* Posts by A. Coatsworth

866 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2008

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Post-silly season blues leave me bereft of autonomous robot limbs

A. Coatsworth Silver badge

It is an universal truth that, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter how awesome you think you are, you end up looking like the Dork King of Uncoolness the moment you set a foot on a Segway.

Roskosmos admits that Soyuz 'meteorite' hole had more earthly origins

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Happy

These are clearly speedholes. They make the craft go faster (probably to its doom, but still, faster)

Net neutrality haters spam Californians with annoying robocalls

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Happy

Re: Shocked! Shocked, I say!! NOT!!!

I have a bigger problem with this paragraph:

In fact the Civil Justice Association of California is the big catch-all lobbying organization in California for every American mega-corporation you've heard of: Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, Ford, Koch Companies, GlaxoSmithKline, Shell, State Farm and so on

As someone who lives in the left hand side of the Pond, but waaaay south of the border, I have NEVER heard about several of these megacorps. Hopefully, my life will continue as usual if I don't even take the time to DDG Eli Lilly or Koch.

That's not to say I don't care about the whole net neutrality brouhaha... far from it

Surprise! VAT, customs likely to get a bit trickier in a Brexit no-deal world

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Pint

Re: Na na na na na na na VAT man!

@Paul J Turner

Was going to upvote you, but you have exactly 16 votes now. So have one of these instead

Techie's test lab lands him in hot water with top tech news site

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Joke

So... were there any other sites hosted in the same server?

The title mentions a "top tech news site" that went down, but the article text only mentions El Reg, so I think something is missing.

Google Spectre whizz kicked out of Caesars, blocked from DEF CON over hack 'attack' tweet

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Re: The right thing to do

It is not simply that they are swatting flies with a bazooka.

It is that this whole exercise was useless. We know it, they know it, and Mr. Lindon knows it, but organizations are desperate to look like they are doing something, while in reality helping nothing to eradicate the real terrorism/insecurity problem.

It is a highly visible move that allows them to say "we take the security of our guest very seriously", but is it conductive in any way to actually make Las Vegas, or USA or the world any safer? of course not.

It is the same train of thought that leads corporations to fire people because of a stupid joke they did years ago as if that helps to fight the rampant sexism and abuse in the industries.

These actions are hateful because they are nothing but PR at the cost of a person that everybody knows is innocent. If (or $Deity forbids, when) the next attack occurs, this stupidity will help nothing to prevent it.

Funnily enough, no, infosec bods aren't mad keen on W. Virginia's vote-by-phone-app plan

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Alert

Re: NO

Your vote for "YES" has been recorded and will be counted towards the total.

Thank you for using Mobile Voting.

We hope to see you again soon.

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

A. Coatsworth Silver badge
Trollface

A Mexican comedian had a great sketch about this.. He would "invade" random tv shows to stop them from doing any advertisements. In one memorable scene, the actors were driving around in an Volkswagen Beetle. He covered the VW logo with masking tape and flew away, his work done.

Doctor, doctor, I feel like my IoT-enabled vacuum cleaner is spying on me

A. Coatsworth Silver badge
Mushroom

Super User rights... SD Cards... Vacuums

Why does this exist? In the name of everything that is holy, WHY?!

Please, stop the World, I *need* to get out

Wearable hybrids prove the bloated smartwatch is one of Silly Valley's biggest mistakes

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Facepalm

Re: Shopping lists?

I usually check the fridge and the kitchen to see what I need to buy, and write it down in a list so I don't forget. I go to the supermarket and promptly discover I forgot to bring the damned list with me, so I have to buy from memory.

Once I come back home, I check the list (which has been waiting for me in the kitchen counter he whole time) only to find out how many important items I forgot to buy, and how much unneeded crap I did buy.

A couple of weeks later, I repeat the whole process

Dudes. Blockchain. In a phone. It's gonna smash the 'commoditization of humanity' or something

A. Coatsworth Silver badge
Facepalm

*Reads the title*

Hopes go thorugh the roof: "Is Steve Bong back at El Reg??"

*Reads actual article*

Damn, Reality is much, much stupider than fiction

At last – a use for AI! Predicting an England World Cup victory

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Terminator

Re: Who should you trust, AI or a goat?

I come from the future to tell you that England won 2 - 0, so AI is more trustworthy than a goat.

I know, I know... the news has completely surprised me too!

Dear Samsung mobe owners: It may leak your private pics to randoms

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Black Helicopters

Re: Sounds like sabotage to me

It happened to Google StreetView vans... that one time they spontaneously grew the ability to sniff and record WIFI traffic.

It can happen t o anyone

Automated payment machines do NOT work the same all over the world – as I found out

A. Coatsworth Silver badge

Re: English?

