Posts by TheProf

UK's National Museum of Computing asks tunesmiths to recreate bleeps, bloops, and parps of retro game music

Re: fond memories of laboriously typing in lists of SOUND statements ...

And at an extra cost you could plug in your own microchip newsreader* and have voice synthesised fun with that.

*Kenneth Kendall

Latest Windows 11 Preview a well-rounded update – literally

Winaero Tweaker

Any idea if Winaero Tweaker or similar will tame this UI and make it behave like a boring, normal, usable computer?

Former ad exec sticks Steve Jobs' 1973 job application in a scanner for physical-versus-digital NFT auction

Bid

I think I'll put a bid in for the digital version.

When I win I intend to sell each off each pixel as an NFT.

Bwah haw haw.

I was going to upvote you but I don't want to appear complicit.

Good news: Jeff Bezos went to space. Bad news: He's back

Indeed.

Didn't Wally play a very significant role in the investigation of some major aircraft crashes?

Paid antivirus? On ads? Think of all the beer you could buy without that subscription

Where once simple posters might have hung

But imagine the misery of the poorly paid shop assistant having to swap the poster every 30 seconds.

OpenAI shuts down robotics team because it doesn't have enough data yet

Re: Does it matter ?

Would you be so concerned if they'd used the voice of an actor who sounded just like Bourdain? Or an impressionist?

It isn't as if the film maker was trying to deceive the public about what Bourdain had already expressed.

Maybe we should just get Patrick Stuart to do all off-screen voices and then we can all sleep soundly knowing we've heard the truth.

This page has been deliberately left blank

Re: Justy sell'em anyway

You're probably correct.

I read an article a few years back and it said that there were more variations in the spelling of SPEARS than there were with BRITNEY.

Bares (sic) thinking about eh?

ZTE Axon 30 Ultra: Strong effort from an entity-lister, but your tiny child hands may struggle

5Gee

On this test we tried the phone with an assortment of sims from various carriers to see how it performed.

Here is a list of our findings.

EE

O2

Three

Vodafone

Would you settle for a photo of a dog by some bins?

Richard Branson uses two planes to make 170km round trip

incredibly wealthy parents.

But just look at all those who have "incredibly wealthy parents" and do nothing of any use to anyone.

I much rather shake hands with Branson than any of the 'daddy bought me a Maserati for my 16th birthday' crowd.

Revealed: Perfect timings for creation of exemplary full English breakfast

Re: add condiments to taste.

Not sure if they have branches in Berlin yet but Henderson's Northern Relish is available in branches of discount chain HomeBargains.

Re: add condiments to taste.

Both. On opposite sides of the plate.

Windows 11 still doesn't understand our complex lives – and it hurts

And besides, I wanted to give Windows 11 a fair chance.

Should you then not wait for it to be officially released?

OK, you're paying data charges in the EU, but you can still roam free in, er, Iceland

I see no ships

"The deal's cutting-edge digital provisions mean we're slashing red tape [and] making it easier than ever for our businesses to export across borders."

Said well out of earshot of those small exporters who have crashed into the customs paperwork wall.

Disco classic Rasputin and pop anthem revealed as reasons Twitter suspended Indian politicians

Re: I spy a second hand market for...

What are you going on about? Did I miss the alien connections in a story about Indian politicians and Twitter having a bit of a spat?

Audacity is a poster child for what can be achieved with open-source software

And now a word

Nice review of Muse Group there.

It left me with a warm fuzzy feeling.

Devilish plans for your next app update ensure they never happen – unless you start praying

Re: Heaven and Hell

'All right lads, tea break's over. Back to standing on your heads.'

It's about time! NASA's orbital atomic clock a boon for deep space navigation – if they can get it working for long enough

Ah! Now I Get It.

Super-accurate atomic clocks to solve the Space Longitude problem.

Jeff Bezos names the fourth person for the first New Shepard flight: Wally Funk

Good for Wally

I'm glad to hear this news. Wally Funk certainly deserves her trip into space.

I recently read the book about her written by a BBC journalist. There was also a radio programme (or it could have been a podcast).

She comes across as a rather eccentric woman. In the past the word 'tomboy' would have described her exactly.

Green MSP calls on Scottish government to stop spending £4.7m a year with AWS after Amazon 'dumping' allegations

Re: "we do not send items to landfill in the UK"

"they should be compelled to make best efforts to sell items"

Fuck me says Amazon's board of directors. Why didn't we think of that?

