Posts by the spectacularly refined chap

Wetherspoons bars smart glasses from filming customers

Re: Now...

That's all? What about the time to get served.

Been in more than one at 9:50am, four or five staff staff on duty, perhaps three customers in.

Still takes ten minutes to get served.

Brit boffins boast of beating barriers to building fusion power

Re: Looking like...

?

This is Britain. It'll take that long to get planning permission for the next prototype, yet alone a commercial reactor.

Voyager 2 cheats the power budget for another year

Graham Hill died in a plane crash, but yes the point stands, Chapman got plenty of flak at the time for building fragile cars, even compared to the standards of the day.

These days it tends to be more the sheer bloody mindedness that people remember. It's difficult not to smile when you hear the story of Chapman arguing with scrutineers that paper is a fireproof material.

Re: 23 light hours ---

Yebbut.. how many El Reg Standard double decker buses? The Boris bus is retired now. Please use standard Linguine. We don't speak foreign measurements here.

Colin Chapman: A car that gets to the end of the race in one piece is too heavy.

Deep space dishes dodge devastation from Spanish wildfires

No it's merely ambiguous. Consider how it is grouped, is it

"20 years since (its inauguration in September 2025)" or

"(20 years since its inauguration) in September 2025"?

Both are equally valid.

Re: Meanwhile, in Cheshire.

Yes it's a pity really, could have thrown some business their way.

Openreach nudges another 112 exchange areas toward full fiber

No it would just create opposition to the upgrade process. For every "me want faster broadband" customer there is another that says "what we have is fine, why would I pay more?"

Viking 1 landed on Mars 50 years ago

Re: Orbiter v Lander.

The orbiters did.

Support newbie figured out how to avoid all-nighters, and his colleagues hated him for it

Re: Blind acceptance of "the normal"

If the bacon isn't mindless the rind shrinks faster than the bacon pulling it into contorted shapes. Either trim off the rind or cut through it every inch or so, so the bacon stays more or less flat.

And don't flip it over either, even thick bacon will grill quite happily straight through from one side. Flipping it pours away all the juices that collect on the top surface, so you can cook it for either moist bacon or crispy fat. You can have both cooking from one side.

The Document Foundation says Microsoft's file formats keep users on a short leash

It'd be a great improvement if two versions of Word would render the document in the same way when the only features in use are common to both.

Or even if the same version on the same machine could be relied upon not to bollox things whenever you change the output printer.

Engineer shoves Linux peg through Sega 32X-shaped hole

PS/2 too new. IIRC, the IBM PC/XT keyboard WAS a TTL hack. Maybe on a UART, memory fades. I'm not saying it will be easy, and finding a clean Hardware Manual for the IBM may be the first hurdle.

The PS/2 was released a year before even the Japanese release of the original Genesis/Megadrive and was simply a new connector for the existing AT keyboard protocol which was a minor update on the original PC keyboard interface.

TTL voltage levels and synchronous serial protocol. Designed to be easily bit-banged, indeed that is precisely how it was done in the original 8048 keyboard controller, itself a recognisable predecessor to the 8051 architecture still in widespread use for embedded stuff. The protocol is well understood and easy enough to implement, no NDAs, patents or licensing to contend with.

New Horizons Pluto probe just woke itself up after 321 days of hibernation

Re: First Post from New Horizons .....

But are those the mushy ones that stick to the wax paper? From being left in a hot glovebox for too long?

An artificial cell with a full lifecycle has been created for the first time

I for one...

...welcome our new organic overlords.

They can't be any worse than the current lot, right?

Vim text editor game teaches you keyboard shortcuts with ice cream delivery

hjkl

h and l are on the left and right of the quad so hopefully easily to remember.

j extends down below the baseline and k extends up above the median.

DRAM it! Cheap PCs being priced out of existence as memory cost bites

Re: I heard somewhere the RAM prices were rigged and they blamed AI to cover it up.

