Posts by TheOtherMe

Australian contact-tracing app leaks telling info and increases chances of third-party tracking, say security folks

Re: The publicly acknowledged privacy concern

Aus govt is not silly - they can get the yanks to interrogate the data and claim "it wasn't us"...

Sydney readers: Join Vulture South for beer and sympathy in April

Shame about the timing

Alas, for me the timing is out - I don't work those silly 'office hours' most of you suffer through. But I do wish you well, and hope the event is successful.

What did we say about Tesla's self-driving tech? SpaceX Roadster skips Mars, steers to asteroids

Tax write-off

Ok using his personal roadster as a test payload is way better than using a block of concrete. However there is also an upside for him in that he can write the vehicle off as a tax loss, and get a brand spanking new one in the process. Who said he was just a silly little boy?

At Christmas, do you give peas a chance? Go cold turkey? What is the perfect festive feast?

Re: Reporting in from the penitentiary colonies

Yep a selection of cooked and cold for us. Prawns are a must as is ham. A nicely roasted pork leg with lots of loverly crackling. Cooked outside in the hooded BBQ. Sister-in-law does a turkey roll thing which is always nice for something different. At least 2 different salads and loads of roast veg: Potato, Sweet Potato, Pumpkin, Onions. Lashings of thick rich gravy to smother it all in (the hot stuff not the prawns or salad).

Of course, you can always manage the Christmas Pudding, custard/cream/ice cream are optional. Served with cold custard instead of hot. We usually have a pavlova as well for those who want both or either...

And lots of beer, champers, wine etc... a nice single malt to top it all off later on.

Australia commits to establish space agency with no budget, plan, name, deadline …

Better use of money

I'd much rather see this developed to fruition than the current plan of wasting in excess of $50Bn on unwanted, obsolete and frankly useless submarines.

May the excessive force be with you: Chap cuffed after Star Trek v Star Wars row turns bloody

Re: Snowy

The lovely Friday (aka Marjorie Baldwin) - said that in a rather enthralling book of the same name.

New work: Algorithms to give self-driving cars 'impulsive' human 'ethics'

Cultural Bias?

"Save the women and children first" - Is this just a reflection of the test subjects chosen for the exercise? Do all peoples from all cultures express the same value judgements? Would people from India for instance choose to hit the person rather than the cow, given their reverence of the sacred animal?

This is a very tricky area for AI to navigate, research and discussion are important if we are going to trust these machines with our lives.

nbn™ tops AU$400 million half-year revenue

Too dear for tiers

Why do they feel the need to price gouge for higher speeds? It costs no more to operate or maintain the network once the roll out is complete... I have FTTP but I do not see the value in paying at least $60/mth more just to have a faster network experience.

I've arrived on Mars. Argggh, my back!

Generational change

This is only an issue for the original generation of colonists leaving earth - subsequent generations will grow and develop in a lower gravity environment their whole lives...

IT analyst: Oz census data processed as plain text

What Data?

Given the epic failure of the site that has prevented most of us Aussies from actually completing the silly thing, there is no data to worry about.

From Tony Stark to Iron Man: Building tomorrow's IT chief

IT Crowd

Jen! Perfect example of putting non-IT people in charge of IT.

Next year's Windows 10 auto-upgrade is MSFT's worst idea since Vista

You don't upgrade the OS

I've said it before - if the OS needs to be upgraded (as opposed to updated) Do It Clean!! Format the drive and install from scratch. In all the years of dealing with Windows kit since 3.1 a major version release is best done as a fresh install.

Deluded Aussie geeks hail Turnbull's elevation to prime minister

Failed privitisation

Yet another example of why privitisation of infrastructure is a BAD idea. If the government hadn't sold Telstra nearly 30 yrs ago it would A) be making significant income from the rather profitable business that this telco has become and B) not be having this argument about our desired FTTP or even the lesser FTTN.

Sydney adopts 'world's first' e-ink parking signs

Great use of language

"sclerotic" - a very apt word for describing the appalling road conditions that are Sydney.

And from now on when one parks, get out and take time-stamped photo of proximal appropriate sign before leaving the area - avoiding the potential: "but it changed after I parked" - "Oh yeah, prove it" argument that will ensue.

BOFH in mugnificent return to Cash'n'Carrion

10 Quid!

Sheesh at 10 quid a pop, that's $20 real Oz money - plus shipping and handling...

Definitely out of the price range for a humble antipodean sys-admin to bother with.

How about a Vulture South merchandising arm?

Oracle's Larry Ellison has the biggest public pay package

Earn?

I question the use of the word "earn" in articles like this - nobody earns that much they are just lucky enough to be employed by a company silly (greedy) enough to afford to give them that much.

Mechanical monster macropod LEAPS out of the lab

Yep that's a wallaby

Yeah I agree with the author that ain't no 'roo, a small rock wallaby at best.

