does it really?

Punter strikes back at cold callers - by charging THEM to call HIM

"You cannot charge a fee for information that you're stupid enough to sign on and post yourself."

But as Jaron Lanier convincingly argues in "Who Owns the Future?", you should be able to.

Boeing batteries back under spotlight as 787 burns at Heathrow

Re: A known problem

The APU is at the very end of the tail, while the fire was in front of the tailplane fin, so it's unlikely that this is directly connected to the APU. And the power cables are likely below the floor, not in the crown.

Re: No rear rest area

It's also reported for Ethiopian, which is a tad more relevant for this incidence than Etihad's configuration.

Elon Musk's Grasshopper tops 300m, lands safely

Dr. Evil's Big Boy rocket?

Ozzy Osbourne: I mean, they're using the same fucking jokes as they did in the last Austin Powers movie.

Sharon Osbourne: What fucking joke?

Jack Osbourne: You know, the fucking joke about the rocket that looks like some guy's...

General Clark: Johnson!

Vulcan? Not on our tiny balls. Pluto moons named Kerberos, Styx

"Cerebus"?

I never imagined Shatner being a comic books aficionado with a fondness for sword-wielding aardvarks with questionable ethics (both the aardvark and its creator)! Although it kind of fits.

Ecuador: Snowden is Russia's problem

Quod erat expectandum

Snowden's daftest move so far: Letting himself be "helped" by WikiLeaks.

Partying, beer and C++: How to choose the right Comp-Sci degree for you

Re: Does anybody know ...?

Hint: always read the fine print.

Techies finger Bradley Manning for US secret files database breach

Re: Can we make this 100 Upvotes ?

Here, have an upvote! (not the OP, though...)

Curiosity prepares for year-long road trip to Mount Sharp

Never

Curiosity will never reach Mount Sharp. Ever.

However, in good time, it may reach Aeolis Mons.

Oi, Google! Stop LIBELLING us Germans, fix your autocomplete

Re: "Germans are ..."

Quote: The phrase if "different FROM ..." , not "different than ...".

"if"? Was that also "deliberate and required"?

(not a native speaker, though, so I might stand corrected...)

Look ma, no plugins! Streaming web video with just JavaScript

Re: Shouldn't that be...

This kind of watermarking is already done in cinemas. I read an interview recently with the producer of "Cloud Atlas" who said that with digital projections, he could identify exactly not only the cinema but the particular screening where a digicam recording of the movie was made. This doesn't prevent the copying, but could be used as evidence in the unlikely event that the perpetrator was caught. The soundtrack is similarly watermarked.

If nobody notices the watermarks in the digital projections in cinemas, then why should it be noticeable on a computer screen?

Kim Dotcom's locker may be full, but the cupboard is bare

Re: Copyright Protection Should Not Be ("Free" deleted)

I went and I did some little thing wrong,

That's why I had to go and write this song

.

'bout throwin' out the baby.

You're throwin' out the baby,

You're throwin' out the baby with the bath-water blues.

.

A perty girl kissed me on the chin,

Honey it'll never happen again.

.

You're throwin' out the baby,

You're throwin' out the baby,

You're throwin' out the baby with the bath-water blues.

.

Don't say our love can't be saved,

Just because I kinda misbehaved.

.

Don't throw out the baby,

You're throwin' out the baby,

You're throwin' out the baby with the bath-water blues.

[Rev. Horton Heat]

NASA: There are 17 BEEELLION Earth-sized worlds in Milky Way

Can't decide if that's a failed attempt at humour or a failed attempt at physics. Whatever...

John McAfee the Belize spymaster uncovers 'ricin, terrorist plots'

Hedging your bets...

<quote>Jones [...] concluded that McAfee is either telling the truth, "is partially telling the truth and has become paranoid" or is "one of the best liars and storytellers".</quote>

No shit, Sherlock.

Give the man a job in a think-tank. Such deep analysis ... awesome.

