* Posts by Stevie

7282 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2008

Nuke plants to rely on PDP-11 code UNTIL 2050!

Stevie

Re: ICL VME

"is still in revenue service"

Well, it was bound to catch on eventually. Did they ever stop it throwing away all the diagnostic info when the stack overflowed? Cheapest panic dump printouts ever.

When ICL were trying to sell it it was notable that almost everyone using a 2900 was running DME, which looked like George.

Stevie

Re: if it aint broke....

"I've seen circuit boards that are in use well beyond their supported life. Some of them do not survive power cycling as the capacitors have leaked.

Not a problem as the original Leyden Jars have a service life of 250 years if you rattle them every now and again with a broom handle.

I hear that broom handle replacement is budgeted for until 2025, after which they have plans to poke the jars with a recycled Dyson.

Stevie

Re: DL0: 167300 g

"DL0: 167300 g

I *think* that's the correct sequence, but it has been nearly 20 years..."

AIEEE! Who gave the command to pull out all the control rods?!!!

Run! Run for your lives!

AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaarrrrgghhurrrrglle...

Soylent days and soylent nights

Stevie

Bah!

[G&T] Met a bloke once, friend of my dad, who was in Burma during WWII, and whose unit had run out of quinine. He was the only man to not go down with Malaria, and it drove the doctor mad trying to figure out why. Until demob day, when they ran into each other and doc saw dad's friend munching on a lemon. Turns out the one thing they had in abundance over there was lemons, and dad's friend ate 'em like others eat apples (if they like apples *a lot*).

The doc opined that the reason he had not been infected was that his sweat was so acidic the mossies wouldn't come near him.

Stevie

Bah!

Not as nice as food? Big surprise.

I had a pal back in the last century while I was at the University of Global Warming who spent all his vacation earning good money, then on first day of term -1 would blow the entire stash on some piece of outrageous Hi-Fi gear (the as-used-on-stage-by Phil Manzanera Revox tape deck stands out in my memory).

The result was that he would have approximately 85p to last him ten weeks, and that had to cover beer as well as food.

He would deal with this extreme cash shortage by consuming only a soy-based product intended to pad out minced beef. Naturally, he could not afford any beef.

After three years of this he graduated with a degree in Environmental Sciences and thanks to his diet he looked the part. Seldom have I been that close to someone so obviously dealing first-hand with hard radiation or toxic waste (to judge by the complexion, hair and so forth).

This whole experiment is madness of the first order.

Publishers put a gun to our heads on ebook pricing, squeals Amazon

Stevie

You see the evidence yet fail to draw the correct conclusions.

I answered all your questions involving me and books in my original post. Perhaps you read no further than the paragraph you quoted?

I cannot of course speak for the rest of the reading world.

The issue at hand is that publishers are treating e-books as software when it is to their advantage (licensed content rather than owned) and like a traditional book when it suits them (pricing for non existent paper, glue, storage and trucks to move them).

The reading public as expressed in this lifelong rabid consumer of books will state categorically and for the record that until e-books stop being such an obvious rip-off they are not going to find a ready market in my reader(s). Indeed, e-book pricing has drawn my attention to a market I had not really appreciated until I had the Kindle and began shopping for candidates to fill it up - that of the remaindered at near cost hardback version of what I want to read.

Only the publishers themselves are in a position to calculate what this has done to their bottom line (sell me an e-book at six bucks or a hardback knocked down from 25 to 7? Who loses on the latter transaction?)

Do please blither on about intangibles, but I represent a pretty standard view on how I buy books, which are an important but not vital part of my life. After all, I can get movies over the Kindle too, and I can't read while I'm viewing a movie can I? In light of that little snippet, would any publisher like to do a regression of their sales to postulate where they will be in ten years unless they get a f*cking clue?

I'm sorry our very nice and justly famous author doesn't feel the same way, but making a very good living as an author is a recent and (to judge by various signs I see about me) short-lived thing. I feel bad about that, but I don't see it as my job to keep him in beer by buying overpriced books - and the definition of overpriced is always "more than people are willing to spend" whatever the realities of production cost.

Of course, that makes it a subjective thing, but it always was.

Stevie

Bah!

I'd have more sympathy for the poor publisher and author if I didn't see the e-book pricing on new fiction brushing the lower stratosphere while a hardback was the only option, and if I hadn't watched it so often change when the paperback version was published (for exactly the same product, remember).

