Posts by The Serpent

Squillionaire space tourist offers oldsters a holiday to Mars

Re: Radiation roulette with the goolies?

3 thumbs down? Either some people have odd sensibilities for me to offend, or they are fuckwits who don't understand how the Darwin Awards work

Re: Older Couple

I've long held the belief that almost anyone who can climb into a rocket and sit down can go into space with no trouble whatsoever. The reason they use people from academic and military backgrounds with half a dozen degrees and a doctorate or two is that those people are inclined to do as they are told, and unlikely to have the imagination to break stuff doing the things you or I would wonder about doing in zero G

Radiation roulette with the goolies?

Sounds like a chance for the most ambitious Darwin Award ever

Trekkies detect Spock's Vulcan homeworld ORBITING PLUTO

Re: not any more...

An even better place for the 'word' "snuck"

I'm led to believe that the general (i.e. almost utterly unfounded) agreement is that Vulcan is an as yet unobserved planet orbiting 40 Eridani A

I suggest that is where we send the 'word' "snuck"

Wi-Fi hotspots, phone masts: Prepare to be assimilated by O2's Borg

Looks to me like a scheme to try and get people onto the most profitable network more often. I wouldn't trust it at all unless there is an option in the O/S similar to the 'avoid toll roads' one in sat navs

This 320-gigapixel snap of London is size of Buckingham Palace

This is what Sauron must feel like most of the time.

Prize for the first find of a Google-mobile!

I think I saw Julian Assange having a shit

Wind-up bloke Baylis winds up broke, turns to UK gov for help

They used to have him on the Big Breakfast in the shed, back when it was a brilliant show in the Jonny Vaughn era. Presumably Locak Kepper's Cottages is now item #18 on the London Legacy Development Corporation tourist trail.

Traceroute reveals Star Wars Episode IV 'crawl' text

Re: Obi Wan...

Hokey operating systems and ancient interfaces are no match for a good mouse at your side, kid

El Reg contemplates the ultimate cuppa

A former colleague once told me how his Dad (formerly of the Royal Army Medical Corps) and his mates made tea. Take one billy can, lay 12 tea bags in bottom of can and fill almost to top with water. Boil for 20 minutes. Pour in 1 tin of condensed milk. Serve.

NASA deep space probe sends back video of 'Comet of the Century'

Re: Was anybody else...

HAIL MING!

So: 6,500 Win 8 laptops later, how are BT's field engineers coping?

Re: signature capture ?

"I make a point of always making the signature as illegible as possible, so I can deny it later, if required :-)"

I once worked for a fella who would sign absolutely anything because no one knew that what passed for his signature was supposed to be a signature - it looked exactly like a 'personal hair' lying on the page

Dell PowerEdge boots up after Hurricane Sandy acid bath

"If it was my server, I'd continue to use it as rename it to "Lazarus""

diskdoctor df0:

Razzies set to torpedo Rihanna's Battleship

Lifetime lack of achievement?

Can we have such an award for Martin Freeman, because I hate the bastard? He cannot act, he only play-acts - always portraying an awareness of the fact that he is pretending to be someone else.

And that fucking trick he thinks he gets away with of 'accidentally' looking into the camera for half a second while doing one of his uncalled-for stares around the room is poor beyond piss.

Review: Lego Lord of the Rings game

Re: "However, she never managed The Silmarillion."

Have done so many a time, even though it can be bloody hard work making your way through all the woe - most of the stories within it verge in to Pyrrhic victory territory in my opinion . Back in the day I could have given you a good verbal tour of it all though, these days I've filled my head with far less entertaining stuff so I can't tell my Hurin from my Turin, nor my Huor from my Tuor.

On occasions it is still useful to be able to use the creation of the world stuff to explain things like why Gandalf doesn't seem to age (or indeed Tom Bombadil, if the books are being discussed) or why the elves are obsessed with getting on ships and sailing west.

Are your landlines buried in the stone age?

Re: Back to the 1990s

I remember having that inflicted on me in 1998/1999 when one day my Nokia 2110 portable ear cancer unit suddenly became another extension of the office phone system.

The stupid thing was I could use the four digit codes for our desk based phones (not much good since I rarely needed to talk to staff back at the office until I was there in person) but for the other staff mobiles and for all outside numbers I had to use the international dialling code. This meant changing every stored number to have +44 in front of it, which (I presume) meant it was routed differently and the caller ID was stripped off in transit - the phone couldn't identify contacts in its own memory when a call was incoming.

Not a great problem as you can always press the button and say, "Hello" but it was a pian when texts came in as you had to look through the contacts to see who was bored and had just charmingly questioned your parentage.

Apparently it saved the company money as what looked like international calls were billed as local or national (or indeed international) as appropriate by BT and the pseudo office extension/inter mobile calls were "free". Liberal use of the word free there..

Much nicer these days with software emulated handsets so all you need to do is log your phone number in after connecting via the corporate vpn

Search engines we have known ... before Google crushed them

Re: Excite eXtreme

Ironically, www.excite.com just supplied me this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw9x5us4ZM4

Needless to say, it never ran like that in real life and it was a UI disaster with the same potential as Metro (or whatever) except that Excite had the sense not to inflict it on everyone

Excite eXtreme

I seem to recall a rather pointless prettification of Excite where the text front end was replaced by some kind of 3d-ish rotating in-browser animation which ran like utter crap on every PC I ever tried it on.

