* Posts by Efros

1198 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Sep 2008

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Windows Update borks elderly printers in typical Patch Tuesday style

Efros

HP Synaptics touchpads too

W10 keeps borking my perfectly functioning trackpad with its effing clickpad driver. Hate to inform you MS they're not the same effing thing! The clickpad has a lot fewer functions that are fixed and mess up my three finger sweeping to and fro on web pages. Cut it out already!

DARPA hands space junk spotting scope to US Air Force

Efros
Coat

Obviously the solution is

to stop firing baseballs and basketballs into space.

AT&T buys Time Warner for US$85.4bn or 1.25 Dell-EMCs

Efros

Feeling here

is that it will probably go through, despite The Donald's objections, with a few conditions. It'll be interesting to see what goes on here, apart from the administrative side of things the businesses do not overlap at all.

Judge nailed for trying to bribe Fed with fizzy water (aka Bud Light)

Efros

Mistake made

Couple of cases of Scotch and you wouldn't have heard about it.

SSDs in the enterprise: It's about more than just speed

Efros

And of course

You can play Open Cities mod in Skyrim with affecting your FPS too much.

US govt straight up accuses Russia of hacking prez election

Efros
Thumb Down

Re: I can believe that the Russians are intentionally trying to influence/compromise things.

(more howler downvotes, thank you)

Count yourself lucky we're limited to only one!

Microsoft warns Windows security fix may break network shares

Efros

Yeah

and Microsoft networking works so well anyway.

Sage advice: Avoid the Windows 10 Anniversary Update – it knackers our accounting app

Efros

Quickbooks

Acquaintance of mine lost his QB 2010 installation on his W7 machine when someone clicked the wrong button. Upgrade proceeded to wipe hard drive and install W10, this failed and left him with the only option of restoring to factory settings. In the meantime he had bought a brand spanking new lenovo only to find his version of QuickBooks wouldn't install on W10 he had to buy the latest version of QB for a further $200. Meanwhile the restore to factory conditions s worked but meant that his QB files were now gone... unfortunately his backup habits were not good and the external drive he allegedly used seems to have suffered a physical failure... fortunately he has a paper trail... unfortunately he now has to re-enter all that stuff. All in all he estimates that errant click has cost him close to $1500.

'Geek gene' denied: If you find computer science hard, it's your fault (or your teacher's)

Efros

Wall theory

Everyone has a wall, when you hit it is entirely based upon your ability to understand something at first sight. When you find that you are no longer able to do this you have hit your wall. When it happens can be a life changer, if it happens in school you have the time to learn how to learn, if it happens at Uni then you could be in trouble. If you manage to learn how to learn quickly then you can still succeed, however, for some the wall is hit too late and they struggle to learn how to learn or indeed they try continue what they were doing before hitting their wall.Isn't going to work. I've seen it happen, I've seen extremely talented kids going off to Uni knowing they haven't hit their wall and hoping they cope with it when they do. I hit mine in 2nd year at Uni, I started realizing that I was no longer instantly understanding stuff on first reading as I was used to and I had to actually work to get the material. Fortunately I was able to deal with it and continue on my merry way. Others are not so lucky.

Senator! calls! for! SEC! probe! to! be! inserted! into! Yahoo!

Efros

Re: Can! We! Please! Give! The! Exclamation! Marks! A! Rest!

They're! Going! To! Miss! Them! When! Yahoo! Finally! Go! Bust!

UK copyright troll weeps, starts 20-week stretch in the cooler for beating up Uber driver

Efros

Better keep

his soap on a rope.

Uni student cuffed for 'hacking professor's PC to change his grades'

Efros

Re: 15 yrs in prison! He's a kid for fucks sake!

Not as if he raped anyone! Erm wait a minute...

Pull the plug! PowerPoint may kill my conference audience

Efros

Similar experience

I got turfed out of my regular classroom and dumped in an unfamiliar environment, gone the luxury of the graphics tablet, projector and Open Sankore, take a step back a decade or so to the world of the whiteboard and the solvent laced markers. Within minutes I am covered in dry erase marker ink, and my class is complaining of lights hitting the whiteboard making it illegible from much of the room. Even in the places it can be read the contrast between the marker ink and the whiteboard (white is a vague reference to what the color of this board may have been at some distant point in time, mid grey would be a better description) is so poor that it becomes clear that I need a much broader chisel point on the marker. Finding a distinct lack of anything that will actually do the job I give up and put the lecture notes on my laptop and extemporize around them and we get through the hour actually quite successfully, I can BS with the best of them and I can be entertaining once I get on a roll. Just to reassure myself I make my notes available on the class site. Made it clear to the powers that be that if this happens again I want advance notification.