And with apologies to Mr Stross whom I've met, heard read and whose works have formed a good part of my reading, no e-book is worth more than about six bucks unless it pushes Dhalgren/Dune levels of content.

It is purely ludicrous that I can get a current paperback version of a book that took energy and time to make, has artwork and physical materials, and requires physical delivery and storage *cheaper* than the e-version of that same book in which only one of those things is true.

Hell, often I can get a remaindered hardback at half the price people are asking for e-versions sometimes, though I don't like hardbacks for my reading habit because they are too big to be carried on my commute easily. I buy hardbacks when authors are in town so I can have them signed, both as a collecting thing and as a giving back to the author thing. I like paperbacks, and not those hardback-sized whitespace fests the publishers like because they are bigger on the shelves, I mean proper paperbacks that are now derided as "mass market" paperbacks.

Which in turn have started to get taller because publishers think we notice books on a shelf by their size, not by content, word of mouth or previous author experience which I know to be the drivers in my circle of reading friends. So much for my custom-built shelving, sized for the paperback as in print for most of my life and now too small. Oh well.

E-books as they stand are visibly not value for money. From the latest Game of Thrones episode to Starship Troopers, a book written fifty years ago by an author long dead, they are obviously and painfully overpriced. My reluctance to buy them even though I have a Kindle and would lap 'em up under other circumstances is not my problem, but the publishers and ultimately the authors' who have unrealistic expectations of what their product is worth.

And that goes in spades for optical scans of older works which have had no proof reading of the OCR and have had no correction to the markup. I am sick to the back teeth of getting an e-book for which I've paid over the odds in which the text is mangled or misaligned or refers to figures that simply are not there.

I won't even talk about the worth of DRM.

'I can’t believe Jobs made the statement … Incredibly stupid'

Stevie

Ah!

I'd like to be the first disobedient slave to offer my nipples to the alligator clip hands of Mistress Regina.

Nicked unencrypted PC with 6,000 bank details lands council fat fine

Stevie

Re: Ban Laptops

"Without brute force and millions, if not billions of years, how does one break into 256 bit AES? It may not be 100% (in theory) but in practice it is."

But what if the thief threatens to pour a kettle of freshly boiled water over your head if you don't give him your private key? I've only just been made aware of this terrifying scenario over in the Car Door Hack Outrage story, but it seems thieves have no scruples about using one's own tea-making equipment as improvised torture devices.

Possibly a hard-hat diving helmet wold prove an adequate defense, but this is hardly practical. For one thing, field workers may not be audible unless they open their faceplates, exposing them to a possible faceboiling. For another, what if the wily thief connects the kettle spout to the hose inlets before boiling, steaming the hapless public servant's head until they give up the key?

I've given this quite a bit of thought, and I think we must move aggressively to ban the kettle.

Stevie

Bah!

Yes! Yes! Fire everyone and hire people who know what they are doing.

Provided they will work cheaply enough of course.

Then replace the laptops. Low bid, of course, so people should expect a few issues with the more expensive software options (like encryption).

Make sure there are bulletproof standards and practices that constrain the purchasing too. Make those bastards buy the cheapest O/S from the Right People.

Now, do we have everything in place? Good! Cancel the training budget so everyone's skills get moth-eaten.

Now, cut taxes! Cut them some more! Trim budgets to match!

Locksmith? Do we believe the taxpayers are made of money?

Free software? Only if it is on the approved list! Thought not. Take another budget cut.

WHAT?!!! YOUR UNENCRYPTED LAPTOP WAS STOLEN?!!! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?!! WOE, WOE UNTO THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THIS POSSIBLE?!!

Students outraged: Computer refuses to do any work for entire week

Stevie

Bah!

I thought UCAS was that outfit that hired retired cops to solve all the crimes young coppers were too lazy, bent or stupid to solve themselves.

Learn summat every day.

Forget phones, PRISM plan shows internet firms give NSA everything

Stevie

I have been posting, in various places, that Microsoft, Google, etc..

But these new reports are backed by something called 'evidence', which constitutes something called 'proof'. Just shouting about the reds under the bed isn't enough. You need to produce the membership rolls of the People's Underbed Constitution Redrafting Soviet or something similar to be taken seriously.

We all know what happens if we go stampeding off after some evil with no proof. We end up invading a country looking for WMDs even though the people sent to look for evidence of same report It Ain't So, and spending ten years building a bigger government at a cost of millions upon millions of dollars we don't have and watching our leaders fiddle while the economy crashes (at which point they have the nerve to look surprised).

