Posts by Spoonsinger

Pastry in a manger: We're soz, Greggs man said

According to the 'story', didn't the three 'wise' men actually spend a bit of time trying to find the right barn? (in fact even as far as going to Herod and saying "Oh!, you don't happen to know where that son of god is do you?") In which case isn't it totally possible that one of the other barns did in fact have a large sausage roll in a manger. Actually, if you go by Matthew's version, they were just an unnumbered party of unnamed "wise men". In which case they would definitely of had at least one large sausage roll about their persons.

Mappy days! Ordnance Survey offers up free map of UK greenery

I went outside today. It was wet.

Less than four weeks till DevOps' finest assemble in London

Hair shirts...

optional?

Farewell Unity, you challenged desktop Linux. Oh well, here's Ubuntu 17.04

Sad, but not unexpected.

For me it always gave a nice glow just to see it. However I never did use it in a proper working environment. A typical design over functionality thing I suspect. Nice that it existed though.

Canonical preps security lifeboat, yells: Ubuntu 12.04 hold-outs, get in

I like Dapper Drake. IGMC.

Dirty code? If it works, leave it says Thoughtworks CTO

Umm... (thought they had died out for a bit),

You know when a sphere of human endeavour become 'in vogue' in the 'common' sphere. You get a fucking bunch of know nothing arseholes commenting and generalizing on something they don't know anything about and getting paid for it in conferences - and then their ramblings are quoted in the media.

Will Microsoft's nerd goggles soar like an Eagle, or flop like a turkey?

Regarding...

"That depends on the execution. Windows 3.x won not because it was better, or because anyone particularly liked it, but because it looked inevitable. Inevitability is something Microsoft was good at. As soon as businesses lashed up a quick and dirty Windows front end, and execs started to paste the results into Excel, Window was off and running. Looking back now, the winner of the ancient “OS wars” 25 years ago was never in doubt - the press kept up the fantasy just to make things more interesting."

I don't think that's quite right. I'd go with a) licensing agreements on MS's part with manufactures so it was dumped it on any box you purchased, b) Petzold, because he gave an easy and very, (going to add another 'very'), coherent explanation of it's API. Thus allowing the prole developers, (i.e me), to just get on with stuff with something to refer back too.

Without new anti-robot laws, humanity is doomed, MPs told

Re: "Maybe he meant chess."

I think probably more Mouse Trap. Build a big edifice through random events and are somewhat annoyed, (but not surprised), when it's you who get end gamed.

Londoners react with horror to Tube Chat initiative

So this is only one of those "That there London" things? So nothing to see elsewhere at the moment - da da DA! - slippery slope of crap coming your way. Might be a good idea to build some sort of wall to keep it from infecting other places, or invest in shotguns.

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

You can earn $1.5 bizallion in four months. Just click http://tiny.cc/001sdy

Microsoft joins battery-saving browser bandwagon with Edge claims

Re: " wouldn't be worth MS fudging the tests because of the backlash should they be found out."

Erm, this is Microsoft you are talking about right?

Microsoft buys LinkedIn for the price of 36 Instagrams

Sometimes, just sometimes you just want to shout out "You fucking mental nut jobs!!!!!". However it's not PC so I won't.

Shares down?! But, but, but ... Apple just made $50bn – that's the way the Cookie grumbles

Re: Must be the end of the world

They hoovered up a current notional 'worth'. But that isn't the same as real value.

Woz says wearables – even Apple Watch – aren't 'compelling'

Umm, what's probably needed is...

some sort of salesman type character to make them "compelling".

"compelling" and "useful" is sort of different. It's a a subtle distinction but if you are trying to sell a "compelling" idea you do have to have the will and motivation to do it, a "useful" idea is easier to sell.

Pair programming: The most extreme XP practice?

Crap...

Old, so no idea what DevOps was. Still have Analyst/Programmer on my CV. Anyway is it me or do all these DevOps articles read like a Daily Mail Infomercial?

Flying Spaghetti Monster is not God, rules mortal judge

Re: "so Ellison would have been a tad young to make the bet."

erm, Harlan Ellison was known for being very precocious in the sci-fi writing industry from way back when, (ok lets say early 1950's for "way back when"). So I can well believe that he would make that bet in his early twenties.

