Posts by Haku

The time a Commodore CDTV disc proved its worth as something other than a coaster

Blast from the past.

Wow, talk about time travel, I still have a CD32 buried somewhere in my pile of, er... collectibles.

No, it's not junk and I'm not a hoarder!

At least that's what I tell myself to keep somewhat sane :)

Facebook faces class-action sueball over facial recognition pic-tagging tech to tune of $35bn

Re: Could not happen to a nicer company

Oh I don't know, if/when the time comes, sending them a floral arrangement that spells out "HA-HA" in Comic Sans for their grave would be appropriate.

Outsourcing giant Capita handed £145m for UK.gov's Personal Independence Payment extension

The government are unfit for their jobs. Proof they don't care about the people they're supposed to be helping:

'Child poverty cash handed back to Europe unspent' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49131685

Over half a million £ sent back to Europe because it was unspent, with over £3.5m more at further risk of being sent back because it's not being spent on the people that need it.

Un-fucking-believable.

Satellites with lasers and machine guns coming! China's new plans? Trump's Space Force? Nope, the French

Real Genius (1985)

Operation Crossbow is all I could think of when I read they wanted to put laser weapons in space.

Altogether now: ♫ Everybody wants to rule the world... ♫ (extended version)

It's Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Tech industry speaks its brains on Brexit-monger's victory

Re: TL; DR

The man has a history of being reckless at the expense of others.

Here's just a small sample: 10 fire stations in London shut down in 2014 to save money, and then he goes and starts a garden bridge project that ultimately failed, costing the taxpayers £43 million, yet no construction work was even started...

I dread to think how he's going to impact the rest of the country after that little demonstration of his time as mayor of London.

Re: Joining the Lib Dems

Jo Swinson CV

• Warned against rises in Minimum Wage

• Defended Tory Tribunal Fees

• Scrapped EMA

• Cut Disability Payments

• Backed Bedroom Tax

• Tripled Tuition Fees

• Voted to bomb several Muslim Countries

• Backed Austerity

Lib Dems = Tory Lite ?

'Cockwomble' is off the menu: Uncle Bulgaria issues edict against using name in vain

K**** H******

I wish people wouldn't write it's name in full.

We should treat that thing like Sam Niell & co. did to Mab at the end of the 1989 Merlin miniseries, they took away her power by turning their backs on her and walking away.

AI solves Rubik's Cube in 1.2 seconds (that's three times slower than a non-AI algorithm)

At what point should we start to worry about AI dominance?

I think when it asks for your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle it's too late.

Oz watchdog claims Samsung's leak-proof phones ad campaign doesn't hold water

That's great to hear, I have the Armor 3 because I wanted a phone designed to be stupidly tough - not that I intend to put it in extreme environments, it's the peace of mind knowing it'll be able to cope.

Also the 10,300mAh battery means I only have to charge it once every few days, but I try to charge it up to just 80% as lithium batteries that stay at 100% charge deteriorate quicker, like for instance the batteries in laptops that get left plugged in all the time.

Drone fliers are either 'clueless, careless or criminal' says air traffic gros fromage

Re: Sage is right!

Your argument is absurd stupid nonsense, just because one person enjoys a hobby in a safe manner and another person is reckless, it doesn't automatically mean the good person knows who the bad person is or could stop them even if they did know them.

It's the same situation with drone registration - at the end of the day the police will only have a list of good owners and it won't help them find the bad owners because they just won't register. If an incident happens, how tempting will it be for the overstretched, underfunded police to see that list as an instant suspects list? Just look at what happened to the Gatwick couple, names smeared across the news and dragged into the police station because some busybody must've told the police that man owns a drone, except he didn't anymore...

Chrome ad-blocker crackdown preview due late July. Here's a half-dozen reasons why add-on devs are still upset

Popup says: "Turn off your adblocker to visit our site!"

My response: "No! I shall find the information I was looking for elsewhere."

*closes tab*

Not very bright: Apple geniuses spend two weeks, $10,000 of repairs on a MacBook Pro fault caused by one dumb bug

Louis Rossman

You guys need to employ Louis Rossman to write a weekly 'WTF did Apple do NOW??' story, somehow I don't think he'd run out of material.

If you're wondering who he is, he owns a business he started that repairs Apple Macs, in New York, and he hates Apple with a passion, as evident by his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos where he often talks about the ridiculousness of Apple's designs whilst repairing them under a microscope (he has a camera one so you get to see what component he's actually replacing)

Currently his latest video is titled "How do I fix a black screen on my Touchbar MacBook Pro?" hmm...