But we did get that nice (albeit meaningless) color-coded alert thing that was wheeled out every two weeks or so to keep us aware that the powers that be were doing their job, so I guess we should count it as money well spent.

Stevie

Bah!

Dear God (afghanistan al-qeda drone osama bin laden terror president NSA)!

All this intelligence gathering (afghanistan al-qeda drone osama bin laden terror president NSA)!

I wonder if the people involved are aware that data and information are two very different things (afghanistan al-qeda drone osama bin laden terror president NSA)?

After all, I'd hate to think that our intelligence forces were using the same data scraping technology that shows me "appropriate" adverts when I pull up Google, Amazon or El reg (afghanistan al-qeda drone osama bin laden terror president NSA).

Because they get it wrong most of the time (afghanistan al-qeda drone osama bin laden terror president NSA).

Data mining is distinguishable from mineral mining in that mineral mining usually returns more than gangue and slag from the digging (afghanistan al-qeda drone osama bin laden terror president NSA).

I return you now to your local programming (afghanistan al-qeda drone osama bin laden terror president NSA).

Police 'stumped' by car thefts using electronic skeleton key

Stevie

I'd rather they took my car than poured a kettle of boiling water over my head.

Anyone trying to carry a kettle of boiling water through our house in the dark is risking a broken leg *and* a self scalding.

Besides, I challenge anyone to get the controls on that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned cooker right first time by moonlight, and the leaky kitchen faucet aerator will spray water all over them. Also: our kettle is like unto a bell. Filling it is not a silent process. God help the poor bastard if he wakes the wife before me.

A thought occurs (ow!). Why not forestall this grisly scenario that troubles you so much by simply alarming your kettle in some way?

Or replacing your real kettle with one with holes in it so the Headboiling Burglar of Olde Londone Towne ends up leaving in disgust (and possibly wet clothes)?

Or hiding your real kettle and leaving another with a snake sleeping inside it (and holes in case the burglar susses that the snake isn't venomous)?

Or hiding your real kettle and replacing it with one housing one of those disgusting plate-sized spiders, so the burglar will awaken you with his unmanly shrieks of terror? Add holes for backup fun.

Or hiding your real kettle and replacing it with one with the insulating stuff removed from the handle so the burglar will burn his hand when he picks it up, again alerting you with his shrieks of agony (bonus scalding if he drops the kettle here)?

Or hiding your real kettle and replacing it with one with a hole drilled in the bottom that you fill with a gallium plug so the burglar fills the kettle, boils it only to have the water flood all over the place?

Or hiding your real kettle and replacing it with one fitted with an internal steel reed whistle (like the ones you can get to ram up your neighbour's car's exhaust pipe) so the whole house is alerted to a headboiling in progress?

Or hiding your only kettle eg in the fridge and have one high-level kitchen cabinet rigged to drop noisy cans, small bells, whatever you have onto the person who opens it? Rig is simple on an Ikea-style cabinet. You remove the shelf and the little pin bracket thingy from each side. Drill through the cabinet so the pin thingy hole is a through-hole. Insert nail through hole from outside, replace shelf and load with light but resonant crap. close door (reinforce latch with rare earth magnets for best effect). with door held closed, remove nail to drop shelf front and load door with crapolanch-in-waiting. Warn family.

I came up with these in about a minute and they are all doable with stuff I can get easily.

Stevie

I'm an insider and I can tell you exactly what they are doing.

And did you tell the police this?

Thirty-five years ago today: Space Invaders conquer the Earth

Stevie

Double Bah!

I forgot to list Centipede and Missile Command, two games that fought each other for my not-so-small change.

Stevie

My Classics List

1) Space Invaders. The Original. The First. The Best.

2) Asteroids - even when you had a strategy it was hard. Must've spent hundreds of quid on this game.

3) Galaxian - Wait WHAT? Those mosquito things are dive bombing me!

4) Pac Man - Nomnomnomnomnom

5) Pengo - great game with killer cut-scene animations and a sound track by Beethoven

6) Burning Rubber - a daft game but fun

7) Spy Hunter - though it could get a bit samey after a bit.

8) Mad Planets - Stupidly pointless but addictive

9) Clowns - a very early Pong-era game that was very challenging

10) Donkey Kong - spawned a bunch of imitators, only the one with the boxing kangaroo came close

Honorable mention: Joust. Lost out because there was a secret to "beating" it that involved not using the one thing that differentiated the game from anything else - flying.