First rigid airship since the Hindenburg enters trials

@JustaKOS Re: COSH

Good point. Increasing the size of the airbag would also reduce the space available for the helium, so no need to reduce the volume of the cell. (I was remembering when I built a model airship, filling the thing with helium is difficult when using rigid cells. Needs to be done very slowly, else too much air remains mixed with the helium)

Maintaining the shape of the airship is not due to the helium, though. You'd normally have some kind of outer hull.

COSH

Pumping the helium into a container on its own wouldn't suffice. If the gas cells are rigid, then the helium needs to be replaced with some other gas, else you'd create a vacuum, which at the least wouldn't reduce buoyancy. Also, replacing the pumped out helium with some other gas (like normal air) is not a good idea, either, since then if you'd want to increase buoyancy again afterwards, siphoning out the air without also removing some of the expensive helium would not be easy - they won't be that cleanly separated.

My guess would be that they have internal helium cells that they can decrease in size as required to control buoyancy, without actually moving the helium from the cell into some container.

Still, this needs to be a very fast system, unless they only want to be able to load/unload small items one at a time.

Vatican shrugs off apocalypse, fiddles with accounts dept

Re: You mean 292279025167 years

No, given my age, I'm pretty sure that I'm still running a 32-bit system.

The world will end in 25 years

Roughly.

To be precise, it will end 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038.

By which time I will be half a year away from retirement.

Damn.

Boffins spot planet that could support life... just 12 light years away

Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

"intergalactic interstellar"

or maybe intragalactic?

Linux kernel dumps 386 chip support

Re: At that speed Windows 3.1 did not disgrace itself.

My first own computer had just a single 5 1/4" floppy drive. Saving anything to disk from, say, Word, took about a dozen (maybe more) disk swaps. The 32 MB RLL was suddenly the highest priority on my wishlist...

Re: Z-80

"Nowhere near as wonderful as the 68K!

//no antique computing icon???"

Microprocessors, bah! Antique computing means TTLs, not VLSIs.

Mine's the one with Wang 2200 BASIC-2 manual in the pocket...

Assange^TM spins Oz Senate candidacy again

Re: Assange 2013!!

Assange™ would certainly feel at home at Berlusconi's "bunga bunga" parties...

Re: Survey results

Hint: Always read the label.

"Disclaimer: These polls are not scientific and reflect the opinion only of visitors who have chosen to participate."

So the result of this little poll is worth: nothing.

England and Germany square off for FIFA goal line tech prize

Re: Errata

"stuffed"? Such a harsh word. Rather applies to Munich, 2001, I'd say. (or Oxford '09...)

Errata

The decision to introduce the technology comes a whole two 46 years after an infamous disallowed goal by England’s Frank Lampard Geoff Hurst against Germany in the last '66 World Cup. Despite not landing fully across the line it was mysteriously not spotted by either linesman or and referee – prompting gratuitous “we was robbed” "wir wurden bestohlen" outbursts from the English German diaspora all over the world.

there... fixed that for you.

Voyager 1 arrives on ‘magnetic highway for charged particles’

Vogons?

Reading the words "highway", "roadworks", and "space" in the same article makes me very nervous. Glad to have a towel here in the office.

Elon Musk envisions small town of vegetarians on Mars

And who'd be able to afford the $500K tickets?

Investment bankers.

Hedgefond managers.

All those sociopathic rich people currently looking into "seastading".

Media executives.

A- to Z-list celebrities.

Fantastic!

Should Microsoft merge Office into Windows - or snap it off?

Booting straight into Office?

What nonsense is that?

Booting straight into Emacs, that's all I need!

Job ad seeks 'mediocre' developers

Re: no emacs users?

C-x C-k? What's that? kmacro-edit-macro???

Germans hail Vulture 1 spaceplane

Re: Erm...

Although there's no German equivalent to boffin, and so it might have been a valid translation, the article appeared in Die Zeit, not Bild, and so Wissenschaftler must unfortunately be translated as scientists. (but reading it made me smile...)

Scientists probe Earth's core, make mystifying discovery

They are looking for something that is even *lighter* than iron. The decay chain of uranium-238 ends with lead-206, which is much *heavier* than iron.