@Dr_N

Nope... my French doesn't work for much more than "Ye ne pagh-lé pa Francé"

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Happy

Re: English?

Being neither, but having learned American English, I have been usually for an American tourist more than once in Europe. It is really interesting how the people's attitude changes when I'm done explaining where the little backwater country I'm from is actually located .

In France (or more specifically in Paris) it seems it is better to try and communicate in Spanish rather than English, even if the interlocutor speaks neither... that way I have sidestepped their proverbial disdain of tourists.

A slick phone Linux for your pocket PDA? Ooh, don't mind if I do, sir

A. Coatsworth Silver badge

I'd love to go full circle and install Sailfish in my new "Nokia" 6. It would be almost poetic.

But I'm not brave enough to even find out if it is feasible at the time

USB-C for Surface owners arrives in form of a massive dongle

A. Coatsworth Silver badge

NASA eggheads draw up blueprints for spotting, surviving asteroid hits

A. Coatsworth Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: UN oversight?

Yeah, the UN will prove once more how useful it is... when the UN Space Protection Council (SPOC?) rules something that a member doesn't like, that member won't be able to simply walk away, because the UN resolutions are so binding and it has so much muscle to make the countries comply.

It is not like it just happened with... with... no, I can't recall a super power leaving a UN organization in the last weeks, with the organization being worse than useless to stop it

Woman sues NASA for ownership of vial of space dust

A. Coatsworth Silver badge
Joke

Don't do that!

Moon dust is awfully carcinogen... great for all sorts of mad science, but carcinogen nonetheless... Ask Cave Johnson!

First A380 flown in anger to be broken up for parts

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Thumb Up

That phrase left me scratching my head. How can a single-decker plane match the capacity of a double decker?

The only options would be doubling its length, which would be extremely funny to see; or doubling the passenger density, which is extremely worrying because it sounds like something the airlines would actually consider!

Thanks for the clarification

Every bloody gadget in the house is ringing. Thanks, EE

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FAIL

any internet device with audio in and audio out will work, such as a TV

This is the reason why we can't have nice things...

Yahoo! Kills! The! Messenger!

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Joke

Re: Contact me on Oath Squirrel

Interestingly, CIA passed most of the research data to MOSSAD, who went on with the program. They wisely decided to replace squirrels with lizards, which adapt better to the Iran weather.

Britain's new F-35s arrive in UK as US.gov auditor sounds reliability warning klaxon

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Pint

Damn you, sitta_europea, that is too cool!

Have one on me

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Thumb Up

You British built some crazy and beautiful (and crazy-beautiful) planes back in the day.

Sadly, I can't recall seeing a Lighting when I had the chance to visit the RAF museum near London, but standing under the shade of a Vulcan was definitely a highlight of my vacations!

At last: Magic Leap reveals its revolutionary techno-goggles – but wait, there's a catch

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FAIL

Re: Theranos

When you can get US$700 million in fools' investors' money, and be valued at 9 BEEELION without producing anything but hot air... well, I damn well understand how people can be so ready to drink their own Kool-Aid.

Not that I justify their actions, but the market of venture capitalist *dying* to shove their money into any hare-brained half-idea they find is just too tempting

Mailshot meltdown as Wessex Water gets sweary about a poor chap called Tom

A. Coatsworth Silver badge
Coat

Re: Acronym?

It is an acronym, all right:

Tom Wysocki is A T.W.A.T.[1]

[1]Tom Wysocki is A T.W.A.T.[1]

[1][1]Tom Wysocki is A T.W.A.T.[1]

[1][1][1]Tom Wysocki is A T.W.A.T.[1]]

...

...

Where the hell is my exit clause?

(with apologies to mr. Wysocki. I'm sure he's an good bloke)

Uber 'does not exist any more' says Turkish president

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Pirate

Re: It's hard to know who to sympathise with...

>>it's more the trying to overcharge and unnecessarily complex and long diversions that I dislike.

THIS is what has allowed Uber et all to thrive, more than the cost of the fare. Taxi drivers all over the world have deservedly got a reputation of being con artist and using every trick imaginable to overcharge the passenger.

As a tourist (I travelled over Europe a few years ago) I was sternly warned to never ever take a cab in Paris or Rome, the reasons being very similar to what's being said about Istanbul drivers up here. But people is more confident that they can call an Uber in these cities and everything will be ok.

In my country licensed taxi drivers have started to clean up their act: cleaner cars, new hailing apps, friendlier drivers. Of course they managed to go over all 5 stages of grief in full force before they accepted the fact that they were at least as guilty of this situation as the less-than-legal Uber antics.

(Please don't think I defend Uber. I don't, the management is despicable and their business model is fundamentally rotten. But I do think they are not the only ones to blame.)

Meet the real spin doctors: Scientists tell H2O to chill out so they can separate isomers

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Trollface

Re: That photo ...