My anti-list: 1 through 10)That stupid cartoon laser disc-based swords and sorcery thing that had no instructions or tutorial splash screen. Game play was: put coins in slot, grab joystick, get killed by something you didn't understand even after watching the death scene re-run because the intercuts were so choppy.

Stevie

Bah!

Classic Stevie prediction upon viewing my first Galaxian machine:

"It's hard to see where they can go from here".

Right up there with Bill G's 65K and that bloke who let the Beatles walk out of Decca unsigned.

Stevie

Re: Ahh happy happy place

You will never defeat the GORF robots, Space Cadet.

Stevie

Bah!

And the reason the iconic Space Invaders were so hard to duplicate on home systems was that Taito had turned the CRT through 90 degrees - those invaders were really scrolling up and down. making them move and sound right was easy, but the aspect ratio was all wrong on a telly unless you set it on its side (not recommended).

Germans purge selves of indigestible 63-letter word

Stevie

The crappy Firefox spellchecke

" I guess it's only happy with a language level like "See John run. John runs to the shop." "

It is until you teach it different. Just be sure of your spelling before you add it to your personal dictionary.

Techies. Tch!

Amazon yoinks Dora and SpongeBob from Netflix for MEELLLIONS

Stevie

P.S.

For all the haters: You are aware your TV has an off switch and alternate programming available at the push of a button, aren't you? No-one forces anyone to watch kid's TV. You could all just get involved in your kids' quality time.

Or, you know, just admit that the shows for a useful way for you as adults to get some quiet time doing what *you* want without the normal incessant demands for attention from munchkins and belt up.

I could understand if this rage were directed at Barney or (shudder) teletubbies.

What next? An anti "Blues Clues" pogrom? The mass burning of archival "Hectors House" footage? Actually, that last one is okay by me.

Stevie

Hah!

Money in the bank for shareholders. Dora and Spongebob are more popular than air with the kids in this neighborhood.

As an experiment some years ago while waiting for a Harry Potter movie to start I shouted "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?"

Not one dissenting vote from the under 12s. I nearly lost an eardrum.

And Dora's appeal crosses normally polarized racial lines with ease, to judge by the backpacks the young ladies of tomorrow are toting their crayons'n'lunch'n'stuff to school in.

And each has a running history that puts Dr Who to shame.

Money in the bank.

Hitchhikers' Guide was WRONG, Earth is not in a galactic backwater

Stevie

Oi, Mr Page!

No spoilers!

Jobs' 'incredibly stupid' prattlings prove ebook price-fix plot, claim Feds

Stevie

Bah!

$9.99 is still too much for a g_____m e-book. Especially when that e-book was written four decades ago by a man long dead.

Facebook's Sean Parker fined $2.5m for tasteless eco-trashing wedding

Stevie

Bah!

He should be birched.

Doctor Who? 12th incarnation sought after Matt Smith quits

Stevie

Nah,

Clara should turn out to be the next doctor.

How Microsoft shattered Gnome's unity with Windows 95

Stevie

Bah!

I will get excoriated for saying so, but I tried all these alternatives out at the time and I can tell you that although superficially similar in many ways to the windows 95 desktop, the other guys were missing the point by miles.

What was truly a game changer in Windows 95 was the context-sensitive right-click menus. They gave the pc-ophobe (me, in 1995) a way to educate myself in what I needed to do to get this blasted toy computer I'd been given out of the way so I could do my work (mainframe database administration) in a job I had had all of two hours.

That it took me 30 minutes to do so from "Oh christ, I've lost this job before I start" to "$$OPEN" - the start of my real work is a testament to the underlying design *whether or not the actual OS is/was crap from a comparative technology standpoint*.

That none of the alternative OS/desktops offered such richness was a real non-starter for me. I don't do operating systems for fun. They are there to allow me to do other stuff.

Kettle 'which looks like HITLER' brews up sturm in a teacup

Stevie

Re: Bah!

And I'm guessing it ain't you.

Stevie

Bah!

The bloke on the right used to play keyboard for Sparks, didn't he?

Stevie

Teufel!

The Fuhrer was a traditional man. I don't recall him ever wearing a black clown nose.

(With apologies to Mr Ploppy).

Court orders Feds to hand evidence over to Kim Dotcom

Stevie

Bah!

A popular misconception. If you arrive at the counter with a valid visa you absolutely have the right to legal process before facing deportation, even non-citizens. If you are properly polite and not a trouble maker you will in all likelihood have no trouble. If you are rude or some sort of problem child you will be evicted.