Favorite Harlan Ellison quote is "The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.", although his one on people infringing his copyright is actually quite good as well.

Edit :- actually " 'You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.'" is good as well.

Coding is more important than Shakespeare, says VC living in self-contained universe

Coding is an interesting pastime which you can get paid for and beats working on a factory line listening to piped in Radio One or dealing with the 'public'.

Most of the world still dependent on cash

Re: "cash in the mattress" loses value over time

It doesn't loose that much overtime as the "cash mattress" can pay for things at 20%+ less, (or whatever you local dubious automated tax suckage is).

AMD sued: Number of Bulldozer cores in its chips is a lie, allegedly

Re: This guy could win.

Nope. He might win through twelve regular people and true, but then there will be an appeal. A bit of bad press for AMD for the first bit and a bunch of dosh to pay for the costs on the appeal, but not really a case. (If it did remotely win I suspect Intel would be quaking in their boots because of their varied and somewhat misleading nomenclatures)

TalkTalk claims 157,000 customers were victims of security breach

"TalkTalk claims 157,000 customers were victims of security...."

Shirley all TalkTalk customers are victims and should be pitied.

Google spews out Alphabet. Alphabet gobbles Google

Re: Tax reasons...?

Maybe fifty companies, one cup? Chocolatey.

Feeling sweary? Don't tell Google Docs

So is....

tickling the bearded clam and licking the sauce from the chocolate starfish OK?

Microsoft backports data slurp to Windows 7 and 8 via patches

Re: how to nuke this crap

Actually probably easier just restoring to a point previous to the 'patches', then just turn off updates. Then think about what you actually want from your computer.

Well this sucks...

I was waiting till my dotage before going full on hair shirt.

Hidden password-stealing malware lurking in your GPU card? Intel Security thinks not

Re: Microsoft even requires BIOS vendors to disable PCI...

BIOS? it's all UEFI nowadays - and you get stuff like http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/12/lenovo_firmware_nasty/ happening. You don't need sexy hardware based vector attacks when easier software ones are available.

BBC veterans require skilled hands to massage their innards

Fixing Beebs?

I always thought when at school, with five people playing planetoid at the same time - each having a different key to press(*) - that the Beeb was fairly indestructible.

(*) They weren't particularly progressive games in terms of getting to the end, but were fun. However it was more productive than the use it was being put too - which was nothing, because it was just dumped on the school with actually no point. (a then remote farming land school didn't really require a computer at that time).

Google makes it official: Chrome will freeze Flash ads on sight from Sept 1

Re: "I'm wondering how much of their riches are due to not paying for some competent programmers."

Maybe, just maybe, competent programmers would rather actually do other stuff. Not saying competent programmers couldn't fix the problem for - you know - money. But given the choice probably not that interesting to write and maintain an API to display stuff on various platforms in a browser and take flak for not considering every possibility situation. There are way easier methods to earn money.

Programmers arn't nurses. We do stuff for money and fun, (probably mostly fun). So if you are going down that "why can't programmers do this" route. It's because they really don't have to and if pushed can find other fields to ply their skills while still being surly - but actually getting the job done.

BACS Bank Holiday BALLS UP borks 275,000 payments

This is starting to look like these 'failures' are one of those new fangled 'banking' scams. i.e. they 'have a problem' with their systems, peoples payments bounces, charges are incurred. A certain percentage of those people who have charges won't complain or get redress. Yeh! profit for bank or banks - it an oligarchy after all. I suspect a cycle. Place your bets on the next bank to have 'problems' with their basic accounting processes.

Too much vino? LG brings Wine Smart oldster-mobe to Europe

Erm.. my phone is a flippy 'feature' phone , (a tad old, but in that wine colour).

Reasons:-

1) Although old, it still last a few weeks between charges.

2) Don't really need it to do anything apart from make calls, do some SMS, take occasional low quality photos.

3) Doesn't break when you put it in your pocket, (or actually give you an over prominent bulge in such areas)

4) Doesn't have a contract

5) When people, (i.e. friends - who are in their 40's), laugh at you for having it, you are then totally in your rights to tell them to f**k off or actually pick away at all the things which are wrong with them or their life with no guilt at all.

