* Posts by Paddy Fagan

33 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Feb 2009

ESA's meteorite bricks hit Lego stores, but don't get your wallet out just yet

Paddy Fagan

Re: Only One?!?

It seems there is 12 of them in select lego stores - https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Branding_and_Partnerships/The_space_bricks_have_landed

Boeing to reacquire spun-off supplier Spirit AeroSpace to shore up safety

Paddy Fagan

Looks like the Scotland site may not go to Airbus...

From the BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckdglkyqdewo

> Aside from the Belfast operations, Airbus will take control of two Spirit factories in the US, one in France and one in Morocco.

> The Spirit operation at Prestwick in Scotland is not part of the deal and will also be sold separately.

We asked Intel to define 'AI PC'. Its reply: 'Anything with our latest CPUs'

Paddy Fagan
Coat

Re: Ah, so an AI PC just needs a specific Intel CPU

> After all, quantum is coming . . .

Or maybe its not - ....something about uncertainty....

RIP John Walker, software and hardware hacker extraordinaire

Paddy Fagan

The AutoDesk File

Just to note the print edition is out of print and expensive if you can find it. But there are online and PDF versions on John's personal site - https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/

RIP John.

Apple Vision Pro is creating a new generation of glassholes

Paddy Fagan

Re: if only "Vision Pro" was easier to turn into an insulting portmanteau

iEyes - as an alternative? Sounds like a Lemur and I'd prefer to have something a bit more Lemming, but.....

'The inmates have taken over the asylum': DNS godfather blasts DNS over HTTPS adoption

Paddy Fagan
Boffin

For those looking for more background

I recommend this video from RIPE https://ripe77.ripe.net/archives/video/333/

Former Google X bloke's startup unveils 'self flying' electric air taxi

Paddy Fagan

Space Hopper knock-off?

Did they nick the design from DM's space hopper? http://danmacgregor.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Hopper

Hackers crack Liechtenstein banks, demand ransoms

Paddy Fagan

There are other reasons to hide resources

If the details are published of even some of the account holders, I suspect the population of German divorce lawyers will be reading it carefully among others...

Epic Games forums breached, salted passwords nabbed

Paddy Fagan
Boffin

Given the commentary about weak/strong passwords at the end

CorrectHorseBatteryStaple - https://xkcd.com/936/

Nothing like a cartoon to help :)

Watch: SpaceX finally lands Falcon rocket on robo-barge in one piece

Paddy Fagan
Pint

Well done :)

The perfect end to a Friday evening. The footage is so good, it almost looks faked. I suspect there will be a few beers downed at SpaceX HQ tonight!

A server apocalypse can come in different shapes and sizes. Be prepared

Paddy Fagan

Re: Generally a well written article - but I have one bug bearer

@Robert Carnegie

To me at least, not every system needs much beyond a plan to buy replacement parts (not withstanding proviso's about availability ) - some systems your business can't live without forever, but can work around for weeks or even months.

Paddy

Paddy Fagan

Generally a well written article - but I have one bug bearer

>You can have the most rigorous backups in the world, but if you don’t have somewhere to restore them (i.e. a disaster recovery site) then you may as well not have them at all.

This isn't 100% true - in this case your time to recovery is the time it takes to source and access a replacement piece of hardware. If you've nothing in the cupboard, and no DR, that's down to what you can get out of your suppliers (or ebay).

I think this is important because to me all of this is a continuum of business impact versus cost, that starts from this point and runs all the way to HA with BC, etc... But for some data, a backup maybe enough - the business cost of not having access to it for a few days may not be high enough to justify the cost of DR.

Paddy

Banning handheld phone use by drivers had NO effect on accident rate - study

Paddy Fagan

One study over a short period may not tell us a whole lot anyway, but

My own experience over the last ten years owning both cars and phones is that yes, using a hand held phone will driving isn't a safe thing to do - did it once or twice and stopped. I have a hands-free kit for the last 6 or so years, and I think it really depends on the call - happy to chat to someone (mainly my wife) low involvement conversation - how was your day, how where the kids, do I need to pick up something from the shop, etc. And happy to take work calls where I'm a passive listener - but anything where I need to think and engage is lethal - tried it once, I'm told that in the middle of a passage of technical advice I just unconsciously started talking about road conditions and other cars - bad, but better than the alternative where I suspect I would have crashed - didn't try that again.

So I guess to me the problem here is that the behavior we want (drivers to focus on driving) and the action taken (banning hand-held mobiles) are loosely aligned, but the action may well not be having the effect we want.

Of course, one other possible reason - lots of drivers didn't use handheld mobiles when driving without the band being in place - I wonder if this group overlaps heavily with the group who would automatically obey the ban?

ISPs 'blindsided' by UK.gov's 'emergency' data retention and investigation powers law

Paddy Fagan

Another hitchhikers quote might have been more appropiate...

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

El Reg posse prepares for quid-a-day nosh challenge

Paddy Fagan

A few bob in the jar from me

Good luck to you all.

Paddy

PS Does roadkill count? (just asking)

Who should play the next Doctor? Nominations needed!

Paddy Fagan
Happy

A little different -

* Colin Salmon (Bond movies & Arrow)

* Noel Clarke (was Mickey Smith in Dr. Who)

Paddy

Pope resigns months after launching social networking effort

Paddy Fagan
WTF?

Re: bark of Saint Peter

Lads I'm pretty sure he said ark rather than bark or else there is rather more being given away in today's announcement than planned.

Paddy

Nokia's Great Lost Platform

Paddy Fagan
FAIL

Psion’s working codename for the project was Brian.

