* Posts by Stevie

7282 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2008

You can hack a PC just by looking at it, say 3M and HP

Stevie

Bah!

You know, when Dell and HP and Compaq and IBM and Apple were announcing their push to make LCD screens more easily readable at wide angles I remember saying that it was a mistake.

I must ask Alannis Morriset if this "spend bajillions on wide screen research, then fit an aftermarket screen field of view filter" is ironic or not.

FBI takes down Dridex botnet, seizes servers, arrests suspect

Stevie

Bah!

Yay for the feebee.

Also others.

Shocker: Net anarchist builds sneaky 220v USB stick that fries laptops

Stevie

Re: Business opportunity

Naw, what's needed is an overvolt shutoff in between the plugable and the computer. You could probably source everything you need from Sparkfun if you live in a land o' no Maplins.

I'd like to congratulate the inventor of this idiotic device (which in all likelihood was lifted from an old flashgun) for adding yet another "worthwhile" item to the list of computer-age spinoffs.

Stevie

Bah!

I got the same feeling reading this article as I did reading about that guy who persuaded McDonalds employees to strip search young women over the phone.

The action happens out of sight.

I can't see the payoff for the perp.

US Navy grabs old-fashioned sextants amid hacker attack fears

Stevie

Bah!

Never should have shut down the Loran stations.

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: Itty-bitty pyttipanna

Stevie

Re: Healthy, that

You want healthy you shouldn't be frying up a bunch of fatty red meat with spuds and an egg anyway.

Go chew some broccoli and leave the big boys to their manly grub.

Stevie

Bah!

What's all this "x grams of y" nonsense? This sort of dish should measure the ingredients in "handfuls".

And why no baked beans? Are the Swedes completely bereft of proper culinary sensibilities?

FAA issues lithium battery warning

Stevie

Re: not getting it, charles9

What part of "cabin baggage" was lost on you?

Stevie

Re: cutlery in first class

When I was upgraded to business class on Air Canada (ta very much, AC) I ate my roast unicorn entree with orichalcum cutlery.

Stevie

Bah!

So I can take lithium batteries on by the caseful, but not a bottle of shampoo or my beloved Swiss Army Knife?

Got it.

Hillary's sysadmin left VNC, RDP exposed to the internet - report

Stevie

Re: You must have missed

But even a foreign policy expert would struggle to verify the claims here and the whole exercise might just as easily be the work of an enterprising chancer.

I have now. I was taken by the paragraph above in light of the fact no further revelations seem to have transpired.

You are aware the private e-mail server, while unwise, was not against the rules that were in play when it was set up and for most of its life? Sending classified stuff to it was, though the nefarious swath of compromised secrets don't appear to be there in the sort of abundance that was eagerly anticipated by some.

Storm in a teacup judgment still in place. If there was any meat on those bones we'd have seen it trumpeted far and wide by now.

Stevie

Bah!

I'm so tired of this storm in a teacup.

So far I've seen no evidence that anything at all was sourced from this server as opposed to being sailed on a raft from various other government machines. And if there were so much as a hint of that, it would have been page one at the New York Post, not to mention the flag behind which the committee "investigating" the matter would rally in a storm of self-agrandizing publicity righteous indignation.

It seems, contrary to popular wisdom on the matter, in this case security by (extreme) obscurity worked to prevent any leaks.

Also: "white hat botnet"? Wait, what?

Man goes to collect stolen-car court docs found in stolen car in stolen car

Stevie

Bah!

Points for style!

Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Whitman slams EMC/Dell deal

Stevie

Bah!

Yep, shareholder value once again front and center in this vapid cheerleading exercise.

Or did I miss the bit where Ms Whitman detailed (as far as she could without breaking confidentiality or compromising cutting-edge IP in progress) the exciting new game-changing technologies that HP will be revealing to the world soon?

I have one thing to say to MacBook users at EMC: Whoops

Stevie

Bah!

This time next year. And they blinded us with apliiiiiiiiance (Appliance!), and thrilled us with security.

Well, y'gotta dream.

Playboy drops the butt-naked ladies

Stevie

Bah!

Near-nudes in Playboy?

Well what's the fucking point of that? That market is already served by Maxim and FHM. This will set the art of airbrushing back decades.

