Posts by A. Coatsworth

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

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

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

Re: Obligatory

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

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...

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

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

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)

Don't rely on us to protect the open internet, warns FTC Commissioner

Wow! This is as close as we'll ever get to having a government official stating what we already know: that Pai is full of sh#t.

I'm guessing ms McSweeny is a leftover of a bygone era...

As the singularity approaches, neural network pens black metal album

Re: Thought I'd heard this somewhere before.

The intro has a certain flavor of the infamous "backwards radio station"... or as you correctly put it, rogered bagpipes (filtered through Silent Hill's Nowhere)...

Night before Xmas and all through American Airlines, not a pilot was flying, thanks to this bug

Re: the pic

He is red and gives things for free to people who doesn't even work. Af course Santa is part of the Commie plot!

Drone maker DJI left its private SSL, firmware keys open to world+dog on GitHub FOR YEARS

Don't be so hard with them, they were just trying to ramp up interest in their company!

(obligatory)

xkcd.com/1553

OnePlus 5 x T + five short months = Some p*ssed off fanboys

Well, those 2 last paragraphs are more than enough review of the phone and the company's policies... OnePlus is off my list of candidates now... I guess the zombie Nokias are looking more and more appealing every day

The Reg parts ways with imagineer and thought pathfinder Steve Bong

The barrage of Fake News we are subject to every day has dulled my capacity of differentiating fact from fiction.... I don't know what to make of this article... are we losing Bong's articles for real? is it part of the normal column's humor?

Poe's law has overwhelmed me

BOFH: Oh dear. Did someone get lost on the Audit Trail?

The BOFH didn't need to get his hands dirty this time.

Why breaking the Boss' skull when you can break his spirit? I can imagine his face when he heard the shredded revving up: a carefully planned day lost, the feeling of having for once bested the BOFH gone down the drain in a second. There's nothing for him but the feeling of failure, and no doubt the sh*t-eating grin of both the BOFH and the PFY making him feel even more miserable the rest of the day.

OnePlus privacy shock: So, the cool Chinese smartphones slurp an alarming amount of data

And I'm still here...

... waiting for El Reg to review the new Android "Nokias" before I give up and plunge into the Android ecosystem.

Is stock Android more or less slurpy than a vendor-backed version?

Is that a bulge in your pocket or... do you have an iPhone 8+? Apple's batteries look swell

Re: Obligatory

How someone with a silver goddamned badge asks this site to "grow up"? haven't you been around the place long enough to see the authors here won't ever grow up, and that is the whole joke?

--EDIT--

Just read the "smug" comment by the same commentard a bit down the line.. it seems some people can't handle hearing blasphemous accusations against the Holy iShnny and no amount of badges can change that.

BOFH: Come on, PFY, let's pick a Boss

Re: Why

+1 to that question.

The ending really left me scratching my head. I expected the office drones revolting and throwing the robot out the window, or it falling while hugging the Director... but not the PFY killing it himself.

I say, BING DONG! Microsoft's search engine literally cocks up on front page for hours

>>was clocked about three hours ago, and may have been there even longer.

I think it's time to call your doctor about that.

Scary news: Asteroid may pass Earth by just 6,880km in October

Nibiru will appear in

2000

May 2003

December 2012

September 2017

Fashionably late, is she?

Sysadmin jeered in staff cafeteria as he climbed ladder to fix PC

Re: So ...

>>El Reg's resident bastion of truth, restraint and modesty BOFH.

Usually Simon's stories are more believable than jake's

Linus Torvalds may have damned systemd with faint praise

Nope.

God is the proper name of the Judeo-Christian deity, so the name is capitalized, as Symon said. Not unlike the distinction done while talking about the Moon or Saturn's moons...

Also, all 3000+ deities out there are entitled to capital letters in their names, as do Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Their existential status has nothing to do with the rules on proper nouns.

Tremble in fear, America, as Daesh-bags scrawl cyber-graffiti on .gov webpages no one visits

Re: Concern, if not panic, is warranted

Yeah, and banks should be designed so the can't be robbed. Period. Ever.

And locks should be designed so the can't be picked. Period. Ever.

And cars should be designed so the can't be stolen. Period. Ever.

And... And...