Lego bricks, upcycled iPhone lenses used in new low-cost, high-res microscope

Bah again

In my day we'd have used a 3D printer for this sort of thing.

Three things that have vanished: $3.6bn in Bitcoin, a crypto investment biz, and the two brothers who ran it

when it comes to cashing in

I always enjoy the shock-horror newspaper reaction to the way thieves spend their ill-gotten gains.

It's usually along the lines of 'spent the money on expensive cars, a new house, holidays abroad and designer handbags.' Gasp choke!!

When I rob a bank/footballer/charity/ I spend the money on sherbet-dabs and cheesy wotsits. Nothing to tip off the authorities there. Although I do now need a new warehouse or two to store the rather bulky cheesy wotsits in.

Wanted: Brexit grand fromage. £120k a year. Perks? Hmmmm…

A Good Thing

I think this a a good thing. Someone to look at how things are going to have to change after spending 47 years in the EU.

How being independent will mean sorting out our own rules and regulations. How we are going to interface with the rest of the world. What our obligations and commitments will be without the support of the rest of Europe.

The government is now totally in charge of the ship and if we're to avoid the reefs and sail happily in the Tory Blue waters of free enterprise unfettered by the chains of the octopus-like bureaucracy that was our immediate past then I'm all for it.

It would, also, have been a much better idea to have looked at all this and more before pulling on the eject handle.

What job title would YOU want carved on your gravestone? 'Beloved father, Slayer of Dragons, Register of Domains'

Church

"as wealthy an organisation as the Catholic church"

Being a Catholic schoolboy at the time the 'concrete monstrosity' was being constructed I can remember there being lots of fundraising carried out in the community. With that in mind I think the Liverpool Catholic Cathedral was funded locally* and not from the 'wealthy organisation' you may have seen swanning about in private jets etc.

Of course the original plan was much grander.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Metropolitan_Cathedral

And you really should try going inside the 'concrete monstrosity' before condemning it entirely.

Re: Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph

"That's the sort of thing I'd like to be able to have."

Good luck with that but I doubt anything as wonderful as St. Paul's cathedral would be built today.

Deluded medics fail to show Ohio lawmakers that COVID vaccines magnetise patients

Glass magnets

I just tested my spectacles frame with a proper magnet and there was no attraction.

Mind you, they are made from titanium so that's to be expected.

Are syringes made from fine bore magnetic steel? Wouldn't the vaccine get stuck in the tube?

Whatever you've been doing during lockdown, you better stop it right now

Re: Danger, Robinson! Danger!

Yes it should be 'Danger Will Robinson! Danger!(and possibly another Danger!)' accompanied by the flailing of robotic arms.

I'm currently re-watching Babylon 5 and to my great shame* I keep thinking 'Danger Will Robinson! Danger!' every time Lennier appears on screen.

*I'm not ashamed by it at all.

How many remote controls do you really need? Answer: about a bowl-ful

Duplicates

My bugbear is companies that use the same codes. Philips codes for example are used on my Marantz CD player and Arcam amplifier. The CD player has an adjustable volume control and the amplifier's remote will activate it. So if I want the music a little louder or quieter using either remote gives me a double strength change.

For a universal remote I bought one of those new-fangled internet connected IR blasters. For only £10 and a little time and effort I can now turn on my bedside DAB radio from anywhere in the world.

UK Special Forces soldiers' personal data was floating around WhatsApp in a leaked Army spreadsheet

The Name's Public, James Public

Anything to do with Bond moving over to another 'employer'?

Remember those wacky cyberpunk costumes in Hackers? They're on display in London this week

Roller Skates

Never seen Hackers but a search brings up pictures of the protagonists on roller skates. No thanks.

It'll be one of those disappointing films like the one where students are made dead (made dead?) and brought back to life while connected to computers and the like. For science, naturally.

I think it was called The Bus That couldn't Slow Down.

NASA to return to the Moon by 2024. One problem with that, says watchdog: All of it

Re: Am I the only one

Nah. With that music it's the start of a race in Wipeout.

Snowden was right, rules human rights court as it declares UK spy laws broke ECHR

Word Association Football

Sorry but your post reminded me of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBkUhBs_1II

All that Lego has a purpose: Researchers find that spatial memory improves kids' mathematical powers

That explains it

I recently learned that I have what is termed 'Aphantasia'. I can't conjure up mental images. (Or sounds for that matter.) I'm also rubbish at maths.