I guess the loon council finally won.

Laser razor binned from Kickstarter resurfaces on Indiegogo

Stevie

Bah!

A nuclear laser razor.

It's the next inevitable phase.

Stevie
Coffee/keyboard

Re: As per Sir Bedevere in Monty Python and the Holy Grail...

Well done. Busted for laughing out loud in the middle of the training presentation I was supposed to be paying attention to.

Your work is done.

Pitchforks, torches, and awful quotes – we read what Cisco's CEO said

Stevie

Bah!

I had a new boss ask me how long it would take to finish up a side project he'd assigned to me. I told him four days. He shot back "what if I said you only had three?"

I replied that it would still take four days, that I wasn't Scotty and didn't inflate my estimates and that the four days would be me working through lunches and into the early hours on my own time as a personal favor.

He never tried that TV Time-limit crap on me again.

Dot-gay bid fails again: This time because it is too gay

Stevie

Re: So let me get this right (4 powernumpty)

I don't think the argument is that people of sexual N are looking to be accepted as anyone else as much as such people are fed up with being singled out for special attention.

Congrats on further dehumanizing the whole debate with your faux-math notation by the way. Heart on sleeve, much?

PHONE me if you feel DIRTY: Yanks and 'Nadians wave bye-bye to magstripe

Stevie

Bah!

Well, I live in New York and have been issued with a chipped credit card or two. Here's the actual truth, Stevie-side.

The chip is not protected by a PIN.

The card is not "tapped", it is inserted in the bottom of the reader and a lengthy wait then ensues before the authorization acknowledgement is requested. Sometimes, quite often in fact, the chip reader does not work and the card must be swiped anyway. So it is lucky that the mag stripe is still very much in evidence, innit?

At gas stations, the card is inserted into a reader. which reads the mag stripe, not the chip. I know this because the frequent customer card I use to make the cheap as water gas even cheaper has no chip, just a mag stripe, and in each case the insert and "remove quickly" instructions are the same, and if not followed properly the transaction will fail.

The legislation making fraud the vendor's issue is not yet in place and has been modified since it was proposed much in line with the system in the UK. This, I understand, at the vendors' request, on infrastructure cost grounds.

The Dabbs Scenario is coming, but as my grandma used to say, so is Christmas, and at this rate it'll be here first. (This had more poignancy in January, I admit).

Hurrah! Doctor Who brings us a bootstrap paradox treat in Before the Flood

Stevie

Bah!

I find the "fixed points in time" plot device to be as lame as the "space-time damage" explanation for why the Enterprise didn't go everywhere at warp 9.4.

Wouldn't it have been better to have the doctor admit he's from "the future" and risks elimnating himself from the picture if he gets too "timey-wimey".

FBI boss: No encryption backdoor law (but give us backdoors anyway)

Stevie

Bah!

Well I'm convinced. What possible downside could there be?

Top VW exec blames car pollution cheatware scandal on 'a couple of software engineers'

Stevie

Bah!

Well, this "two software guys who we haven't found yet" theory sounds convincing to me.

I'm sold.

Playmobil cops broadside for 'racist' pirate slave

Stevie

Bah!

I get outraged too. Most recently over a copy of the official BBC Goon Show episode involving the intercontinental ballistic NAFFI.

What happened to Prime Minister Seagoon's greeting to his butler G. Thynne, which used to go: "Ah Grippipe! Dearest friend, sincerest critic and author of Ten Years As A Russian Spy At Number 10"?

I know because they rebroadcast the episode in the 70s and I taped it. On the new "remaster" the language offensive to our new Russian friends was strangely absent.

It made the following joke in which Seagoon had his photo taken by Thynne while posed holding the NAFFI plans up in front of his face a bit pointless.

Stevie

Bah!

Here's an idea: just don't put the collar on the doll.

When we gave my daughter the Inuit sled set (Canadian market exclusive I think) we removed the flensing knives because at five she didn't need to deal with Just in Time seal butchering, especially as the (Playmobil) seal was a favorite toy.

Adobe to brick eight Acrobat, Reader flaws next Tuesday

Stevie

Bah!

No need to bother on my account. I dumped Acrobat Reader after the latest "enhancement" insisted on pushing unwanted cloud sync features at me every time I opened it.