Also, I remember when Infoseek didn't have that slick 'i in a circle' logo and favoured an earwax yellow approach

The 30-year-old prank that became the first computer virus

Re: Shome mishtake, surely?

""...For the first ten years [Elk Cleaner] was a non event..." Elk Cloner"

See what you mean, but just dismissed 'Elk Cleaner' as the name of the removal tool

New transistor tech could beat silicon and save Moore's Law

Re: Molecular beam epitaxy

Nice one

Re: Alternatively...

There is huge merit in making the most of what you've got. The megahertz wars were like the UK housing market - people were too dazzled by the embiggening of numbers and superficial gains to see the multitude of sins being hidden by them. I still think there is going to be a big market for 'good-enough', single board, very cheap PCs in the near future.

Molecular beam epitaxy

For a second there I thought we'd accidentally got a bit of a Star Trek: Voyager script pasted in.

Can I have an upvote for Seven please?

Parliament: Snoop Charter plan 'too sweeping', 'misleading', 'suspicious'

Re: "require CSPs to retain web logs up to the first "/"."

That happens everywhere. I'm sure they all think they understand these computery things because all computery things are just like the one they have at home, just.. bigger. Somehow.

This whole affair just goes to show that the old war time spy hunting listening to conversations at bus stops hysteria is alive and well

Patrick Moore: Lived with cats, accompanied Einstein on the piano

@Dick Kennedy

You obviously failed to see the much repeated BBC obituary items where Heather Couper showed her letter which Sir Patrick wrote to her about her question as to whether sexism was a problem in astronomy. The reply was, "Let me reassure you on one point. Being a girl is no handicap at all".

You are also presumably unaware that many broadcasters cultivate an exaggerated version of their own personalities as an image tool. Some admit to it, others don't. Sir Patrick also had far longer than most to add to his on-screen persona.

Either cite your 'sources' or continue being as close-minded as the man you purport to have disliked.

Take it or break it: the return of the drop test

Re: Drop-ability

I remember watching a Compaq Proliant 5500 being moved down stairs on a barrow, it was carefully lowered down one flight onto a flat bit of floor and then, for no reason anyone could see, leapt like a large, beige lemming down the remaining two flights.

The only damage was a ding in the door which had flown off and made its own way down. I think we ran that for the rest of the year before it went out to stud.

They literally don't make them like that any more.

Re: Am I the only one..

"you're probably up to military spec.."

..which is a wholly different spec - the phrase "squaddie-proof" exists in the army for a reason

Agree with the child testing requirement though

Windows Phone 8 must be Microsoft's priority one, two AND three

Re: thick as a brontosaurus omlette.

Thanks, just seeing if idle whimsy can get me a bronze!

Re: Critical mass

I would have said the same until last weekend, but I found my neice has one. However, she will have bought it because iPhones don't come in pink.

Nice girl, but put her in a shop full of shiny things and she becomes as thick as a brontosaurus omlette.

Copying Wikipedia's lies is not just for hacks, right Lord Leveson?

I think I recall a caption on a photo of Eugene Cernan which claimed he was only accepted to the Apollo programme as he promised to kick his addiction to cheese sandwiches

I agree that Wikipedia is to be treated with skepticism by default. However to put the problem in context, the world is full of reference material originating from experts in their field which was published as hard fact at the time and which has gone on to be proved wrong.

Potentially you only need an original edition of some previously venerated tome to be put straight back in the same position as a lazy researcher using Shittypedia - the only difference being your original intentions were better than theirs. Plus books aren't usually prone to deliberate sabotage.

Personally I'm still waiting to hear where all the eternally correct facts are kept.

RETURN of the PLAYMONAUT: El Reg's space hero suits up again

Some of them do have Playmonorks

Glad he hasn't needed to seek the opinion of Felix Bumgardener.

Also, after Lester is inevitably incapacitated by hydrazine poisoning/coronary obstructions/falling in a hole/decapitation by laser/something I can't quite articulate at the moment but there are tits involved, how does one apply for his job?? Obviously I use the term job quite loosely!

Astronomers find biggest black hole, 17 BILLION times the size of Sun

Re: No! Bad! BAD REG!

That number is pleasingly large

Bash Street bytes: Do UK schools really need the Raspberry Pi?

I agree that the RPi was always dubious as an education tool, I think the only real reason for aligning it that way was that if you hang a product or idea on the education hook then no one will dare to say you are wrong for fear they end up being perceived as stifling learning, etc.

I too have had grief from various places for saying that very old computers could be put to the same tasks with better results and that programming skills do not replace user acceptance.

The real thing the Raspberry Pi has done is to provide an object lesson to the computing industry that a small team can produce a very cheaper computing device which is good enough to meet the requirements of the vast majority of the PC owning public and that just as the days of spending thousands on a new computer fell to spending only hundreds, the days when that figure drops to tens of pounds/dollars/euro/shekels/dong are nearly upon us. Which of course has got all the big manufacturers stuffing their fingers in their ears instead of rushing to get a properly sorted product to market first.