Unless you opted for a B-whatever Waiver visa. Because the 'waiver" is a waiver of that right. Then you can be held until the next flight and sent back where you came from with no delays for due process. Because you said you didn't need that when you signed the waiver.

If you are talking to someone at a desk who wants to see your passport you have stepped over the yellow (in NY) line that separates Plebobia Incognita from the Land of the Free and are by definition in America. Indeed, if you step back over the line for any reason you may face charges based on fleeing the country.

Back in the 80s we ex pats used to gather in the NY drinkeries to share holiday tales of immigrating at NY. My fave was the person who got into trouble for bringing in a ham sandwich - that they had been given on the Pan-Am flight. When informed of her transgression and the intent to Get Serious about this illicit meat importation she jumped back over the line so she wasn't in America any more, whereupon she was informed there would now be a new raft of charges and a supervisor was called. However, this fiendish woman wasn't yet finished in her perfidious perfidy - she crammed the entire sandwich into her mouth and chewed madly so that by the time a supervisor had arrived in theater the evidence was gone. Then she jumped back over the line and smiled sweetly. So they let her in. These days I'd be able to see this amazing feat of mandibular might on youtube, but then it was only available as a rerun on the airport closed circuit camera system.

UN to call for 'pre-emptive' ban on soulless robot bomber assassins

Stevie

Bah!

Well it's about f*cking time! The bloody things have been trundling around killing indiscriminately for fifty years now with hardly a word from Europe's best.

Wait, we *are* talking about Daleks, aren't we?

Ruby on Fails: Zombie SERVER army built thanks to Rails bug

Stevie

Bah!

"The problem is the cool kids today have no idea how memory management works."

A real computer system takes care of memory management behind the scenes. Even the old ICL 1901T could manage that without falling over its germanium transistors.

Did you kids throw out the baby with the bathwater *again*?

Stevie

Re: "trendy web programming kit Ruby on Rails"

"Why dontcha load in that program via the plugboard over there?"

It's called a Patch Panel sonny.

Now get off my lawn before I fire this here blunderbuss and pepper your c-loving arse cheeks with a hail of doorknobs, gravel and sundry nuts and bolts.

Stevie

Re: Bah!

"In case you're not aware smarter people than you or I "

Speak for yourself Cameron.

I am a self-confessed genius, bon vivant and boudoir athlete without equal (grunt grunt), and though I sometimes drink beer it is rarely Dos Equis because I find the people who drink it too boring.

I would have been swayed by your argument had your highly reasoned example not contained a sophomoric logical flaw that not only pulled its teeth but reversed its sense as a Dimwit Indicator. You can find it explained in Wikipedia if you are half as clever as you think you are.

Stevie

Bah!

Servers don't have eyes, or any other sense come to that. They anesthesically obey every instruction they get presented with.

Nor do they have any innate intelligence, so they cannot be tricked.

Perhaps the root cause of this "poor design hitting one in the face again" issue is people's idiotic tendency to anthropomorphize machinery.

Tron has a lot to answer for.

Windows 8.1 Start button SPOTTED in the wild

Stevie

Re: How much less could you care?

[Gav] It's called "elliptical speech" dear boy. Do try and maintain a stiff upper lip in front of the Americans.

PayPal denies stiffing bug-hunting teen on bounty

Stevie

Bah!

I experienced similar behavior from a large British game company who decided that there was an arbitrary date on a gift certificate prize I had been awarded as part of the first US Golden Demon contest, but had taken my own sweet time in using. They were not receptive to the argument that there was nothing in the yards of boilerplate on the document itself to say there was any expiration date. They were not receptive to the argument that delaying the use of the gift certificate was to their advantage and my loss since it was not index linked to their platforming retail price escalations.

They were more receptive when they found out I was seriously ill in hospital and that my wife was working for a large law firm. The clincher? I was not, as they had assumed, a teenager. Why that would make the defining difference in attitude I don't know. But it isn't just an American behavior to gyp for no reason.

As for PayPal, I started my relationship with them reluctantly, was forced to participate more fully by an eBaytard who couldn't read and whose payment arrived a couple of days after a critical change in in the eBay TOS. I hate that they attempt to hijack any PP-mediated transaction to use the PP account rather than my credit card (WHY would I spend my money when I can spend the bank's ffs?) and as a result I have avoided doing business with any site that only offers PP payments (predominantly UK sites for some reason. They loves the PayPal).

eBay is no longer a first resort for me when it comes to printed materials (by far my most frequent type of e-purchase) since I can trust Amazon vendors more than eBayers when it comes to describing what they are selling me. Yes I've been burned. Not seriously, but enough to say "enough!"