It sounds lovely, but there is not way to protect everything from a *very* determined idiot.

Voyager 1 passes another milestone: It's now 138AU from home

Re: Has it left the solar system....

Obligatory xkcd

https://www.xkcd.com/1189/

Marissa! Mayer! out! as! Yahoo!-Verizon! closes!

From the Merriam Webster's

"oath

noun |\ˈōth\

an offensive or rude word that is used to express anger, frustration, surprise, etc."

That pretty much sums up what happens through my mind when I'm browsing the web and I'm unfortunate enough to find a link that takes me to a tumblr, yahoo or huffpost site... So, I think the name for new division is perfectly adequate.

Live blog: Fired FBI boss spills the beans to US Senate committee

Honest question

Since the start of the scandal, the existence of the memos has been treated as evidence against Trump... far be from be the thought of siding with the Orange One, but: why are the memos considered undisputed truth a priori? I mean are they official documents to any extent?

Judging from my (very limited) understanding about the scandal, they sound like little more than a diary entry, so I'm genuinely curious as to why are they seen as hard proof.

Whoops! Microsoft accidentally lets out a mobile-'bricking' OS update

Joke's on you!

I can't "upgrade" my phone from WinPho 8.1

Google to give 6 months' warning for 2018 Chrome adblockalypse – report

I would actually consider to pay a reasonable amount to El Reg if that means I stop SEEING THE GODDAMMED LADY SHAVING HER MOUSTACHE IN THE NAME OF GOD I HATE THAT AD WITH A PASSION AND I WILL NEVER EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM TINTRI EVER

</Rant>

whew! that was cathartic. As many people, I am stuck with a browser without adblockers due to company policies: I just can't install add ons, paying for an ad-free experience sounds very tempting in this particular case

El Reg straps on the Huawei Watch 2

" I even grudgingly began to see the point of the bezel"

Which was...?

After dissing the bezel and strap so hard, I thought some redeeming factors would be included following that phrase. I guess I missed them

Redmond puts wall around Windows 10 for Chinese government edition

The only real change is who is listening (or Hu is listening?)

Fancy a relaxed boozy holiday? Keep well away from Great Britain

Re: Easier to get guns in some states then Scotch.

No, no, you got it wrong: he is saying that, if you get the Scotch first, it may be harder to fill up the paperwork to get the guns later.

Fake ruse: USA Today calls the FBI after half of its 15m Facebook Likes turn out to be bogus

@Ledswinger

No power on Earth would make me watch Facebook's movie, but even I got that it was a reference to its poster

BOFH: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back

One master... and one apprentice

So the BOFH-ness doesn't work on the same principle as the Sith Lords? Neat!

Instead, if James makes it to his job interview, he will be appointed junior BOFH at a new company, where, with time he will select a PFY and with time create new BOFHs to conquer other enterprises.

So the shadow league of the BOFHs slowly but surely creeps in the underbelly of the IT community, taking it over for the greater good (of themselves)

Jimbo announces Team Wikipedia: 'Global News Police'

Re: Anything with r-types running/advising it is a potential hazard.

Yeah, I hate r-types too. Bloody chavs who drag race their tuned Honda Civics in the streets late at night when I am try to sleep.

E-type kind of sounds like a Jaguar, but K-type? any help there?

MEYER! SUES! YAHOO!

click bait well done

To put it in internet slang, "I LOL'd" at the pic's caption.

BOFH: The Boss, the floppy and the work 'experience'

You know how in movies they can get with graphically killing hundreds of persons, but hurting a dog is a very delicate matter that usually they can't even show it?

It seems to be the same here... I never minded the line of dispatched bosses, the contractors, the it managers that ended up rolled in a carpet... but I *genuinely* felt bad for poor ol' James while reading this.

Perhaps it hit too close to home, reminding me of the bygone days where I went starry-eyed into my first job, ready to fix the world.

To paraphrase Iron Maiden, I'm sure James is now a sad and wiser man

Trump's America looks like a lousy launchpad, so can you dig Darwin?

Re: Why not Equador

I think Ecuador, and other "sane" Latin American countries near the equator (Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia...) are not such good options, being way too active geologically. Not sure what a 6+ earthquake, or a shower of volcanic ash can do to a rocket, but it can't be good.