The only other thing I can think of for pushing the RPi is that once it, or devices like it, become the equivalent of today's desktop market, it puts the UK in a strong position not only as a source of expertise in ARM environments but also as the base of the only company that could seriously put Intel's nose out of joint.

APPLE goes on crazy, price-SLASHER Black Friday RAMPAGE

Discount on Apple gear?

I remember back when the graphite CRT iMacs were current products, the best discount I found off what I believe was a £900 price tag was £12.

8% seems quite generous!

Google avoids tax with ‘Double Irish Dutch Sandwich’

Re: Taxing revenue instead of profits ...

"you could easily see your food bill double"

You mean like it has already with predictions it will continue to do so forever?

This kind of thing is what pisses me off when talking to anyone in finance (not that Dazed and Confused

is necessarily in that business) - they always make out that this we should just shut up and put up because it could be worse. Well yes, it could be, but they can never explain why it would be. The discussion is always rooted in the 'we've always done it that way' non-argument.

Surely the advantage in this situation is in having all the due tax paid into the system which eases it off as a whole. Some specific prices may rise but the system as whole will be more liquid and therefore all the various parts of it couldn't justify being all grabby and should stop wringing out the public as the only vaguely reliable source of cash. Of course, they aren't and we're all fooked when the public's pockets are finally empty. See Greece at al.

The economy is always treated as this thing in itself, as Herr Kant might say, which can only be prodded a bit but which is out of our control and needs to be largely left alone. It isn't. It is entirely man-made and can be made to do exactly whatever we wish of it, or, as long as there is sufficient requirement and motivation it can be deconstructed and put back again in working order. It would be one of the greatest undertakings of human history but why on earth would we persist with the opposite? Fear of the unknown? Knowledge conquers fear and the economists could have a marvellous time with all the necessary 'what it' discussions which everyone in their field has from time to time.

Taito's Double Dragon

Yes the elbow thing was something of a cheat, but it was perfectly possible to mistime it, at which time you would be rewarded by watching helpless as a couple of Abobos would play catch with your limp on-screen representative.

I was always impressed at the time by the versatile combat system where seeming background objects could be used as weapons, the weapons of enemies were easily turned upon them and, as mentioned somewhere above, the move you executed was determined not only by the punch or kick button but by your distance from your opponent. I recall enjoying that feature in one of DD's spiritual descendants Golden Axe.

World's oldest digital computer successfully reboots

Re: Eniac

I hope I can be corrected about this, but it has always looked to me as if the British had no option but to classify computing technology as secret in order to adequately protect it from enemies. Then once the job was done, so to speak, we (along with most of europe) were somewhat pre-occupied rebuilding the nation with a severely depleted and ill supplied population to give much thought to the future implications of computers and were too busy getting our own house in order to pass special legislation to declassify the technology.

Does a certain other nation, relatively unaffected by such issues but whose freedom relied hugely on the recent efforts of other, make allowances for this? Do they give Britain time to recover or, as they must also look after their own interests, suggest a mutual collaboration to ensure their involvement?

Or do they simply rob them of the opportunity before Britain was even in a position to realise it was there?

I can't see it having happened any other way, unless the US were supposed to go ahead with the development of computing and volunteer reparations later, then welched on the deal.

Like I said, I don't want it to have been this way and I'm happy if someone knows it to be otherwise. But it could rank as some of the most despicable behavior ever to befall a 'special relationship'.

Another not very long period of time, another GiffGaff collapse

No lack of service here. Been using the phone all day on and off.

US paper spaceplane disintegrates at 107,000ft

Re: A missed opportunity

Because that would have made Mr. Bumgardner's jolly useful in some way

Lawyer sues Microsoft rather than slot an SD card into his Surface

Re: MS should just post him a free sdcard

64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE

Ballmer comes not to praise Sinofsky but to bury him

Re: Nothing to see here

"Bill Gates came across as someone with a vision and undoubtedly had some charisma"

He always came across to me as someone who was at best as wrong as he was right and that most of his success came as a result of being in the right place at the right time.

"even though some might question his business ethics, his humanitarian work speaks for itself."

Does the end justify the means? I'm not sure the stakes have ever been higher for that particular question.

Stob on Quatermass: Was this British TV's finest sci-fi hour?

Re: 100 degrees

Always nice to check it on Google though - worth a school boy snigger to search '100 f in c'

Beep! NASA here, a 400 tonne spacecraft is about to buzz your house

www.heavens-above.com

Been there, done that

Raspberry Pi SoC drivers now fully open source

Re: +1

@Gordon 10 - feel the burn!

The hoarder's dilemma, or 'Why can't I throw anything away?'

Hmm, I have a lot of worthless stuff but a few gems live in my garage

There's a Powermac 5500 "Director Edition" (the black one) with the correct, black keyboard and correct, black mouse

A mint Commodore 1526 dot matrix printer with original box and packaging

An Apple Newton modem (the Newton is around somewhere but they got separated)

All for sale at very unreasonable prices!