You'll find out humans are most definitely needed to come up with the kind of puns used by El Reg. At least until we have IA able to get utterly sh*tfaced (a requisite in order to come up with them)

BOFH: Their bright orange plumage warns other species, 'Back off! I'm dangerous!'

A. Coatsworth Silver badge

Re: A bit of a tumble

That phrase always reminds me of The IT Crowd, and make me smile. Although that was probably the idea

And now I'm humming the emergency number song...

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Alert

Great episode!

I particularly love the "safetyconesUSA[dot]com" ad to the right of this article. Sometimes Google Ads really hits the unintentional comedy motherload.

Although I don't know (and not sure if I *want* to know) what does "Certified Woman Owned for 17 Yrs." mean

Avengers: Infinity War: More Marvel-ous moolah for comic film-erverse, probably

A. Coatsworth Silver badge

Re: Miserable old git

Yeah, Cinematic Universes will keep coming for the foreseeable future, and train wrecks like Universal's cringe-worthy "Dark Universe" or DC's limping DCU won't deter new copycats from trying to get part of the party.

As for Marvel's MCU itself, I won't mind if the movies keep coming: for the most part they have found that sweet spot where they are damn entertaining while respecting the viewers. They don't try to be super brainy affairs (although they sneak a bit of social commentary here and there, like in Winter Soldier or Black Panther), and won't offend your intelligence a la Transformers either.

I got 99 secure devices but a Nintendo Switch ain't one: If you're using Nvidia's Tegra boot ROM I feel bad for you, son

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Devil

Re: Console EOL = unlock to allow custom firmware?

That's a beautiful sentiment, but won't happen before cats and dogs live together... Nintendo has really weird ideas on piracy, as some other people have commented.

Legal or not, that's what allowed me to bring a Wii back from the dead: I really liked that console and have a big pile of games for it, so when the DVD drive failed after 4 years of use, I replaced it. When it failed *again* after 5 more years I couldn't source a new drive at a decent price so I installed Homebrew and now can play my library of games from an external HDD, as well as running a couple of emulators.

If not for Homebrew, the console would have been tossed into the garbage bin a long time ago and who would have benefitted from that? not me and certainly not Nintendo (as I wouldn't replace it with another Wii)

Seen from spaaaaace: Boffins check world's oceans for plastic

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Coat

Re: "...minds might just get focused on solving it."

>> needs to hire a manager. Somebody with some common sense.

So, is it one, or the other??

Your mouse can't reach that Excel cell? Buy a 'desk extender' said help desk bluffer

A. Coatsworth Silver badge

Re: Is there a 'BFOH' club badge available?

BFOH?

Bastard from Operator's Hell? Are those the poor beancounters under the BOFH's reign of terror?

The Ataribox lives, as a prototype, supposedly

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Mushroom

Problems all around

If they were to reproduce the venerable 2600 and successors, it would be unforgivable to take 8 months to create a prototype of a thoroughly known hardware, barely more powerful than a modern pocket calculator.

On the other hand...

"offer games and more: bringing a full PC experience to the TV, it will also include streaming, applications, social, browsing, and music"

They are muddling the hardware throwing lots of unneeded and unwanted[1] cr*p to it, and that's probably what is weighting them down.

[1] if you are interested in reliving your Atari memories, do you *really* want leaderboards and farcebook integration?

With IoT you too can turn your home into a giant flashing 'HORSE BIRTH NOW' klaxon

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Coat

That was Disgusting! REVOLTING!

The amount of brain-dead IoT crap-ware available to people with more money than sense, that is described in the article is utterly nauseating!

I bet that among the shower of wireless receivers, smart home systems, cctv cameras, lights, speakers, and facebook feeds there's not the slightest thought of security, upgradeability or compatibility.

ohhh... you meant the mare's _biological_ processes!

Another day, another meeting, another £191bn down the pan

A. Coatsworth Silver badge
Unhappy

@I ain't Spartacus

Re: Dilbert

Once upon a time, when I was young and wide-eyed, a local newspaper carried Dilbert along with the usual comic strips on Sundays. I thought it was the most stupid, unfunny strip I had ever read.

Years later I started working for a multinational too, and found Dilbert again. My incontrollable laughter at the strips was actually a desperate cry for help, for I realized I must be dead inside to find it _that_ funny, but nobody understood it.

Star Paws: Attack of the clones

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Terminator

Re: @Gordon 10

A catchy name... What about "Re-pet"?

Nothing wrong can come of using that name

Magic Leap's staggering VR goggle technology just got even better!

A. Coatsworth Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Could this be the light on the fuse of the current bubble?