Latest F-35 bang seat* mods will stop them breaking pilots' necks, beams US

Efros

Re: Handling the G's

IIRC, much to the annoyance of those in charge at the USAF, it was found a number of years ago that those best suited to handling G-forces were small, slightly overweight females. Not quite the all American jutting jaw hero type they try to portray.

Conviction by computer: Ministry of Justice wants defendants to plead guilty online

Efros

Visions of

Justice World with simulants fighting Lister & Co.

Rise of the Machines at Sea: The British firm building robot boats

Efros

Re: Roboats?

We need a groan button or icon, the absence of which forces me to upvote this.

Efros

Re: Piracy?

Quite easy, ensure that the robo-boat has one crew, a fully operational ED 209!

Ted Cruz channels Senator McCarthy in wrongheaded internet power grab crusade

Efros

Cruz

Sounds about standard for this prick. Only good thing he's done lately has been to refuse to endorse Trump.

Yelp wins fight to remain morally bankrupt

Efros

Re: My two cents worth

"You're talking as if "reputation" and "reliability" were still actual bankable commodities."

As evidenced by the current candidates in the US Presidential election, in the case of one much more so than the other. I'll leave you to make the decision as to which one, subject to your own fears, prejudices, and conspiracy theories.

Efros

Used to be known as

the "Otherwizen Business", "You give us money otherwizen we beat you up." Or in this case,"You give us money otherwiizen we let bad reviews be viewed". Must be a case for the US equivalent of demanding money with menaces or suchlike.

The next Bond – Basildon or Bass-Ass? YOU decide

Efros

Ewan McGregor

About time a Scot was back in the role.

Wait, wait – I got it this time, says FCC as it swings again at rip-off US TV cable boxes

Efros

Popcorn anyone?

This one is going to be worth sitting back and watching.

CIA-backed big data firm Palantir says secrets pinched by investor

Efros

When you nick your name

Maybe you should think twice about bitching when someone does the same to you.

Dude, you got a Dell lawyer: HPE sues high-flying ex-exec after defection to EMC

Efros

As long as

HPE are paying his salary for that year then fine.

HDMI hooks up with USB-C in cables that reverse, one way

Efros

Re: When?

HP laptops with USB 3.0 use black sockets too, SS marked next to the socket is the only clue, with an added lightning bolt if it's a charging socket... whose driver/hardware still doesn't work in terms of charging when the lid is closed, windows 7-10 none of them worked for this "feature".

Efros

Re: When?

The last motherboard I bought had all sorts of bells and whistles, onboard m.2 connector, SATA Xpress, onboard switches to enable overclocking, onboard display to display hex fault codes etc, and tons of USB 2 ports. 8 of them USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0 with another two on a mobo header. WTF 8 2.0 ports thanks Gigabyte!!!

Hollywood offers Daniel Craig $150m to (slash wrists) play James Bond

Efros

Kit Harington

He's been doing the Infiniti car ads in USA, lose the locks and there you go.

Microsoft thought of the children and decided to ban some browsers

Efros

Thinking of the children...

of their shareholders more like.

BT boils over, blows off Steam, accuses Valve of patent infringement

Efros

Re: BT

TBH I think either works in this context.

Shock: AT&T totally not OK with FCC saying it ripped off US schools

Efros

Re: To operate in an area

Defining a school district in the USA is quite simple. Cable companies already provide free cable TV (restricted channel selection) to schools this is purely an extension of that. I think that some contributors on here don't know that cable companies in the US have to negotiate with local town boards/councils about providing services in an area and so this is frequently used as a sweetener.

Efros

To operate in an area

They should make it such that the ISP provides free internet to schools in that area.

Europe to order Apple to cough up 'one beeellion Euros in back taxes'

Efros

Re: Jealousy

The effective business tax rate in the US is a lot lower than the 35% the republicans like to bandy about. The average is closer to 27% and the top 500 corporations pay closer to 19%. Some don't pay any GE for example paid not business tax between 2008 and 2012.

Efros

Jealousy

"News of the decision made its way through the back corridors of power last week, prompting an unusual attack from the US Treasury in which it accused the EC of a power grab and argued that it was acting like "a supranational tax authority that reviews member states.""

They're just irked that 1) they didn't think of it first and 2) that only US bodies are allowed to act in this way in their eyes!

Robot babies fail in role as teenage sex deterrents

Efros

Lowest rates of teen pregnancies

correlate uncannily with rigourous sex education in schools from an early age, whooda thunk it!