Easy solution - fall back to the Techie mainstay of Monty Python quotes and project "Naughty Boy" would have been born. Surely a much bighter future would have resulted!

Paddy

Microsoft: Mango arrives in two weeks

Paddy Fagan
Happy

The reg typo of the year!!

> According to the company, there will be no set date for release, since individual malware vendors will be tweaking the software for their own handsets when they are ready.

Despite most peoples general distain for them I don't think anyone thinks -

handset vendor == malware vendor

Paddy

Painters wrap Forth Bridge job after 121 years

Paddy Fagan
Coat

like X-ing the Y

with due respect to the moderatrix - like policing the reg comments

Smartphone security gets better: Blanket bans no longer inevitable

Paddy Fagan
Facepalm

Apple iOS encrypts SD cards

??? Really ??? - I can't think of an iOS device that supports SD cards, never mind encrypts them ????

Paddy

Dam Busters dog dubbed 'Digger'

Paddy Fagan
Holmes

But, but, but - I am called Paddy and I am Irish....

The post is required, and must contain letters.

Paddy Fagan
Pint

Do they really think this is going to be the biggest inaccuracy by the time it's finished?

If Merv/Jim think this is going to be the biggest inaccuracy by the time the movie hits the big screen I suggest the bring a beer along to the cinema to cry into.....

Perhap the best solution is to get a black actor to play Guy, because then it would, of course, be ok for him to have a dog called N*gger...

Paddy

Amazon buys bloody big shed for Dublin data centre

Paddy Fagan
Boffin

The love us because of the sh*tty weather, just like MS

To quote MS:

Ninety-five percent of the time the temperature outdoors happens to be the temperature that computer servers happen to love, so we only have to turn on the heat or the air conditioning 5 percent of the time

Low corporate taxes help, of course - anyway we need the money to pay back the EU, IMF, UK gov, etc......

Paddy

Amazon to sell Kindle through Currys, PC World

Paddy Fagan

In Ireland at least they already are.....

I wondered through my local PC World at the weekend and was surprised to see a kindle out with the tablet PCs - I just assumed they'd being selling them for a while.....

Paddy

Hotmail always-on crypto breaks Microsoft's own apps

Paddy Fagan
Coat

Re:

> When are they going to get round to flicking the switch <snip>

I suspect any switch flicking around Yahoo might not be to switch anything on...

Paddy

Boeing's 'Phantom Eye' Ford Fusion powered stratocraft

Paddy Fagan
Boffin

Google is your friend

The engine nacels have been removed from the wings - the wider shot here shows one beside the plane: http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim//2010/07/12/071210PhantomEye01.jpg

Paddy

Apple iPad

Paddy Fagan

The potential to be magical

It's ver 1.0 - Apple need to get it out into the hands of consumers and build the market. I don't think it's magical yet, but it has potential.

My own opinion is that the iPad can become the home "computer" of choice - it looks the part, this is critical to make it into people's living rooms. It's easy to use, pick up do what you need and put down again. BUT I think it's final future is as a partner to Apple TV - Apple TV has a sizeable HD and the iTunes connections to do the heavy lifting of holding your media library, downloading the latest shows as they become available. The iPad is a window onto that library, letting you browse, view and copy specific content onto it to consume outside the home.

Now if this comes to pass Apple will have displaced Sky, UPC, etc as well as a bunch of other incumbents and "own" your living room - they manage this any they'll be laughing! (all the way to the bank)

Paddy

Apple 'real cost' comparison shows inflation beaten mercilessly

Paddy Fagan
Jobs Halo

Interesting, but...

I wonder how the table would appear if you did the same type of analysis, but expressed the price (at launch) as a percentage of the average industrial wage - i.e. how affordable where the products when they first went on sale...

Paddy

Intel says warranties evaporate when kit resold

Paddy Fagan
Unhappy

I _think_ this is it...

http://download.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/english_ssd_3_year_warranty.pdf

I went to the Intel SSD page, then onto a particular dive, under support there is a link which (finally) leads to the PDF above, which says:

"Intel warrants to the purchaser of the Product (defi ned herein as the Intel® X25-E, X25-M, and X18-M SATA Solid-State Drives) in its original sealed packaging (“Original Purchaser”) and to the purchaser of a computer system built by an Original Purchaser containing the Product (“Original System Customer”) as follows:"

Paddy

Users claim iPhone 3.0 GPS mis-map mishaps

Paddy Fagan
Happy

My mapping accuracy actually improved with OS3.0

I suspect they changed the way the trianglation worked - my mapping accuracy has improved no end since the update when I'm indoors. (outdoors was never an issue)

I wonder has the update exposed some issues with the way operators have configured their base stations? (So it was less accurate across the board before the update, now it has the potential to be more accurate, but badly configured base stations can throw it out to a greater degree?)

Paddy

Apple wilts under iPhone upgrade strain

Paddy Fagan
Thumb Up

Some problems last night, but...

Hi

I ran into some of these problems last night with my upgrade. Two things seems to help:

1. Disconnecting my iPhone, openning iTunes and signing into my account.

2. Then plug in the iPhone, when it still failed (this happened a few times) clicking between the iTunes store and My iPhone inside iTunes forced it to retry and it eventually worked.

It seems that the iPhone must be re-activated after the upgrade and it's this step that seems to keep timing out.

Paddy

Euro-style GM Volt design revealed

Paddy Fagan
Thumb Up

Actual photos have leaked onto the web

Looks like the drawings are smack on the money:

http://www.globalmotors.net/2011-opel-ampera-spied-on-a-photo-shoot/