CRUNCH: 'Drunk' chap cuffed in high-speed car nookie prang rumpus

Stevie

Bah!

Who gives a rat's rear end about this Luis and his stupid tart? What about the poor buggers in the car that was hit?

Stevie's Luis Prediction: Uninsured, suspended driver's license.

This is why you end up with nanny state laws. No one gives a f*ck if you crash your car because you had temporarily stunned your last remaining brain cell with alcohol while attempting behavior non-conducive to responsible road use with the vehicle in motion.

They care that you walk away from the damage you inflict on others with your f*cktard antics.

My only question is: why no tasing? It would have seemed like the perfect opportunity for target practice.

Boffins' brilliant plan: CONCRETE COMPUTERS

Stevie

Re: Bah!

How can a squirt of Elmer's white glue help? The Fairy Liquid breaks the surface tension of the water allowing it to mix and flow more easily. PVA makes everything more rubbery.

Stevie

Bah!

I thought everyone knew that hand-shoveled, machine-tumbled concrete never really mixes and flows properly without the addition of one short squirt of Fairy Liquid per load.

Tch! Kids today! Never listen, never learn.

My, my Pi, did it spy ya? Bye, bye Pi, did it go higher?

Stevie

Bah!

I remember Tom Jones, but if you want to make a pun based on his songs you should at least take the elementary step of making your version scan to the meter of the tune if you want the reader to have any chance of appreciating how clever you've been.

Or not, as in this case. My entire post is, of course, a parody of the hit "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood" which you spotted unless you actually expected the rhythm and subject matter of it to match that of the song, in which case you are SOL.

Hammond pleads guilty to Stratfor hack: 'It's a relief'

Stevie

Re: The title is too long

I don't suppose it was to stop the hacker getting shivved by rather more physical members of the population, perhaps holding views of the alleged offense against the interests of National Security and being inclined to do more than post to El Reg in response?

'Catastrophic failure' of 3D-printed gun in Oz Police test

Stevie

Re: @SuccessCase (was: "The point is it has now been shown these things ::are useless::")

I can buy a real gun for less than the cost of a RepRap. It will fire thousands of shots and never explode in my hand.

In point of fact, having tried to source a RepRap recently I can also state that I can get the real gun at a fraction of the time and effort it will take me to get the RepRap too, and I live in a state with rather heavy gun control laws.

The printagun is stupid again.

Stevie

Re: A different concern?

Or maybe pay one of the less-than minimum wage cleaning staff (who have all been so thoroughly vetted - riiiiiight) to stash a real gun somewhere you can get to it once you've passed through the security station.

Stevie
Meh

Re: If I was making a police video for this

You *do* know that for home printing there is a grand total of two types of plastic that can be piped through a printers print head, don't you? You don't have infinite choice of what your weedwhacker wire is made from, you must choose from the two (PLA and ABS if I remember correctly and you must use a different print head for each type).

Neither of these is ideal for anything that will undergo sudden excursions of pressure and temperature in a small printed space.

Indeed, neither is particularly suitable for anything arduous, which is why people in industry (where they have a much wider range of printing materials) refer to the field of 3d printing as a rapid prototyping technology, good for making models for people to look at and fondle, good for making patterns for other processes, but not typically useful for production items (unless you are making little plastic robots and even then Injection Moulding is faster, cheaper, better).

This particular gun was *supposed* to work when printed from one of those two materials. It doesn't, as anyone with half a brain could have predicted, and is probably the slowest, most expensive way of improvising a dangerous-to-the-user weapon ever invented. One might use the phrase "F*cktard Design" if one hadn't already done so days before.

Stevie

Bah!

So once again we focus on this stupidly idiotic zip gun (as in: making a zip gun out of black pipe the traditional way is faster and results in a sturdier yet no-less useless weapon) instead of the real threat looming on the horizon: The GPS guided, googletech cruise missile self-steering car.

My god what a blindsiding bum steer this f*cking 3d printagun issue is becoming.

If any indicator as to the absolute uselessness of the so-called weapon and the emasculated nature of the so-called threat it poses were to be taken as definitive, the fact that the politicians are all over the issue should sound earsplitting bullshit sirens loud and clear in everyone's ears.

Tipsters exposed after South Africa's national police force hacked

Stevie

Bah!

Oh look, a new breed of hacker is born.

White hat.

Black Hat.

Asshat.