I'd pray to whatever deity is listening for this to be true... but I don't have any hope. Not when Twitter has spent the best part of a decade without turning a single cent in profit and is still valued in the billions. Not when people keep "investing" in the cryptocurrency-of-the-day.

No, this bubble will keep going strong for a few years yet

You won't believe this: Nokia soars back into phone-flinger top 3

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Meh

>>not sure i'd place much love or trust in nokia over any other android purveyor

The best thing I can say about the new "Nokias" is that they work as expected.

I begrudgingly moved to Android last December, after running out of options. My last 3 phones were Nokias, and even the last one (Lumia 625) had its charm, even though it had several annoying quirks.

So, just out of nostalgia, I got a Nokia 6. The promise of timely security updates and no manufacturer bloatware were also important decision points.

The price was decent, it feels solidly built and it has plenty of oomph for a middle of the road phone. But it just so aseptic... it is a black slab of glass indistinguishable from any other Android phone out there. I use it and don't have any regrets about the purchase, but it simply doesn't have a personality, like my beloved E51 and 600, and even the special needs Lumia used to have.

like you, I think the time when one felt an emotional connection to a manufacturer and to a particular handset is long pass, and phones are now just utilities.

What did we say about Tesla's self-driving tech? SpaceX Roadster skips Mars, steers to asteroids

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@Dan 55

I'm quite sure it was fun at HP when Hewlett and Packard were at the helm... you know, before it became yet another faceless corporation...

I guess that when (and if) SpaceX starts answering to shareholders and not to a single (crazy) man, it will also lose the funny bone. In the meantime, at least we can enjoy Musk's shenanigans and see the envelope being pushed at the same time..

Wileyfox goes TITSUP*: Smartmobe maker calls in the administrators

A. Coatsworth Silver badge

Nokia 5 or 6?

Last security update in my 6 was on January 1st, not too bad I'd say. Metal back, feels solid and works well. Price is very reasonable too.

User had no webcam or mic, complained vid conference didn’t work

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Boffin

I _think_ it is a new column.

On Call: we laugh at the users' stupidity

Who, me?: we will laugh at our own.

Heathrow's air traffic radio set for shiny digital upgrade from Northrop

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Black Helicopters

Re: FTFY

Don't forget the Flowers By Irene delivery van that will be permanently parked near the place. It comes from an USAsian company, after all.

BOFH: Buttock And Departmental Defence ... As A Service

A. Coatsworth Silver badge

He knows what's good for him

FTFY. Nobody, not even the BOFH wields so much power as a PA with decades in her position.

Who's that at Ring's door? Why, it's Skybell with a begging cup, er, patent rip-off lawsuit

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Pint

Re: Obligatory

Damn right, Lord Elpuss! That's what I thought while reading the review

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FAIL

Re: A home Google product? I'll pass thanks.

Look for the review of that NEST product posted by El Reg last December, it is glorious:

It waxes lyrically about how easy to install, good value for money, good looking the thing is. At the very bottom it mentions casually that it is trivially easy to disconnect and the siren is not loud enough to be heard from another room... so it is worthless as a security system. But that isn't really important in this case, is it?

Take notebooks: About those new Thinkpads...

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Facepalm

Re: Next time, Dell

Who needs a LED indicator for the caps lock key, when they put a black square, some 80 pixels wide, in the bottom right corner of the screen that remains visible THE WHOLE TIME caps is on, obscuring whatever is behind it.

Really can't understand what brain-dead decision making process gave us that.

Oh, and Lenovo has the Fn key in the left corner of the keyboard, where the Ctrl key *should* be. The position of the Fn key is, no kidding, one of the main thing is take into account while looking for laptops.

Funnily enough, no, IT admins who trash biz machines can't claim they had permission

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Trollface

Re: If it had been the 9th circus court...

>I think bringing this up here probably explains everything we've ever wondered about Bob.

Close but not CIGAR. It still FAILS to account for the RANDOM failures with HIS caps lock key

Erase 2017 from your brain. Face ID never happened. The Notch is an illusion

A. Coatsworth Silver badge
Childcatcher

Re: Why the sudden bezelphobia?

IMHO, the answer is simple: the phone makers got themselves into a corner. They sold the idea that their newest and greatest flagships would have, every year, some great never-seen-before, mind blowing, life changing innovation. And for some time there were some honestly interesting innovations.

The problem is, they ran out of gizmos and gimmicks to throw at their phones so they are now doing things that look like innovation and can be sold as such to the masses, but aren't (look! our new phone is 0.1 Angstroms slimmer then the previous one! - look! the new screen is ever so slightly bigger!)

If actually useful thinks like a 3.5 jack or a fingerprint sensor get in the way of baffling the customers with bullsh#t that's too bad... but the marketing droids will solve it.

(I really need a "get off my lawn" icon! perhaps Clint Eastwood posing with his M1)

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