Come, join us, oh except you
Got three PC's.
Only one is eligible.
The others have the wrong sort of i7.
Shrug.
Posts by DeVino
55 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Sep 2008
Updates are plenty but fans are few in Windows 11 land
A Windows 11 tsunami? No, more of a ripple as Microsoft's latest OS hits 5% PC market
NASA fixes Hubble Space Telescope using backup power supply unit, payload computer
Try placing a pot plant directly above your CRT monitor – it really ties the desk together
Florida Man sues Facebook, Twitter, YouTube for account ban
Windows 11: Meet the new OS, same as the old OS (or close enough)
For blinkenlights sake.... RTFM! Yes. Read The Front of the Machine
Beware the Friday afternoon 'Could you just..?' from the muppet who wants to come between you and your beer
Friday 24th January 2020 22:45 GMT 
Family-yes, elderly neighbours-yes, friends-maybe, others-nope
"Can anyone help with computer" asked lady in the village.
Yep. Quoted my hourly rate. She agreed.
3 hours later had not got near what she wanted done
due cleaning the junk she had on the system and little side-trips she sent me on.
She guilt tripped me down to half-price and I got out of there.
She then deleted 5 years worth of emails (she is self employed).
Said that she was "following my instructions". Was bollocks.
I took pity and undeleted them (not just out the trash).
She slipped me a tenner "for your little girl".
I had just saved her professional existence.
Last favour I did !
Blood, snot and fear: Why the travelling lone tech reporter should always knock twice
Sunday 10th November 2019 09:37 GMT 
Don't watch the inflight movie if it is the Shining
Ah the days of unique mechanical access systems with on-time access security enablers stored in a vertical random access system behind the reception desk are gone !
In my youth I spent too much time at past midnight stumbling along spooky long coridoors with my case in the US being very careful to pick the right door.
Low point in key design was the use of unreliable mag swipe cards made even more dodgy by my Blackberry pouch.
Please be aliens, please be aliens, please be aliens... Boffins discover mystery mass beneath Moon's biggest crater
Tuesday 11th June 2019 21:47 GMT
Re: It's the core - hand-waving maths for fun
Hawaii island area is about 10,000km2.
5 Hawaiis are about 50,000km2.
Assume Hawaii is circular.
That means 5 Hawaii's as a circle are about 250km across.
The moon's diameter is about 3,500km.
Iron is around twice the density of moon rock.
So it's not a huge mass c.w. the moon.
This assumes that the moon is not hollow and I am doing 2 dimensions here.
Excuse if I got my numbers wrong.
Maybe it is a Nazi flying saucer?
Or more likely a meteor. (it is under a crater after all)
Wonder how many more there are.
Could you just pop into the network room and check- hello? The Away Team. They're... gone
Adi Shamir visa snub: US govt slammed after the S in RSA blocked from his own RSA conf
Happy Thursday! 770 MEEELLLION email addresses and passwords found in yuge data breach
Bloke fined £460 after his drone screwed up police chopper search for missing woman
Which scientist should be on the new £50 note? El Reg weighs in – and you should vote, too
Saturday 3rd November 2018 10:24 GMT 
A tricky balance between worthy and recognition
Putting Rosalind Franklin on as a kind of consolation prize smacks of white male guilt and would have probably just annoyed her.
Put Maxwell on but most folk would not have a clue who he is sadly.
I would say that Stephen Hawking and Alan Turing get enough publicity maybe.
(Go to Bletchley Park BTW. Excellent place).
I'd like to see Lovelace and Babbage on a fifty.
Having a pic of the Engine between them on the note would look good and delight the anti-counterfit folk.
Maye Sydney Padua could draw them ;-)
Science fiction legend Harlan Ellison ends his short time on Earth
Billionaire's Babylon beach ban battle barrels toward Supreme Court
So you accidentally told a million people they are going to die: What next? Your essential guide...
Friday 2nd February 2018 20:13 GMT 
Oops, sure we ain't gonna be nuked ?
Wonder if there were any of the following since everyone thought they were going to die ?
1) Punch boss.
2) Punch spouse.
3) Invite unsuspecting human/animal/reptile to "Take me you crazy fool" on your desk at work.
4) Poop in your annoying colleagues in-tray.
5) Ransack the nearest shop of interest. If pet-shop see item 3.
6) Down a bottle of something strong and intoxicating (possibly alcohol).
7) Run aound naked with a bin on your head singing "They can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man".
Presumably most of Hawaii just hid in their bedroom the next day.
Fancy coughing up for a £2,000 'nanodegree' in flying car design?
Baywatch hero drone saves silly struggling swimmers Down Under from going down under
Friday 19th January 2018 16:17 GMT
On-Hundred and Eightyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy !
I would think for the money they would get a bunch of same weight and size dummy packs and a big target printed on some cardboard.
You could have a fun afternoon practicing bombing runs to music from Dambusters or 633 Squadron.