LISA: Look on the bright side, Dad. Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for "crisis" as they do for "opportunity"?

HOMER: Yes. "Crisitunity"! You're right.

End of era as the BBC switches off Radio 4 Long Wave service

Re: Run silent

The 1996 Manchester bombing by the IRA is credited for the renewal and modernisation of a good chunk of the city centre. I started Uni there the following year and even at the end of my third year an (admittedly much smaller) chunk of the centre was still boarded off for reconstruction.

NASA tests AI medic for astronauts too far from Earth to call a doctor

Re: Worth the wait?

But if you've ever rung an ambulance they do a lot of initial triage over the phone (is the patient breathing etc) and build a basic patient profile, name, age, gender etc while you are on the line. Clearly the latter isn't needed as already on file but when the EMH is initiated you can bet that full transcripts, photos, diagnostic results etc are also on the way back to Earth without a round trip delay at each stage.

Firefox 152 understands 'Sssh!'

Re: Incomplete

No, that one is being kept to offer to call a doctor for you. For when you get your bits caught in your flies.

Microsoft site throwing warnings after someone forgot to renew cert

Re: Outlook Features

Sounds like Jeremy Paxman doing the weather.

Hand-cranked AI box lets you get a workout while you wait for answers

I'm reminded of one of those Pythonesque "in my day" threads that in IT always end in punched cards.

Except this one, where it ended with an assertion he had cranked the handle on Babbage's Difference Engine for a living.

It was actually true: he was a curator at the Science Museum in London operating a realisation.

Apple version of Office 2019 becomes useless in a month

I first read of this on one of the vintage Mac forums a few days ago but disregarded it as OT (per forum rules, vintage=68k).

But now I think of it how long was it on sale for? Until at least June 2020? There is a mandatory 6 year warranty on design flaws I would argue covers this in the UK and EU.

And no, that can't be overridden by EULA terms, the nice thing about statute law.

Signal says UK plan to scan devices for nude images 'endangers us all'

Re: Nanny State rules are creeping in

You know, the ones that actually impact the population....... No? Okay, must be nudes on my device that are driving costs up then yes?

Of course it is. Just think of all the extra VAT receipts if only all those women would buy some clothes to put on.

BOFH: Vibe-coded solutions arrive for problems nobody has

Re: Ahh

All right, Mr. Wiseguy, you're so clever, you tell us what colour it should be.

FCC walks back router update ban before it bricked America's network security

Re: Whatabout

I think that's the problem Labour have at the moment and something I noted long before the last general election. Labour's campaign basically amounted to "Look at those Tories. Aren't they crap? We're so much better than them."

No mention of any plans to actively do anything once in power, and thus no mandate or even internal party agreement to do it when the time came.

HP stuffed a PC into a keyboard. We took it for a spin

All of the disadvantages of a laptop and none of the advantages

i.e. you have a pricey item to be carted about with all the risks that entails, such as loss of the device itself and the loss of the data on it. On the other hand you have none of the advantages, i.e. the ability to set up and work basically anywhere.

It's not that difficult to give a user a reasonably consistent experience across completely different machines and sites these days.

We've only gone and done it: Changed what you're used to

Comment searching

Is this why for the last week or so attempting to use Find in page on a comments page has mysteriously jumped to My Account->Topics?

Firefox on Android.

User found the perfect formula to make Excel misbehave

Re: Maths

I remember explaining to an accountant that if a tax rate had gone up by 5% and had then come back down again you couldn't get back to where you started by reducing your price by 5%.

The hidden trap of the Lifetime ISA. If you put money in the government applies a 25% bonus on top of that. If you take it out again except for a first time property purchase or retirement they take a 25% penalty. People refuse to beleive this leaves you worse off until you demonstrate it with actual numbers, and even then they are dubious.

NASA boss: make Pluto a planet again

Re: Cleared orbit

A handwritten æ always looks like an ampersand gone wrong.