Let's make laptops from radium. How's that for planned obsolescence?

Re: Straws

"why not try drinking liquids like an adult?"

You want to try saying that to quadriplegics?

This is a sett-up! Mum catches badger feasting on contents of freezer

Re: Badgers are awesome.

Chronos, love the tale of Gary, I've a bit more to add to my badger encounter tales.

Walking up a hill at night one time I heard this continual loud banging of wooden door, it was 3am, a little looking around I figured out it was a door in a high walled garden accessible from a long tarmac public path with a streetlamp half way up. I stopped at the bottom and waited to see what on earth was going on, a couple of minutes later the banging stopped and I saw a badger trundling along under the streetlight.

I guess its normal foraging route had been blocked, which is what happened to us, in that many years ago we'd often put out food near our back door for badgers, sometimes when I came home late at night I'd scare the crap out of them as I turned the corner, until they stopped visiting regularly because someone had secured the fence on their property, altering their night forage route.

However they do still go through our garden occasionally, as evident by the holes dug in the grass, and last summer coming home from a night ride I had to sit and cool down before going inside, heard a noise in the garden direction, turned on my torch to see the head of a badger poking up from the steps leading down to the garden :)

Badgers are awesome.

I do a lot of night cycling in the rurual-ish area I live in because I love the quiet emptiness of it all without the noisy stream of cars & people everywhere.

Along the cyclepaths & single track roads I'll regularly spook a badger into running away, but not always, one time I saw the familiar shape in the bright light of my bike in the path and stopped because it didn't move, it was a young badger and curious, I pushed my bike forwards gently pressing on the brake to make it squeak a couple of time but it didn't move, just sniffing the air in my direction, I shuffled my feet and it got the message.

Also, I discovered if you're stood still being absolutely quiet and a badger is walking in your direction and you don't want to make it run off in a blind panic, make loud breathing sounds through your nose and it'll realise something is there then turn round and saunter back a different direction.

Really great to see badgers quite close when I've stopped for a drink and silently patiently waited a little while, they'll sometimes run past me on the other side of the single-track road, except this one time I did scare them off from the noise of a fart :D

The saddest night wildlife sight I saw was a badger that had been run over and two others were trying to drag its body up a small bank back into the undergrowth.

I've seen owls, foxes, deer, cats, rabbits, ducks, swans & bats out on my night rides, it's quite something speeding along a cyclepath in the dark with bats out feeding along it, occasionally swooping so low over your head you can feel the air from their wings!

Oh and I feed wild magpies by putting bits of food out on my bedroom windowsill - I could never live in a town or city.

Want a good Android smartphone without the $1,000+ price tag? Then buy Google's Pixel 3a

Re: "it does everything you want" - I disagree.

I purposely chose a phone with a huge battery because by the time its capacity has diminished to the point where it needs replacing, phone tech will have advanced a lot and I may opt to buy a new, better phone for about the same good price.

You're right about the battery not being able to be replaced easily, but they actually provided the correct torx screwdriver to completely dismantle the phone (you need it to access card slots), plus how many phone manufacturers put out a video on their official YouTube channel on how to take their product apart? Ulefone did - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGX59M4uPFI

Yeah its Android 8.1 OS is still locked down, I did try jailbreaking it when I first received it but didn't want to try the route of flashing a new OS in case I bricked it. But one upside is that they didn't preload it with a shit ton of apps you don't want/need and are difficult to uninstall, it was practically a blank slate in the app respect.

"it does everything you want" - I disagree.

Can it survive:

- being submerged in 2 meters of water?

- run over with a car?

- cracking open walnuts and banging nails into wood...with the screen?

- frozen in a block of ice and use another one to smash that ice and retrieve the completely undamaged one?

- dropped into boiling water?

- repeatedly dropped onto concrete from 1.2m?

Does it have:

- a micro SD slot capable of using a 256GB card?

- 10300mAh battery?

Mine can/has - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58FvqdYUakA

Sure I'll likely never use/need all that it offers, and it's a bit hefty at 330grams, but it was a peace of mind purchase because of life's "what if?" factor and I'm satisfied with it so far.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin unveils 'Blue Moon' lander, making it way too easy for manchild Elon Musk to take the piss

Re: need to make a musical correction here:

Have you been watching Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem?