Windows 10 wipes your child safety settings if you upgrade from 7 or 8

The quoted article comments are basically...

'Why oh! Why don't they think of the children?' after handing the child a loaded handgun. (Ignoring the fact the only place they should get a loaded hand gun is from a railway siding or from a local friendly gang member - or is that porn?. Anyway If you don't understand it, don't give it to your children).

(Nice click bait though).

Hurrah! Windfarms produce whopping one per cent of EU energy

Re: U.K. National Grid Status

Interesting that no oil. Even though it's quite cheap at the moment. Biomass, (@ 5.85%), is quite interesting because that's going to include straw burning - and if you've lived near a straw burning power station, you'll know that the local youth love nothing better than to set light to a large stack of straw stuck in a field, thus negating the 'clean' credentials of the power station itself - but that probably isn't calculated in the 'green' aspect.

(Also 6.84% for wind at the time of writing).

NASA briefing in HOURS: 'We are upon the CUSP of finding ANOTHER EARTH'

Well, as there are only a few minutes to go:-

Options:-

1) It's some boring 'there is a planet nearby' thing, (well light years away, but shows signs of being a planet) - a previous poster did that more eloquently.

2) There is a planet nearby and it has life, (and not the bacterial kind - the radio transmitty coming to suck your brains type thing). But... It's just a Watchmen type ruse to make us all, (i.e. current humanity), hug together in a Princess Diana type emotional explosion. (Resulting in an age of scientific fervor and zealot theological endeavour - so no change there).

3) It's not a Watchmen type ruse, and they are coming to get us.

4) It's just NASA doing what they do. (Which is generally quite boring if you were brought up on 70's NASA conspiracy movies).

The Register's resident space boffin: All you need to know about the Pluto mission

Re :- "Meeting a cold dwarf hasn't put off NASA one bit"

I will take umbrage at the cold dwarf thing. It seems obvious that it has internal activity and therefore is actually a proper planet rather than a lump of icy rock and shouldn't be shunted into the whole 'lump of solar detritus' category. Besides Carl Sagan managed to get nine planets on the plaque of the Pioneer missions, (and he was a clever bloke). Modern day people are going to just confuse the aliens with their PC revisionism.

Run Windows 10 on your existing PC you say, Microsoft? Hmmm.

Re: I'm puzzled...

I think you'll find that people talked about applications being 'apps' way before Apple stuck their sticky snozzles in. (Which is basically a reason why Apple couldn't clamp down on the usage of the term).

Silk Road boss Ross Ulbricht to spend LIFE in PRISON without parole

Re: He was a drug dealer

I can think of quite a few pubs in the local area where I could buy drugs from their denizens. Does this mean that the councilors who allow the pubs to get a license which in in turn have drug trafficking begin conducted on their premises should be banged up in the clink? (Yeh! less libdems).

Microsoft: Profit DECIMATED because you people aren't buying PCs

Re: Everything that's new is crap

"Yup. I've consulted at two companies in the last 5 years and more developers and IT operations techs are getting Mac laptops because of simplicity and Unix"

No idea what that is about. The only thing I can think is that those 'developers' are doing web page type stuff - which is basically type setting without the messy ink stuff.

Facebook preps for class action lawsuit as angry EU mob lawyer up

Re: This action is fundamentally misguided

" If I am registered with Facebook's subsidiary in Ireland, it should logically be Irish law governing what they can do with my data.Otherwise, why have the Irish subsidiary?"

I think it's something to do with how technology/progress can outstrip convention/laws quite quickly in short sharp bursts.

Crack security team finishes TrueCrypt audit – and the results are in

Obviously the best way to find if there is actually a back door is to install the software, then write on a twelve year old girls/boys facebook page "I'm a peado! come work for ISIS with us in Syria on our new chemical/biological ordnance project". (a bit like Computer Futures sell speech, but less seedy). That should draw attention. Then you can see if they can break into you HDD.

FinFisher, the spyware loved by cruel dictators, stomps all over human rights, says UK govt

I'm still waiting for my shiny silver suit and jetpack,

but in the mean time isn't this technology actually available to everyone in this day and age? It's just whether you have the motivation/time/funding to employ it which is the problem.