Spammy Google Home spouts audio ads without warning – now throw yours in the trash

Re: A company

>>If it's Google, you are the product.

And you're paying them $129 for the privilege.

Repentant priest from Cuntis sorry he dressed as Hugh Hefner

And the weirdness of the actual note is *nothing* compared to the commentards throwing limericks about it. Absolutely fabulantastic!

(never was a description as appropriate as the tooltip of this icon) ---->

The future of storage is ATOMIC: IBM boffins stash 1 bit on 1 atom

"... read by tunnel magnetoresistance, measuring a current passing through the atom using the quantum mechanical spin resonance effect with a single iron atom used as a sensor"

Yeeeah... I know Scotty used that explanation at some point or other. It didn't sound believable back then, either.

Kaspersky launches a range of perfumes to, er, defend your odour

"Phish" what a great name for a perfume...

Feel confident every day, smelling of Phish in the office! Let your Phishy musk lead others to you!

Iconic Land Rover Defender may make a comeback by 2019

"JLR would design the new Defender"

Are they go to employ the same fsckwits who disgraced the Discovery and Range Rover lines by making them look like the aberration that is the Evoke?

If so, it would be better to leave the Defender go in peace to tread mud in the Darién Gap of our memories, instead of defacing its legacy.

It's time for our annual checkup on the circus that is the Internet Governance Forum

Circus?

I think the proper term you're looking for starts with "cluster" and rhymes with "duck"

I can't spell it here thanks to my computer's naughty-filters

YouTube TV will be huge. Apple must respond

So, where is the huge [1] benefit of this? They have the same tired old channels one can get anywhere, unlimited storage (yeah right! we all know what "unlimited" means for cloud providers), and...?

No killer app at all... If I am already forking cash for Netflix or cable, or both, I see no reason to switch to them. Pretending that they'll be able to capitalize the vast number of freeloaders they have is disingenuous, the same article mentions Youtube Red as a failed example.

This sound like yet another "brilliant" Google's idea that will be silently killed a few years down the line.

[1] that damned adjective is tainted. I can't read it without hearing the Orange One screaming "YUUUUUUGE!" in my head

Fireball in Tasmania: Possible CubeSat re-entry sparks alien panic

So "cubesats" is the new "weather balloons"? They are testing if the new excuse is believable in remote regions, before deploying it for the masses. Expect to see this explanation more and more in the future!

*Cue X-Files theme*

Polls? How very 2016. Now Google Street View AI scanner can predict how people will vote

Re: Fundamental misunderstanding

Will it really go out of date?

The current data was used to build the algorithm, but if the demographics change in the future, well, that's why the machine is learning patterns and not addresses, right?

I mean, if in the future it sees a cluster of beaten-up pickups it will guess Republican, even if the image comes from Silicon Valley.

Radioactive leak riddle: Now Team America sniffs Europe's skies for iodine isotope source

Re: dumb arse Euroflags

I don't know if radiation can give people superpowers, but it sure seems to wake up the trolls!

More brilliant Internet of Things gadgetry: A £1,300 mousetrap

Re: 'provide the best solution to the customer as well'

Of course it is the best for the customers. their customers *have to* be fools. And it is demonstrated that fools can't be trusted with money.

So, this company is in the business of parting fools from their money before they do anything with it. Looks ok to me.

Dead cockroaches make excellent magnets – now what are we supposed to do with this info?

Re: A pedant writes

I once watched a documentary where giant, fire-breathing ants roamed the Post-Apocalyptic land, preying on the ragged remains of mankind.

The giant, radioactive cockroaches that also existed there were nothing in comparison.

Wait... it wasn't a documentary, was it?

Revealed: 'Suicide bomber Barbie' and other TSA quack science that cost $1.5 billion

Re: Simple fix - don't visit the US

I *really* wanted to go to the US in August, to watch the solar eclipse... but I'm not subjecting myself to the ignominy that is their visa-application process (I live in Latin America). And I definitely won't risk the change of getting to know a TSA agent intimately while in the airport.

Cassini sends back best ring-shots yet en route to self-destruct dive

Obligatory "damn you!" for referencing *that* sad XKCD comic