How a Facebook post by blabbermouth daughter cost her parents $80,000

Check?

I know this article is about an American case, but the reg is still an English publication. Did no one else spot the gratuitous Americanism 'check' where 'cheque' should have been used?

Vulture South teams with SAGE-AU for annual Sysadmin survey

Re: Link missing

Of course I can, and did, 'google' it. I just wished to point out that it would've been prudent for the author of the article to include it...

Re: Link missing

Oh my what an attractive website indeed, just fills me with the urge to join up.... </sarcasm>

Link missing

How about a link to this SAGE AU mob for us sysadmins who've never heard of them until now?

Shivering boffins nail Earth's coldest spot

Bit nippy

Any where with a temperature that has a negative (-) in front of it is too cold for sensible humans. Anywhere with a double digit negative is definitely a place to be avoided, ya can't enjoy a beer when it's that cold.

I'll stick to sunny ol' Oz thankyouverymuch.

Australia's States in online shopping tax grab

Save us all money

Scrap State governments in Australia - that's the best way to save us all money... We are ridiculously over governed.

VMware to customers: STOP INSTALLING OUR SOFTWARE! NOW!

Agree

Too right Chris, I'm sure many do what I do - Haven't the time or resources for a full test environment let alone testing every patch/update for every piece of software - I just wait til a critical mass of other admins have applied their updates and see if articles like this appear.

Ashes latest: Don't show Ozzies THIS perfect spin bowl science ... too late

Sub Ed should know better

Surely that should be 3 for 98? The correct was to report cricket scores is No. of wickets lost for score obtained. At least it was when I were a lad.

Star Trek: The original computer game

Too big to run

I remember coming across the code in a computer magazine and laboriously typing it all in only to find 8K was insufficient memory to store it and execute it. Had to do some modifying to reduce the size so there was enough memory left to allow execution - Aahh the joyful teenage days in front of a monochrome display, tape drive & keyboard built in - all hooked into a primitive processor with less capacity or capability than today's digital watches...

Australia gets a space strategy

Big Empty

With the great big empty that is most of the inland of this wonderful island, we should seriously be looking at launch capabilities surely?

Archaeologists uncover 'Unicorn's lair'

Name of a Pub?

Perhaps they have found the oldest pub with a cute name, not an actual lair of unicorns?

The Register lands in Australia

Job Titles

When signing up I found it a little odd that the available choices for "Job Title" did not include Systems/Network Administrator... Surely there are a number of other BOFH's besides me, who read this fine site regularly?

Enterprise IT's power shift threatens server-huggers

Users get what they want?

Since when does this happen? In the spirit of true BOFH's everywhere users will continue to accept what they are given, and say thank-you-very-much for the pleasure.

'Spacetime cloak' could act as 'Star Trek transporter'

re Cunninger

This is a word that can obviously be attributed to an Edwardian 'scholar' named Baldrick, vassal to the noble Lord Edmund Black-Adder. Baldrick was oft known to have a cunning plan, and on occasion he would devise a plan that was cunninger.

Don't you know your history?

Nude trampolinist bounces free from court

Trampolines and the missus

I've done that with a missus, not mine at the time, and it is lots of fun trust me. Said trampoline was fortunately in a spot where it would be damn near impossible for any neighbour to spot us.

Unfortunately now that we are together, we got rid of the trampoline.

3D TV: Avatar or Ishtar?

Fully agree

My eyes already work in true 3D (I can see the world around me) more over I can move to a different spot and get a new perspective on what I'm seeing.

When they offer me the ability to rotate an image through all 3 dimensions, or just move around and see it from different angles - WITHOUT- the need for special 'glasses', then and only then will I consider it 3D technology and fork out my hard-earned for it.

German jugs pulled from iPhone

I'll take your flame bait

You need to take a good hard look at yourself, before calling others names - we're not talking hard core pron here it's just a little bit of tits and ass (maybe the odd pussy too?). There is nothing 'bad' or 'evil' about naked humans. This is censorship in its most crude form and should be resisted at all costs.

IMHO if there was more nakedness, and a LOT less violence, in the mainstream media/entertainment industry then a lot less people (like you) would have hangups about it and the world be a better place.

My mother-in-law wants this! (For her birthday, you understand)

Well Said - give that man a beer

I fully concur. I'm often sneered at for having a simple old Nokia, people seem to expect a Network/Systems administrator to be a gadget geek, well sorry I'm not. Even when I purchased my current handset the sales drone tried to up-sell me something whiz-bang that did lotsa stuff - fortunately her boss overheard my increasing frustration and told her exactly what I wanted and where to find it in the store.

A phone is a phone and it should: Have No Camera. No Internet. No CRUD!. All it needs to do is make calls & receive calls. Unlike you however I do use sms (Sometimes I DO NOT want to talk to you, but do need to communicate).

