Posts by WonkoTheSane

Elon Musk's galactic ego sows chaos in European politics

Learning experience incoming

Musk needs to learn that the First Amendment doesn't apply outside the USA. A lesson that should be taught in court.

After a long lunch, user thought a cursor meant their computer was cactus

Re: Thank you El Reg

Including yours.

BOFH: Printer's festive bips herald a merry mystery for the Boss's budget

Many believe that Ryanair have already implemented this on their flights, so always be sure to go before takeoff!

Admins can give thanks this November for dollops of Microsoft patches

Re: Unexpected addition of Copilot

Sure it's not Microsofts usual trick of an uninstaller that only hides the icon?

Re: Selecting a file

The UK raises its own turkeys.

For reference, see the Reform Party.

Missing Thunderbirds footage found in British garden shed

Re: What about the animated?

Fun Fact - David Graham returned to play that incarnation of Parker too.

Re: Pedant Alert

P.W. O.R.

Tempest was indeed based on James Garner, and his copilot "Phones" was based on Red Buttons.

SpaceX Falcon 9 grounded again after second stage hits wrong part of ocean

A possible reason was visible on the livestream

At SECO, there was a vent that kept firing for several seconds afterwards, either shifting the stage off course or depleting available fuel for de-orbit. Or both.

NASA's solar sailing spacecraft is tumbling – but that's part of the plan

Thank you for pressing the button specifically for that.

Not mentioning of course, that the Germans made use of pulse jets during the closing years of the second small disagreement.

Python script saw students booted off the mainframe for sending one insult too many

I humbly direct your attention to the YouTube channel of Paweł Zadrożniak, creator of the Floppotron.

A collection of assorted computer hardware and peripherals, repurposed to produce much the similar results to your printer script

Elon Musk’s Starlink won't block Elon Musk’s X in Brazil, as required by court order

Re: Musk isn't alone

"Loads of tech companies think Internet = no country can stop me."

I think you just figured out why Musk created Starlink - "SPACE internet = no country can stop me!"

Woman uses AirTags to nab alleged parcel-pinching scum

Interesting timing

Google's shiny new "Find my device" version of Airtags just went live in the UK on Monday.

Iran named as source of Trump campaign phish, leaks

Re: Global Election Interference

Russia is a "one man, one vote" democracy

Putin is that man, and he has the vote.

Trump campaign cites Iran election phish claim as evidence leaked docs were stolen

Important question missing

Which Iranian official did Trump let use the Mar-a-Lago bathroom?

Techie told 'Bill Gates' Excel is rubbish – and the Microsoft boss had it fixed in 48 hours

Brad was saying his boss was a psych major, and was therefore not qualified to help with Brad's actual job of tech support.

Yes, I am being intolerably smug – because I ignored you and saved the project

Re: Documentation and a cheap label maker

Not quite.

It's also sometimes called Schrodinger's USB

Never put off until tomorrow what someone could erase today

Re: DAT - a technology we're sure few remember fondly

ZIP drives had it too, the drive heads would drift out of alignment over time, until the drive wrongly thought a disk was blank.

The worst part was, it was contagious. If you inserted such a corrupted disk into another drive, it too caught "Click of Death".

See this link for details

Dangerous sandwiches delayed hardware installation

The ensuing investigation:-

https://youtu.be/1Bq_abof4lg

Linux kernel 6.10 arrives with punched-up hardware support

Re: gaming support is now a factor visibly driving improvements in Linux.

Easy Anti Cheat does work on Linux, as long as the game developer using it can be bothered to tick a box telling it to.

Outback shocker left Aussie techie with a secret not worth sharing

Maybe he was a Red Lectroid from Planet 10?

Police allege 'evil twin' of in-flight Wi-Fi used to steal passenger's credentials

"unless he deliberately tried to imitate an airline free wi-fi to get credentials"

The article says he did exactly that:-

"It’s alleged the accused’s collection of kit was used to create Wi-Fi hotspots with SSIDs confusingly similar to those airlines operate for in-flight access to the internet or streamed entertainment."

BOFH: Why's the network so slow?

Re: funny

This probably won't help

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game)

EU attempt to sneak through new encryption-eroding law slammed by Signal, politicians

Sadly, that cliff keeps receding into the distance.

Techie installed 'user attitude readjustment tool' after getting hammered in a Police station

Re: Yep, been there

Value engineers are accountants who only have a "minus" key on their calculator.

Re: Doors

I think I would've advised accounts to block payment altogether, as the contractor had failed to complete their contracted delivery.