Hey, Facebook – these are the new Like buttons you should have used

Stevie

Bah!

As someone who once ran a forum and put up light-hearted themed polls as a Friday distraction I can say with some certainty that the more options you offer the less worth the mechanism has, and that no matter how many you offer there will be a sizable and vocal claque who will whine that they can't express their response within the narrow confines provided to them.

But if I had to use any of these stupid buttons I'd rather use The Register's. Kudos.

HP creates laptop for SITH LORDS

Stevie

Bah!

So HP have crafted a telemarketing program for Lucas Industries?

NASA boffins on Pluto: We see skies of BLUE and... RED water ice

Stevie

Bah!

But, because they are peaceful beings, with none of the 'attributes' of us Humans, they won't really care and will carry on bathing in their vast seas of crude oil.

Peaceful? Aye, if you don't count their habit of decanting people's brains into metal cylinders for purposes yet unknown.

Beware the Fungi from Yuggoth.

Top telematics: Black box helps driver swerve speeding fine

Stevie

Re: TR6

Only one?

I had both front lower wishbone mounts tear away from the chassis on separate cornering occasions.

I had the driver side trunion sieze solid so in order to turn I had to pull hard enough on the wheel to deform the suspension.

I had the coupling on the metering unit shatter at 70 mph on the M1 as I was leaving Newport Pagnel services.

I had the roof tear wawy from the rear anchor at 110mph just west of Havant and give me and the two ladies inside a damn good thrashing (it was still attached at the windscreen).

I had the throttle linkage disconnect as I pulled into heavy works traffic in Ayelsbury. On that model the throttle failed by opening to "maximum wellie".

I had the fuel pump overheat to the point that the petrol started vaporizing in the part with the cogs in it.

I had a wheel bearing fail so spectaculaly the mechanic actually tore the studs through the flange when the puller exceeded 90 tons force.

I did manage to fix the grounding problem that made the engine stall if you switched on too much stuff at once. (Which is the real reason TR6 owners flash their headlights at each other - a smug demonstration of mad electrician skillz).

All that and more and I'd have kept the car if I could. Broke my heart to have to sell it.

Stevie

Re: Cop Braked to Provoke Incident

Yep, happened to me on Kenpass Highway in Coventry some years ago. Cop in outside lane doing 40. Me on inside lane doing 40. He brakes and stops me for "overtaking on the left".

Why did he feel moved to do this? A) it was 3 am and in 1983 driving the deserted streets at that hour was " suspicious". 2) he was paired with the sourest-faced WPC I've ever personally encountered. Something had put her back up that night and she was not in a forgiving mood.

I had my vengeance. I told him I wasn't carrying my paperwork (it was in the boot) so he had to write a dsk appearace ticket for me. I let him fill it out and when he said "Broad Street okay for you?" I said " No. Kingston-upon-Thames".

I was working a contract there and would be there from 8 am the next day for a week. He had to get on the radio and wake someone up so they could find a cop-shop for him to write in the ticket. I like to think everyone involved gave him hell for a bullshirt stop.

Why was I out at that time? I drove a TR6 and felt like a run with no other drivers clogging up the view.

Israeli lander FOUND ON MOON (in 2017)

Stevie

Bah!

Hopping? Someone has been watching Space 1999 re-runs.

Google and pals launch Accelerated Mobile Pages project

Stevie

Bah!

"Janky" obviously means "jittery and wanky".

Tch! Kids!

I'm older than nitrogen and I figured it out with no trouble.

Assange™ offered 'plans for escape by flying fox to Harrods'

Stevie

Bah!

Fucking Air Malaysia flight MH350 and its pings.

The word "ping" was used every two minutes on the news shows for weeks, each time with a Stephen Fry mini explanation inserted so everyone could keep up.

I vote the next idiot that gives a piece of tech jargon to the lumpen press has his/her thumbs hammered flat.

US Treasury: How did ISIS get your trucks? Toyota: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Stevie

Bah!

Where did they come from?

Abandoned in place Top Gear "challenge" throwaways?

Miss Brittany dethroned for posting 'nude' Facebook pics

Stevie

Bah!

See? This is what happens when the Safe Harbor rules are turned off.

Surface Book: Microsoft to turn unsuccessful tab into unsuccessful laptop

Stevie

Bah!