I'm of the 'follow the instructions' persuasion when it comes to Lego. Minecraft for me is a tedious slog. I can't 'see' what I want to build so after fruitlessly dropping blocks on top of each other I end up with, well, a pile on blocks on top of each other.

On the plus side when someone says 'don't think of elephants' I don't.

Blue Origin sets its price: $1.4m minimum for trip into space

I'll Wait

I want to orbit the Earth!

Call me when you've got a bigger rocket. And some experience.

Apple announces lossless HD audio at no extra cost, then Amazon Music does too. The ball is now in Spotify's court

IT'S A TRAP!

Actually it does sound like better quality streaming for no extra cost.

I believe Apple also upgrade their video to 4K from 1080 too.

Hold on.....It's Apple....IT'S A TRAP!

Water's wet, the Pope's Catholic, and iOS is designed to stop folk switching to Android, Epic trial judge told

Re: Epic Fail

I must apologise to you all for my complete brainfart of a post. I've read it again and I don't even know what the hell I was thinking.

I'd be adding to the downvotes myself if that were possible.

Epic Fail

Epic don't seem to sell games discs that run on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, Mac and Linux.

Why? What's stopping them?

Chinese rocket plunges into Indian Ocean, still lands sharp rebuke from NASA

Re: Skylab

Oh that's ok then. I don't mind being accidentally crushed to death. It just when it's intentional I get a bit uppety about it.

I bet the Chinese were hoping for a last-minute breakthrough in tractor beam technology.

Skylab

That one went well for NASA.

Visual Basic 6 returns: You've been a good developer all year. You have social distanced, you have helped your mom. Here's your reward

Bring your VB projects to 21th [sic] century

That's exactly the way we speak here in the 21th century.

Michael Collins, once the world's 'loneliest man,' is dead. If that name means little or nothing to you, read this

Another Go

"Collins was offered the chance to fly on a future Apollo mission"

I never knew that. Thanks. 52 years on and little nuggets like that keep cropping up.

Salesman who helped land Veritas UK's 'largest ever' deal was lawfully docked £275k in commission, says judge

Re: Meanwhile in the boardroom

I was including the Zoom calls from the Caribbean.

Meanwhile in the boardroom

'Great job showing up half-a-day every week. Here's your bonus. Yes, mine was inflation busting too.'

NASA comes up with COVID-19 infection detector that's out of this world – E-Nose built from space station gear

E-Nose you know

I hope that part of the $3.8 million goes to creating a new name for the device.

The floor is yours commentards.

Lego's Space Shuttle Discovery: No trouble with Hubble, but the stickers will drive a grown man to insanity

Re: Welcome back

Oh bugger. Those curved outer panels in yellow aren't available to buy from Lego.

Welcome back

I bought this from my friendly local Lego shop. Lego were doing a 'Welcome Back' promotion so along with a big wodge of Shuttle bricks I came home with a couple of simple to build bag kits, an ice rink kit and an Amelia Earhart Lockheed Vega 5B kit.

I'd joined the VIP program and earned enough points to get the Ulysses model but that was well gone by the time I'd got to the Lego web site.

Looking at the estimated cost of buying the bricks to build Ulysses (£21.24) I think I'll might just order the bricks and follow the instructions from Rebrickable.

I wonder how many ice rink pieces are common to the Ulysses?

We need to talk about criminal adversaries who want you to eat undercooked onion rings

We've contacted Corosi for comment.

REACHED OUT TO!

No wonder you haven't heard back from them. This could be the reason why Mr Apple doesn't answer you.

NHS COVID-19 app update blocked by Apple, Google over location privacy fears

Re: "the agreement the NHS signed with them"

" NHS app didn't allow for checkouts "

I was in two minds whether or not to create a venue poster using my home as a venue. Then when I got home I could scan myself in.

In the end the whole country just stopped going places so I didn't bother.

UK government opens vaccine floodgates to over-45s, NHS website predictably falls over

2nd

That's odd. When I booked my first appointment the NHS site let (demanded!) me book the second appointment.

I have proof!

UK's National Cyber Security Centre recommends password generation idea suggested by El Reg commenter

Re: Another demonstration of zero original thinking

Upvote for using the word 'criterion'.