We need a volunteer to literally crawl over broken glass to fix this network

Re: "This being 20 years ago now"

And of course manglement would also bring along a photographer to snap pics of them on/in front of said stand for the corporate newsletter and any trade magazine that they could convince to print it.

Command senior chief busted for secretly setting up Wi-Fi on US Navy combat ship

Re: No networks ...

Sadly, Gibbs retired to Alaska a couple of seasons ago.

However, a new series is on the schedules for September - NCIS: Origins.

Summary:- Young Leroy Jethro Gibbs starts his career as a special agent at the fledgling Camp Pendleton office, where he forges his place on a gritty, ragtag team led by NCIS legend Mike Franks.

Yes, I know they were called NIS at that time.

Re: Should be given a medal

"Maybe the one running the illegal wifi network was also the one responsible for comms security?"

That could explain why she was able to "edit an image of the ship's Starlink data usage to show less data being transferred via the satellite link"

Screwdrivers: is there anything they can't do badly? Maybe not

Re: Screwdrivers can be used for anything

I understand that adding a saw blade to a strimmer upgrades it into a brush cutter

Re: Not screwdrivers but...

It's the Time Team FS - No idea which pile the required document is in, but you know roughly how deep it should be.

The Reg builds official Lego Artemis and Milky Way sets

Sadly, the Artemis & Saturn sets are at different scales.

Destroying offshore wind farms is top priority for Trump if he returns to presidency

Re: These are weird times.

Of the 10 heaviest cars on UK roads, NONE are EVs.

The Tesla Model X is only #11.

Re: These are weird times.

"As for bin lorry fires. Pretty good chance it's going to be due to disposable [v]apes."

Exactly, there was just such a fire at a recycling centre near my workplace, just a few weeks ago.

Donnie DID drain the swamp - INTO his administration!

Cops developing Ghostbusters-esque weapon to take out e-bike thugs

Re: Because you don't want to accidentally brick a Tesla

Merely owning such a scooter isn't illegal, only using them on public streets.

Currently, only rental e-scooters are "road-legal" (Because reasons).

BOFH: Smells like Teams spirit

Re: except....

Guess I'm lucky.

My office PC is configured to use either the speakers on my monitor or the USB headset I leave plugged into the front panel.

Which Windows can't stop me muting with their external controls.

Australia’s spies and cops want ‘accountable encryption’ - aka access to backdoors

I've said it every time this comes up:-

One TLA's "Accountable encryption" will quickly become every hacker's catflap.

Strong electric car sales expected for 2024, but charging grid needs work

There are few rental battery Zoes left on the roads. Renault stopped doing it altogether in 2019.

I know of an EV trader who bought a 110,000 mile 2020 Zoe at auction for under £5000.

The car can _still_ do over 200 miles on a charge.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHhiqu7LB3YV_61j7_eoSD72RTfl4N5Dh

Re: Local infrastructure is not the major issue

Doesn't Sweden have power sockets on many parking spaces for "block heaters"?

"Someone builds" implies a new car, not a used one.

For "city car" use, you can get a used 24kWh Nissan Leaf from around £2000 on Auto Trader, which will have a 50-60 mile range.

The point being that your home electricity can be as low as 9p per kWh overnight on certain tariffs, compared with north of £1.50 per litre this week.

I direct your attention to the Dacia Spring, which will come to the UK later this year, priced from £14,995 - Only £1200 more than their Sandero (Currently the UK's cheapest brand-new combustion car).

FAA now requires reentry vehicles to get licensed before launch

Re: Puzzled

Which is why everything that could survive re-entry but isn't designed to land is targeted at a specific "middle of nowhere" part of the Pacific Ocean called "Point Nemo", which is roughly 1600 miles from the nearest land mass.

Wing Commander III changed how the copy hotkey works in Windows 95

The article misses an important point

That point being that the CTRL-C combo is only used ONCE, at around 15 hours into the game.

The game's creator, Chris Roberts (who made that "corny" movie) recently got the movie rights back.

He's currently busy with the spiritual successor to WC - Star Citizen

WCIII was Mark Hamill, yes.

Logitech intros free tool for ChatGPT prompts... plus a mouse with an AI button

Time to start my next programming project

Butlerian Jihad - A script to disable any and all built-in AI on a given system.

US senator wants to put the brakes on Chinese EVs

Re: Popcorn icon needed

National Grid say there's plenty of power, and they're already running bigger supplies to places like motorway services.

Water companies would rather pay their shareholders than maintain their pipes, which is why Thames Water is in so much trouble right now.

Senator Brown is mistaken

Volvo and Polestar sell EVs in the USA, and are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Chinese auto manufacturer Geely.

Both firms are still only at the planning stage for US-based factories.