Maybe a new sport here ? Then again perhaps not.
Interesting about the pack though. It did not drift in the wind much as it fell.
Maybe they got lucky with the wind speed.
You need the pack to be pretty heavy to avoid drifting as it dropped
but not so much as to hit and render unconcious the bod you are trying to rescue.
Maybe that's why they keep the big chopper ready ?
Game of Thrones author's space horror Nightflyers hitting telly
Official: Perl the most hated programming language, say devs
Tuesday 31st October 2017 21:12 GMT
Pokes head above parapet at Schloss Silicon
Chip folk like Perl as it gets the job done at the physical design end of things.
(Can we have it twice as speedy in half the area by last Saturday please?)
On the other hand we are not averse to Python&Ruby.
On the third hand anything is going to be better than a combination of Tcl, Sed and Awk.
My name is Bill Gates and I am an Android user
Thursday 28th September 2017 16:12 GMT
Re: Thriller
From what I saw you are correct Dan.
Nokia had a lot of quite brilliant engineers and many keen, competent engineering managers. (Yes really!)
But they did seem a little mired down in competing schemes and staggering under Symbian.
Someone there said that they "suffered from management by consensus".
I am not saying that the alternative is good (stalin, hitler etc) but compare and contrast
with Gates and Jobs.
I would love to read a good kiss and tell from the inside of Nokia. Anyone know of a suitable tomb ^h e ?
Fake Newspaper steals Reg design to spruik storage upstart
You know IoT security is bad when libertarians call for strict regulation
UK uni KCL spunks IT budget on 'reputation management' after IT disaster headlines
2016: Snapchat loses $515m... 2017: Snapchat rips veil off $3bn IPO
Good luck securing 'things' when users assume 'stuff just works'
Two Sundays wrecked by boss who couldn't use a calendar
Calgary uni pays ransomware criminals $20k for its files back
Wednesday 8th June 2016 11:38 GMT
Cannot resist facehand
"A great deal of work is still required by IT to ensure all affected systems are operational again, and this process will take time"
At the risk of queuing up to kick someone when they are down.
Shouldn't IT have been putting a great deal of work into having a backup?
I mean really !
Maybe their Information Security dept could help ? (http://icis.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/)
Hello? HELLO? Major Skype outage hits folk WORLDWIDE
Microsoft, Getty settle image snatch 'suit
Sir Terry remembered: Dickens' fire, Tolkien's imagination, and the wit of Wodehouse
Friday 13th March 2015 11:27 GMT
I thought that "Raising Steam" was a rather odd book when it came out as it contained just about every character in the Discworld. Now it seems to make sense as it's like having a curtain call for everybody.
I also never met the man and in some ways I mourn more for Sam Vimes, Moist Lipwick and the Librarian.
Which perhaps is how Mr Pratchett might like it. Thank-you sir for some great times. Especially Night Watch.
As WinXP death looms, Microsoft releases its operating system SOURCE CODE for free
Valve aiming to take the joy(sticks) out of gaming with Steam Controller
South Korea on top of the IT world
Battlefield Earth ruled worst film EVER
Friday 20th April 2012 11:19 GMT 
Count me in with the tasteless crowd (somewhat)
Once you get over the fact that Hollywood cannot reliably make good SF it ain't bad.
Avatar... Great fun
WotW... Once you get past over the smaltz it's not a bad adaption
And most shocking I like all the Matrix movies (sorry)
But Battlefield Earth (overly long like most opera) and The Postman (a bit sentimental, sorry Brin) are best done in your own head
What is really sad is the humungous skipload of great SF which would make storming movies.
I ain't going to list it here. You know who I mean or you wouldn't be reading this topic.
The Beeb adaption of HHGTTG stands unassailed BTW
Boffins tout solar efficiency boost
So, what IS the worst film ever made?
Monday 26th March 2012 11:32 GMT
I was reading this thread last night...
...and had to get myself a beer because it was just like being down my local !
Can I say that liked to bit in Highlander 2 when SC flogs his earring to the huffy tailors.
Doesn't save the film of course.
Have not yet seen it but I suspect that Disney just ruined John Carter.
Stolen iPad leads to 780lb crystal meth seizure
Lego readies kit for Minecraft lovers
Lemmings
Apple expels serial hacker for publishing iPhone exploit
Can general relativity explain the OPERA neutrino result?
Friday 7th October 2011 12:16 GMT
Don't confuse science with scientists
See if I can get this right :-)
The old duffers say.
1) It's bollocks
2) It's not bollocks but it's irreproducible
3) It's brilliant and I have always stated that it was
The very nature of peer review means that it's open to abuse by
folk who are emotional, envious and/or unimaginative but that does not invalidate the process.
There is a great story about the bloke who proposed Tectonic plate theory.
He was repeatedly vilified by his peers who then led a candle-lit procession
of contrition to his widow's house when the theory was proved correct.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