Modern designers have seemingly forgotten the old 'KISS' principle: Keep It Simple Stupid!

Google slapped in domain name spat

Have they tried

So has Mountain View had a go at Booble.com <search engine for smut if you didn't know>

US Navy 'PANDA' tech to sniff out 'deviant' sailors

Hmm could it be

Sophisticated

Korean or

Yemeni

Naval

Enemy

Tracking

Tesla Roadster travels 313 miles on single charge

Being a pedant

It's not 'Southern Australia', tis South Australia. Yes I know we have "Western Australia" and the "Northern Territory" but the bit in the middle at the bottom is definitely just plain old South Australia.

Oh and in regard to the article I must agree with Stef4 - Let's have a real world test of these technologies - Major city, peak hour, foul weather etc etc ....

Aussie Sex Party in evangelist head-to-head

Who do you prefer

Given that fundamentalist Christians have a known propensity for telling everyone how to live and what to believe - I'd much rather have the neo-pagans running the show, at least they mind their own bloody business where my lifestyle choices are concerned.

Vote 1 - Australian Sex Party.

Huawei pours cold water on Oz spy probe reports

Politically Incorrect Solution

Ripley had the right idea: Take off and nuke 'em form orbit, just to be sure.

The internet celebrates the Big Four-O

Happy Birthday(ish)

Amazing isn't it, just a few weeks in and the first Denial of Service via buffer overload occurs, no wonder we are still plagued by such things (-;

Poor porn protection hurt Firefox 3 uptake

Finding El Reg

@ All those complaining about finding our beloved El Reg in the FF location bar: just make it your home page, as I have. Then it automagically loads when FF starts and is only ever a single click on the 'Home' icon to get back to it :-) Simple really.

And I must agree with other commenters - If you're surfing pr0n - then FFS!! clear your history/urls/cookies etc when you finish your session. Shhesh how hard is it.?

US broadband speeds 15 years behind South Korea

Luxury I say!

You should try living down under. We dream of speeds approaching the lower end of the US figures. And our beloved leaders want to filter the slow trickle we get - sheesh!

Australian police charge banking Trojan suspect

Herding Drugs

Maybe that was meant to be hoarding drugs...

Scientists print out super-slim battery

El Reg Standard Units

That must surely be in reg std units - thus it is an impressive 6.5-7 Wales

Great Australian Firewall to censor online games

He's just a very naughty boy

Just one little wedge and they get their foot in the door. Then they start to show what they really intended in the first place - About time this issue just died a natural death, Australian Adults DO NOT need censoring, and kids should be controlled by their parents not the gubberrmint.

PS. Stephen Conroy is NOT *the* senator *for* Victoria, he is (apart from being a total wanker) just a senator from Victoria.

Microsoft cries foul over Google Outlookware

Good Thing That!

Well it seems to me that Google has done something right. The first thing we did when MS introduced desktop search was to disable it on all machines AS IT IS A RESOURCE HOG!! If MS had a decent search utility that didn't require 100% CPU for extended periods to do it's job then maybe people would use it?

Alternately if L'users weren't as thick as two short planks and actually stored stuff in logical places then there would never need to be a 'search' function. But I know that's not going to happen, even IT people aren't always that sensible with their files.

Cobol hits fifty

Love It - Happy Birthday Darling

What a lovely old girl she is.

I remember spending hours writing COBOL programs by hand on paper! How many of these young whipper snapper script kiddies have ever bothered to hand write a program first? This is boring and time consuming I know, but it does allow one to do an old-school technique called 'desk checking' - A vital step in getting code to compile and run first time without bugs. (Yes it can be done, I've done it!!)

Long Live COBOL - I hope she is still around in another 50 years continuing to prove that the likes of Java, C++/C#, Perl, Python and all these other new fangled, fly-by-night, pseudo languages are just passing fads.

-- Now if you'll just pass me my walking frame and coat I'll be off.

Tasmanian devil whirling onto endangered list

Which Wallaby

So how did you manage to steal one of our players from the ARU*? And if this were a Sarth Efrican story would be giving away springboks?

I think is just a clever ploy to undermine our great Rugby team and give your own hapless team a chance of winning... (yeah, yeah I know you won a World Cup a few years back, but hey we have to let win sometimes).

*Australian Rugby Union - for those non-believers who don't know squat about the game they play in heaven.

New Zealand bolts net filtering regime into place

@out of curiosity

The Aussie flag has the large white seven pointed star-of-federation under the Union Jack. Obviously the Kiwis don't have, nor would they want, this on their flag. This represents the original seven states and territories that constituted Australia (NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, WA, NT & TAS. ) Why the ACT is missing no one knows or cares, but that's probably because it didn't exist at the time of federation.

Also the Stars of the southern cross (both flags have all five) on the Aussie flag are white, while the Kiwis have red stars with a white trim.