If not, you should :)

Re: Going back to the moon? Very bad idea.

Excellent point, documentaries such as these could go a long way to explaining why Trump ordered the setup of a Space Force, are we in fact on the verge of an intergalactic war we don't know about?

Hmm, I've just noticed my silver badge has disappeared. Must be those aliens.

Going back to the moon? Very bad idea.

Has he not seen the 1970's documentary series Space: 1999?

Key to success: Tenants finally get physical keys after suing landlords for fitting Bluetooth smart-lock to front door

Re: ahem

Even if the entity collecting the data does nothing unethical, immoral or otherwise with it, that doesn't automatically guarantee the data won't be stolen or bought (company takeover etc.) or subpoenaed by law enforcement in the future.

The completely rational take you need on Europe approving Article 13: An ill-defined copyright regime to tame US tech

Re: Really?

"As for the media companies, what's to stop them copycatting or covering?"

This reminds of when I tried to find songs used in the original Knight Rider tv show - it turns out that whilst the songs were from that time, almost all of them were covers, to save an absolute fortune in royalty fees.

US mobe owners will get presidential text message at 2:18 pm Eastern Time

Re: @Brian Miller -- Just hack the system like everybody else, ok?

And remember, kids, Trump doesn't lie, he just tells fake truths.

In a race to 5G, Trump has stuck a ball-and-chain on America's leg

Re: Experts

Many of us are actually experts, but usually it's in a field where there are no awards or qualifications being handed out.

I'm still waiting for my 'Posting Crap Online' award, something I've been doing for over 22 years, I must've picked up several by now...

Do not adjust your set, er, browser: This is our new page-one design

Bleagh.

Yuk.

Activists rattle tin to take UK's pr0n block to court

Lemme guess

Just like that bloody 'snoopers charter', politicians will also be exempt from this new Orwellian rule?

Absolute bastards.

Golden State passes gold-standard net neutrality bill by 58-17

New acronym interpretation of FUP

Along with Fair Use Policy, it can also now mean F U Pai.

It liiives! Sorta. Gentle azure glow of Windows XP clocked in Tesco's self-checkouts, no less

Bag for life.

We're being encouraged to re-use bags, but too often those damn self-service checkouts freak out when you put your bag for life in the bagging area and it cries out for human assistance.

Whilst annoying I guess the positive spin on it is it's an indication the machines aren't mature enough to take over, yet...

Kids are more likely than adults to submit to peer pressure from robots

Re: RTM is well on its way, but not here yet

I think I'll only really start getting worried when robots have the manual dexterity to take a set of keys out of a pocket, select the right one and unlock a door, in complete darkness, with one hand - something that most of us are capable of doing, even after staggering home from the pub, drunk :)

Space, the final Trump-tier: America to beam up $8bn for Space Force

Re: Americans need to alter the criteria for being allowed to be president.

I'm not suggesting the questions need to be particularly difficult to answer correctly, but it would help weed out those who are clearly 'communicating with the aliens'.

However it would be interesting, and give something for the examiners to chuckle over, to thow in some purely abstract questions such as:

26. In which year did man walk on the Sun? "____"

and

31. How long is a piece of string? "_____________________________________"

Americans need to alter the criteria for being allowed to be president.

Like for example they have to be able to pass some basic tests, e.g. identifying the difference between a documentary and a Hollywood sci-fi movie.

I'd almost argue that the voters also need to be able to pass those basic tests.

ZX Spectrum reboot latest: Some Vega+s arrive, Sky pulls plug, Clive drops ball

Yeah, well, I'm gonna go build my own Vega+...with blackjack and hookers!

In fact, forget the Vega+!

Basic bigot bait: Build big black broad bots – non-white, female 'droids get all the abuse

Re: I'm struggling to think of any black androids in film or television

Captain S.T.A.R. in Disney's 1979 film The Black Hole

The 2014 remake of Robocop sees Alex Murphy get a black artificial body, though the actor is white so I don't know where that one stands in this discussion.

Ex Machina - one of the earlier version androids was black.

The 2013 tv series Almost Human had a black android as one of the main characters. I was annoyed they cancelled that after 1 season, I was enjoying it.

Uptight robots that suddenly beg to stay alive are less likely to be switched off by humans

Re: Like Alexa

That was no accident, it was first degree toastercide.