I've always considered fruits to be a subset of vegetables rather than a separate classification, at least for things you find at the greengrocers, i.e. ignoring any poisonous fruits.

Vegetables are the edible parts of plants.

Fruits are the seed containing structures of plants.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Watch out UK taxpayers: 28,000 HMRC staffers just got an AI copilot

Re: AI and client scamming

I can see some value since most of the routine processing went from casework to computer generated work lists. I worked at HMRC during one such transition and spotted the weakness which I've since used to my advantage.

If you are legally required to notify them of a change which, if acted on, will work to your disadvantage, write to them about it. Don't just send one letter, send three or four about it, each of which gives half the story and preferably a lot of irrelevant distractions as well. Each letter should tell a different, partially overlapping half of the story such you need to consider them all together to reach a full understanding of the situation.

That will never happen, each letter will be considered in isolation, but if what you are trying to hide is later discovered you can truthfully tell them you have told them about it and any losses will be chalked down to official error.

The problem is if you do have an LLM that can quickly review the entirety of your correspondence it may well be able to piece together the full jigsaw from the fragments you have given.

Server-room lock was nothing but a crock

Re: Just walk in like you own the place

I've heard plenty of stories like that from one of the big motor shows, I forget which. The cigarette lighters get stolen multiple times a day along with some more ambitious stunts. One was like you describe, men in overalls went to a car and proceeded to remove all the seats, explaining they would get worn over the course of the exhibition if not replaced.

Of course when they went out the door they were never seen again.

Fission impossible: Uncle Sam wants nuclear reactors in space by 2031

*whoosh!*

Physicist reckons two-button calculator can do all elementary math

Sounds very much like the Manchester Baby so it's as old as the stored-program computer itself.

That would get you to any value in the set of represented numbers but this is about continuous numbers, i.e. any two numbers that are not equal have an infinite number of possible numbers between them. You can't construct a tree with that property.

BOFH: If the meatbags can't agree on aircon, AI will decide for them

To get a pot of water to boil faster on the stove, what do you do? Crank up the dial to "high," of course.

But if you do that on a gas hob the flames expand to the point where they lick up the sides of the pan. The pan itself is then in a comparatively cool zone between the flames.

No, it really doesn't feel right, but the pan actually boils faster if you turn the gas down a little to stop that happening.

Edit: I see MachDiamond had already said that.

RAF eyes cheap drone-killer as Typhoon jet tests laser-guided rockets

Re: Tenuous connection....

Warton is more usual for final assembly and testing, although there is a runway at Samlesbury my understanding is it's more commuting style stuff - they do fly staff between sites. As seeing them generally no, the first thing they usually do is head out over the Irish Sea - sonic booms and all that. If you see fighter jets they're generally RAF heading too/from the Lakes for low level training rather than installation flights from BAE.

Re: Failure

directed energy weapons don't cut it. Probably because they can't direct enough energy fast enough to compete with a bullet or chunk of shrapnel

Keep still will you!

It's probably ridiculous but $40,000 still sounds expensive to me. What's wrong with the cannon, or is that purely for ornamentation these days?

Gmail celebrates 22 years by finally letting users change their addresses

It's probably only five or ten years since my main email became inaccessible using UUCP notation. People had some time to learn the new @ address in the interim.

BOFH: Are you ready to raise our expense account limits now?

Re: B&Q sell those

Perfect for dealing with the toaster.

That was first degree toastercide!

Open source isn't a tip jar – it's time to charge for access

This is the nub of the problem - Open Source was originally something of a take it or leave it offer - here, you can have this software, you can use it, you can make changes and so on. Don't expect continuing upgrades or support, or for me to go out of my way to get the software or any updates to you. The problem arises when when people confuse the software and those associated services.

If you wanted someone to fix a bug or adapt it to your need it was expected you would pay for that, either is cash terms or time and effort doing it yourself. If you look at a particular package and think e.g. "It'd useful to embed barcodes in the document within the app" then you can make those changes or hire someone to make them for you. They can then go back to the maintainer (if there is one, and not necessarily the "developer") who if they deem them of general utility can incorporate them in the main release (if not they can continue as a separate patch set for those that are interested).