Sounds like a winner.

But then again, Windows 10 ....

THIS is MASSIVE! Less-Masslessness neutrino boffins bag Physics Nobel

Stevie

Bah!

Wasn't the neutrino only invented to make the nuclear fission sums work? Something called The Mass Defect if I remember Mr Miller's O level physics classes right.

Shutterbug drone biz fined $1.9m for buzzing New York City, Chicago

Stevie

Re: FAA

Says the organisation that presided over four airliners being deliberately flown into solid objects.

Outside of a few forums run by and for credulous saucer loons, no-one believes the FAA possesses AA artillery or squadron of hypersonic Freedom Defense Fighters.

Mysterious brown spots and a different kind of mouse support

Stevie

Bah!

De cute and cuddly little doormouse

Daylight come an' I wanna go home

Hide de deadly Hanta Virus

Daylight come an' I wanna go home

The Steve Jobs of supercomputers: We remember Seymour Cray

Stevie

Bah!

An article on Seymour Cray with no mention of his chief competitor.

I can understand the ommission of WOPR, but to completely ignore the Gibson?

Slander-as-a-service: Peeple app wants people to rate and review you – whether you like it or not

Stevie

Re: "Murder my mate"

Ooh!

Would you like to partner and help me design "StrangersOnATrain.com"?

"Putting like-minded individuals in touch with each other so they can enact peer-to-peer synergistic transport-agile solutions to life's little problems".

Stevie

Bah!

Oh, the terrible carnage of cost overruns and elastic IT deadlines have completely derailed this most excelent April 1st hoax.

Russian hacker, nabbed in Spain, cops 4+ years for Citadel botnet

Stevie

Bah!

I wonder if supervised means training? And just what is a supervised FOREIGNER going to do for three year after release? Work for who,and does he get a green card? Enquiring minds would like to know!

Bricklayer on the Trump Anti-Mexican Wall.

MYSTERY PARTICLE BLASTS from Ceres strike NASA probe Dawn

Stevie

Bah!

Prediction: mysterious electron flux events traced to instrumentation electronics announcing "goodbye cruel cosmos".

FATTIES have most SUCCESS with opposite SEX! Have some pies and SCORE

Stevie

Bah!

Typical Lewis Page denialist claptrap that flies in the face of established sciewait, what?

This is the truest thing on the interwebs. I know, for I am 250 lbs of stud-muffinery withan extensive portfolio of techniques to bring a woman as close to seeing god as she can get while still breathing (heavily).

Don't tell Mrs Stevie I wrote this. She says that the last time she saw a bod like mine sans culottes it was hanging from the Empire State building swatting aeoplanes.

Share-crazy millennials spaff passwords ALL OVER the workplace

Stevie

Re: Security by obscurity is when

Gordon.

Bennet.

Lies from VW: 'Our staff acted criminally but board didn't know'

Stevie

Re: Is it really so impossible for the board to be lied to?

No, but the board are paid the extremely generous amounts they get to be knowledgeable about the company and to make sure they are properly informed.

I'm not feeling sorry about the board's shaky position here, and that goes double after this transparent attempt to shift attention from the corporate culture to a more easily sacrificed individual or two.

I've no doubt the rot runs deep on this one. I just think that while you are checking for damp rot in the basement structural beams you should also be checking the roof for damage, because that's where the problems usually start.

I mean, what's more likely: some bod on the shop floor saying "we should use software to fool the emissions tests" or some bod on the shop floor being told "change this so it passes the tests and don't rock the boat or it's your job"?

We are talking attempts to maintain public confidence in the brand in the unfriendly face of inconvenient physics - aka maintaining shareholder value. Who cares most about that? The engineer or the stock-option-equipped politician?

As in all things corporate the world around: You want to find the problem, follow the money.

Stevie

Re:The jeep isn't diesel

Neither is a PT Cruiser, nor any of the "Smart" cars I know of.

And again, the regulations are based on *State* law, not some nebulous "US Law". Talking about "US Regulations" makes as much sense as talking about the lousy quality of "British TV". You can't lump Top Gear and Doctor Who in with Gordon Fucking Ramsay and Graham Norton, and you can't lump all the states together when a question of state vehicle inspection law is at hand.