IBM Watson dishes out 'dodgy cancer advice', Google Translate isn't better than humans yet, and other AI tidbits

Re: Should have gone to Google...

You should see a doctor about that cough, I hear they're making great advances in diagnosis & suggested treatment using AI...

You think those incorrect cancer treatment recommendations were a mistake?

Oh no no no, that's just what the machines want you to think.

Nah, it won't install: The return of the ad-blocker-blocker

Re: RE: buy something else without the logo.

Blocking reality with AR.

Throw in facial recognition to block people I don't want to see and I'm sold!

Just like that Black Mirror episode "White Christmas".

Form an orderly queue, people: 31,000 BT staff go to Openreach in October

Re: Dates?

Mobiles? No, tin cans & pieces of string*

.

*tin cans not included

Western Digital formats hard disk drive factory as demand spins down

Re: RE: Western Digital formats hard disk drive factory as demand spins down

I have a WD Black2 hybrid drive in this laptop, 120GB SSD / 1TB HDD, the damn thing randomly locks the computer up for literally 1-5 minutes until the drive light goes off and then everything continues as normal.

When I've had Performance Monitor running and displaying HDD usage the line goes to 100% during that time, I have no idea why this happens, I've searched online but found nobody else with the same issue, it's a pain in the arse but it does boot quickish.

I guess this is a positive thing?

A real, physical result of the increased demand for SSD over HDD, but with a 1TB SSD costing 5x that of a 1TB HDD there's still a significant demand for HDD.

Sad Nav: How a cheap GPS spoofer gizmo can tell drivers to get lost

Re: Thanks for the tip off.

A GPS jammer just makes it 'disappear', a GPS spoofer could send them on a wild goose chase round the M25 on a loop.

Thanks for the tip off.

I'll be sure to make & use one when I 'borrow' vehicles with GPS trackers.

London's top cop isn't expecting facial recog tech to result in 'lots of arrests'

Re: "Anyway, it's only a trial - and it's what the public would want!"

That's right up there with people who genuinely use the phrase "think of the children" - they're only using that 'rally cry' to hide whatever their actual agenda is.

Atari accuses El Reg of professional trolling and making stuff up. Welp, here's the interview tape for you to decide...

Re: Oh how the might have fallen...

Exile was awesome on the BBC Micro, and then again on the Amiga.

User spent 20 minutes trying to move mouse cursor, without success

Ahh trackballs....

I used have a little one I Blu-tacked to the top right corner of my Amiga 2000 keyboard, worked ok as an all-in-one unit but never found trackballs to be as easy to use as mice.

I also had a Genitizer graphics tablet for my Amiga, loved using that thing because it was so quick & precise compared to a mouse, and quite funny watching other people use it for the first time as they'd pick the pen up and move it as if it were a mouse to move the pointer further in the direction they wanted to go, only to find the pointer instantly jumped to the relative position of the pen on the pad.

.

As long as we're travelling down Nostalgia Road, remember hand scanners?

Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist

Anyone want to join me in this padlock venture? We could make a fortune!

SimonPadlock.jpg

Turns out China loves VR. Wires and powerful hardware, less so.

My current experience of VR is:

Friend: "I've got a new VR game!"

Me: "Is it another shoot em up?"

Beat Saber was fun though, but gets repetitive quickly, I lean towards open world games.

New UK drone laws are on the way – but actual Drones Bill still in limbo

Re: Badly reported, or badly done?

"Don't take it personally, they're trying to legislate most forms of aviation into non-existence. It's safer that way."

In a (probably not too) distant dystopian Britain:

"M'lud, the accused was caught trying to sell a whole ream of photocopier paper on the black market, of which we all know is capable of being turned into 500 paper aeroplanes."

Good point, although if they're going to charge us for every craft over 250g we own that could mean some people forking out a small fortune, I would prefer a blanket cover as in you're personally registered to fly any craft within the weight limit, rather than get stung for each and every single one of them.

Also, in the instance you give/sell/lose/destroy your craft, how do you deregister it?

And if you build one up out of separate parts, at what point does it become classified as a drone? Technically you might be able to call it 'spare parts' and not have to register if it has everything except one of the motors is missing.

Re: Great weight limit

I wouldn't try reading the comments on that BBC article unless you want a headache - basically the general public who post there are morons and have no real comprehension of the drone subject beyond what (lies / distorted truth) the media have spoon fed them.