The maintainer's traditional role was essentially a co-ordinating one - yes, they were frequently the biggest single developer but the core role was to received patches, and cordinate and redistribute them, frequently this was via a network of established mirror sites that avoided great expense for any individual or the expectation that the "master" source could cope with huge demand.

The problem comes when people expect open source to be packages and bundled similarly to a commerical product - fancy website, extensive documentation (that is kept up to date), regular update cadence, bugs fixed promptly and so on. Those are essentially services, if you want those the expectation always was that you pay for them in one way or another. The problem is that open source became popular around the same time as Internet adoption became widespread with the "we can do this for free" mania of the pre-millenium dotcom boom.

The growth of open source is not independent of greater Internet access of course, but the idea that any random package has an individual or organisation implictly backing it up with ongoing support was not part of the orignal deal. There was no expectation of developers or anyone else to provide those services and therefore no need to consider the compensation for their provision.

Re: Why not take the WinRAR model?

If you do that you are no longer open source. Free for anyone and for any purpose is one of the fundamental freedoms.

It's not free for non-commercial use or free for people that we like.

It's not a binary choice. Independent boffin builds a ternary CPU on an FPGA

Re: ternary?

This is the fallacy of assuming independent variables. If in binary one digit needs to be changed the probability that the "next" digit in the calculation increases from 50% to 67% due to carried digits.

Model it fully and the amount of flipping stays essentially constant regardless of the base used.

UK police force presses pause on live facial recognition after study finds racial bias

Re: This isn't the real problem

[There is a government building with a reinforced concrete basement in case of a nuclear war.]

Sir Humphrey: There has to be somewhere to carry on government, even if everything else stops.

Hacker: Why?

Sir Humphrey: Well, government doesn't stop just because the country's been destroyed! I mean, annihilation’s bad enough without anarchy to make things even worse!

Britain's satellite-watching gap to be plugged with £17.5M eyeball in Cyprus

Re: "a persistent stare capability"

No, the men stare at goats, not the other way around.

Re: Then...

The bases there are sovereign British territories, they are not leased or provided as a favour by the Cypriots. An attempt to take them would be viewed as much the same as Gibraltar or the Falklands.

BOFH: What physics defines as impossible, sales calls a challenge

Re: Sales

Quite possibly. I never saw this instance but the biggest sets they installed were the size of 40ft shipping containers - if you needed bigger than that you would chain multiple sets together since obviously road transport is the usual requirement. I wouldn't imagine we would've talking anywhere near that big but even "small" sets could be perhaps 5x5x20ft. I know my local hospital has several such sets dotted around the site (from the same company), presumably they are distributed to avoid the JCB through an on site power line thing.

District denies enrollment to child based on license plate reader data

Re: the parent has been unwilling or unable to provide appropriate alternative evidence

OK, so a 13 year old has a kid... Four or five years years later that kid needs to go to primary school. Mum herself is still in education and thus not paying taxes.

Congratulations. Your pig-headedness has deprived that kid of an education. Be sure to pat yourself on the back in twenty years every time she collects her welfare payment as she is now unemployable.

It doesn't even have to be so extreme, with the state of house prices children are staying with their parents later than ever. The grandparents may pay their property taxes but that doesn't cover the grandchild. Tough, you don't care.

Your taxes pay for a public service - liability for that tax is a political consideration generally based on the individual circumstances. Entitlement to public services is based on an entirely separate set of considerations.

Re: the parent has been unwilling or unable to provide appropriate alternative evidence

Never heard of buy to let? Yes we have had cases where a letting address was used. I'm not familiar with the appropriate regs in the US but here in the UK residency is determined by where the child spends most nights.

Taxes are an irrelevance, after all provision of a school place is not contingent on being a taxpayer.