Anecdotally I see a trend amongst teens, (I'm a teacher so I see a lot of them on a daily basis), whereby if an elder sister has a teen pregnancy then her younger female siblings tend not to. Inverse role model?

Unlimited mobile data in America – where's the catch? There's always a catch

Efros

No catch...

they just lie.

North Korea unveils its home-grown Netflix rival – Manbang

Efros

Re: Only 50 odd years behind the curve

Similar to the French version of the Toyota MR2 which is known as the MR, which avoids the homophonous "est merdeux" - is shitty.

Sex ban IT man loses appeal – but judge labels order 'unpoliceable'

Efros

Re: Why did the medical staff snitch?

Confidentiality does not trump the GPs legal obligation to report information if they suspect a crime has been committed. Given this chap's fondness for relating fantasies as possible memories of events then it's hardly surprising the GP thought that they should report it.

Two-speed Android update risk: Mobes face months-long wait

Efros

Also...

If you have rooted your unlocked Samsung (possibly others I can only confirm this brand) then the update some US providers release will not work.

UK IT consultant subject to insane sex ban order mounts legal challenge

Efros

Beyond words

This is the sort of thing you expect from a repressive, authoritarian, police state, not from a western democracy. I fail to understand how this is legal purely from the point of making this person unable to seek or indeed gain any sort of employment, let alone the other civil rights implications. I suspect that if his appeal fails it will be going to the court of human rights. The UN has said that internet access is a basic human right, and given that this individual has been found not guilty, has no criminal record, and then this sort of restriction is imposed this must be a contravention of that.

UK military buys third £4m Zephyr drone for 'persistent surveillance' trials

Efros
Joke

You have to ask

Solar powered in Britain???

Ancient radioactive tree rings could rip up the history books

Efros

Re: "...God has *planted* the evidence."

Quote "Terry Pratchett included a similar theory in several of his books."

"the dinosaur was holding a placard with “Ban the Bomb” written on it" From Strata.

Efros

Re: You're 1500 years out!

Error appears to be on El Reg's end the publication abstract says CE not BCE.

Efros

Re: Them is...

Bristlecone pines with ages in excess of 4000 years have been found in CA, the oldest is call Methuselah and is aged at 4765. There is a spruce in Sweden called Old Tjikko has been aged at more than 9500 years old, but this is due to natural cloning.

Efros

Hmm

Radiodendrochronology, that'd be a bugger in Scrabble, if it would fit on the board that is.

Verizon fingered in Android bloatware-for-cash cram scandal

Efros

As long as it is removable

and not un-uninstallable like their, and most other providers, bloatware then I wouldn't have an issue with this.

Adblock Plus blocks Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook ads

Efros

They seem to be using page likes

In the last 24 hours I'm seeing page likes from other friends featuring ads for various items. Dollar Shave Club being one of them. Never saw this before, either because of my blocking or because this is new behaviour.

The curious case of a wearables cynic and his enduring fat bastardry

Efros

"*about 800 furlongs per fortnight."

about 6 wanks a day?

Efros

Remotes

Bastards breed, they also have suicidal tendencies, they seem to coat themselves in an invisible slippery field guaranteed to end up with the damn thing bouncing on the hardwood floor springing it's battery cover (if it still has one) and occasionally batteries too. In my living room there are 8 remote controls, AC and Fan (both items are essential at this time of year although their need for a remote is dubious), TV, Satellite system, Amazon Fire Stick, HTPC (X10 rf), rf keyboard and mouse for gaming PC, and rf mini keyboard and touchpad for HTPC. The TV and Satellite ones are supposedly multi remotes but they only cover the essential parts of the device it wasn't designed for, so if you want to mess with the screen or audio settings then you gotta go hunt for the original remote. STB should come with QWERTY remotes, searching for something using a phonepad is a pain.

Neat trick for those of you who don't know if you have an IR remote that you think is nadgered switch on your camera phone and point the remote at it, the sensor in the phone is IR sensitive and so you can see if the transmitter is working when you press a button.

Efros

Re: Fruity watch wearers

Not quite a half hunter but it is a pocket watch

http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/31/this-accessory-makes-the-apple-watch-an-old-timey-pocket-watch/

personally I'll stick to my good old Seiko, bought in 1971 by my Dad for my 12th birthday, still ticking.

Facebook to forcefeed you web ads, whether you like it or not: Ad blocker? Get the Zuck out!

Efros

Re: They seem to be under the impression

That can be disabled.

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