Don't touch me up there! Photoshop creator appeals for 'ethical' use

Re: -Adobe Photoshop inventor Thomas Knoll???

'creator', I think is the word you are looking for.

PEAK WINDOWS 7 may well be behind us

Re: -PEAK WINDOWS 7 may well be behind us

Umm maybe. Well until it's found out what the actual Windows X+ licensing will be when it's released. (i.e. it's all a bit foggy at the moment for the up and coming release in that respect)

Microsoft tells big biz: No free Windows 10 for you, crack wallets open

Re: "QuickEdit Mode"

Umm - well on Win7 anyway in quick "QuickEdit Mode" you can highlight and right mouse click to copy, then right mouse click to paste what you just highlighted. (Ctrl+C, Crtl+V just gives ^C & ^V respectively). Was it better in XP? (like some sort of weird deprecated feature - like a usable file explorer?).

Wall St wolves tear chunk off Microsoft: There goes $30bn!

Re: A year ago the price was 36

Buy on the build up to the new release, but sell before the release. That seems to be the common pattern on such things. Also don't look at what you could have made if you held out, just relish in the fact you made a profit.

Re: "hell, they should be forced to use Windows ME."

Really? bringing up ME? - (in the parlance of the youth of today - apparently), "that's so last century". Shirely you could get a more modern example of their shenanigans?

Free Windows 10 could mean the END for Microsoft and the PC biz

Umm, I have this device....

It's sitting next to me. Built out of bits and pieces, (actually quite good bits and pieces) and running a legal version of Windows 7 Pro. I'm totally willing to support this device till it dies or becomes obsolete to my work.

The question is "will they support this device, if I upgrade, until the motherboards caps burn and die"? If so can I continue to upgrade to future Windows 'n', (where 'n' is bigger or equal to 'X'), with a different motherboard but same setup, without significant hassle and cost, based on my current setup?

ps

I'm totally prepared to coax this setup to the foreseeable future. (which is a lot shorter as you get older and a lot longer than the young perceive - but they will have the enjoyment of that time dilation experience later)

Spavined RadioShack to file for bankruptcy next month – report

Re:- by going to Maplin.

Everytime I go to my local Maplin I get accosted by spotty teen floor staff at the entrance asking whether 'they can help?'. It's probably the most annoying shopping experience I've endured trying to actually get into a shop while wanting to purchase the thing I need immediately. Knowing their mark up is based on the emergency factor anyway, they should preclude having to run that annoying gauntlet to get the bits people need.

In the Year of Our Bong, 2015

Obviously bongs should also go to.

1) IT/Tech sites which went all touch friendly, abet not going the full monty because they like their icon design - so it's naff on a big screen and naff on a tablet.

2) IT/Tech sites which employ moderators who are too young, (or ignorant), to know that Gupta SQL Windows was actually a product.

Google unveils Windows 8.1 zero-day vuln – complete with exploit code

Actually this highlights quite a nice free market competition lead peer review system developing.

i.e.

Company G) Companies M software has a bug, we've told them, they didn't do anything about it, we will tell everyone else. (including the punters).

Company M) Oh!, you're going to play it like that are you? OK, this is the bug we told you about sometime back and you didn't do anything about it. Finger is now hovering over the 'enter' key. Not backing down? ok!, it's pressed.

(Some iterations of above later).

Company G) Ok, point taken. But what if we pool our efforts, (because you and us have common ground now), we can go after that Company A - mainly because they are smug and can be quite lackadaisical.

Win win for the consumer.

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

Right I have had the time to look at this on a tablet.

Yes!, you have made it all big chubby finger friendly, but at what cost? The chubby fingered couldn't give a fig about IT. I suspect most of your viewers are in work, (i.e. not retired - the most chubby fingered of them lot), and view it at their desktop. (i.e. a proper screen with keyboard/mouse combination and don't want to scroll down through white space for a quick IT infomation fix).

WTF have you done to this site?

It looks all crappy circa 2011 tablet orientated. (Basically the same sort of kak Ars Technica did and that was - and still is - just pants).