Posts by Sartori

BOFH: Loss adjuster discovers liability is a two-way street

Love it

Fantastic, always look forward to these, and certainly didn't disappoint :)

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

Re: Better option.

I'm not one of the taxpayers and don't vote (not in that country anyway), but if it's going to cost an absolute fortune to move, and potentially in bits, the sensible option seems to be, don't do it then.

Just take a sensible pill and say well, yeah..... we know we said we'd do this, but it's just ridiculous as it turns out, so nope, not gonna happen.

Microsoft confirms it found a way to make Crocs even uglier – with Windows XP and Clippy

Re: ffs...

Ah, MS SmartCrocs (TM), make sure you put them in your Recycle Bin after they blue screen.

Windows 95 was too fat to install itself so needed help from the slimmer 3.1

Re: Good times!

Active Desktop was..........well, ok, it was a rarity to ever see it not just as an error message as your new wallpaper.........

Single passenger reportedly survives Air India Boeing 787 crash

Awful

Like many others, I'm surprised that anyone could have survived the crash, having seen the fireball that followed. I hope he is properly taken care of, as I can't even begin to imagine his state of mind over the coming months and years. It's going to be a while before we get any concrete details as to what happened, I imagine, so for now, just thinking of everyone affected. Thankfully it's not often we get a crash like this, but it's always shocking when we do.

Tetris Company celebrates classic game's 40th birthday

Oh yes, I have been there, done that, not entirely sure I want to thank you for bringing back those memories :)

Raspberry Pi unveils Hailo-powered AI Kit to make the model 5 smarter

Re: Losing the plot

I wouldn't say they were over complicating things. It just adds some more versatility to the Pi5. This AI kit is of no particular interest to me, so I won't be buying it, but it's great to have more optional functionality. I love that you can customise things to suit whatever project you want to get involved in.

Intel, AMD take a back seat as Qualcomm takes center stage in Microsoft's AI PC push

ARM Desktop?

Maybe I'm just weird, but I think it would be interesting to see a Desktop CPU variant for Windows on Arm, to see what it's capable of when it's not so restricted by mobile device thermals and power limits. Will be interesting to see what the performance is like on the mobile devices anyway.

Voyager 1 starts making sense again after months of babble

Great news

It's almost Friday and we get some positive news on Voyager.

Never ceases to amaze me that it's still going. I know one day it will stop, but always brings me some joy to know it's still out there, talking back to us after such an incredibly long time. Well done space boffins, I salute you!

Space exploitation vs space exploration: Humanity has much to learn from the Voyager probes

Voyager Articles

Thanks for keeping the articles relating to Voyager coming. Whenever I see an article on the probes or an interview with someone who worked on them, it definitely brightens my day.

I certainly applaud everyone who had anything to do with them, truly inspirational and awe inspiring!

Atari 400 makes a comeback in miniature form

Retro

Never had an Atari, my retro history was a Vic20 then a Spectrum+ 48k before going to a PC. I do remember the sheer delights though of playing on a friends VCS/2600 as a kid, even though it was ridiculously simple by todays standard, or even a Vic20's standards, I was blown away as it was the first time I had ever played on a computer/console.

Loving this series of articles, thanks for bringing back some fond memories :)

Nitrux 2.5: The latest update to a radical Linux

Great articles

Thanks for these, I have really enjoyed reading them. I dip in and out of Linux every now and then (though haven't for a while now) and these articles have definitely given me an urge to get back into it. Now I just need to figure out which distro to use, might be nice to see what the state of Linux gaming is like since I fairly recently got a 3060ti card.

All that Samsung users found on UK website after weird Find my Mobile push notification was... other people's details

Here was I thinking it was just me, got it this morning in England on my S9+. I thought.....that's weird......so tapped it, it disappeared and then promptly forgot all about it until I saw this article, odd.

The Nokia 3.2 is a phone your nan will love: One camera's more than enough, darling

I know plenty of people still using phones long after they last received any kind of update, quite happily too. It only tends to be when the battery becomes pretty useless (or they drop/lose/have it stolen) that they get rid of them. If the battery was user replaceable then I'm sure they'd have used the phones for much longer still. If we're talking green credentials, then I think non-user replaceable batteries is more of a concern than software updates for most people.

Found on Mars: Alien insects... or whatever the hell this smudge is supposed to be, anyway

It's clearly......

.....a rock lobster, after all, there was a World War 2 bomber found on the moon, probably a B52, so it all makes perfect sense.

RIP: First space-walk badass Alexei Leonov, who made it to 85 despite best efforts of Soviet machine

Great article, great man!

That was a superb read, thank you. I had absolutely no idea about this guy, but I'm glad I do now, huge respect for everything he achieved.

Orford Ness: Military secrets and unique wildlife on the remote Suffolk coast

Re: More please

Completely agree, love these articles, very interesting!

Eight-hour comms lags and shock discoveries: 30 years after Voyager 2 visited gas giant Neptune

Re: Voyager: The Most Amazing Unmanned Mission

Absolutely, there have been many great space missions over the decades, but Voyager is just something else. Truly an inspiring mission and even now, it's still boldly going where nothing built by humans has gone before. Well done to everyone involved in Voyager, what an achievement!

July is here – and so are the latest Android security fixes. Plenty of critical updates for all

Re: If only

My Nokia 8 is still getting the security updates every month, which I think is pretty good for a phone that didn't cost me all that much. They tend to pop up a couple of weeks or so after the Google release.

Amazon Mime: We train (badly) an AI love bot using divorce bombshell Bezos' alleged sexts to his new girlfriend

Counts as reporting? El Reg creating a BezosBonkBot? It's the kind of reporting you do best! I guess Mr Bezos is wanting to play the field a bit, ya know, before he's past his Prime. I know......but it is Friday.....

Fraudster convicted of online banking thefts using… whatever the hell this thing is

Re: Hmm ...

*applauds* your idea, and definitely deserving of a beer. Happy Friday, that's a great comment :)

BlackBerry KEY2 LE: The first budget Android QWERTY for years

Re: Price is still not anywhere near "work phone" bracket

If you go through the official website and click on Buy Now, they show 2 sellers, and Unlocked Mobiles have it in stock for £290.83 + a pricey £12.80 postage. Or the other link goes to Clove who have it for the stated £349.

All through the house, not a creature was stirring... especially Samsung smartwatches: Batteries empty at 3AM

Re: 3AM Eternal

If they did, I'm sure it was justified (and quite possibly ancient).

The Reg chats with Voyager Imaging Team member Dr Garry E Hunt

Wonderful

What a fantastic read, Voyager has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Wonderful to hear from someone who has been so involved with it from the start. Thank you for a great article, and all the earlier articles on Voyager!

BOFH: Their bright orange plumage warns other species, 'Back off! I'm dangerous!'

Excellent BOFH

One of the best BOFH's in a long while, an absolute classic, brightened up my day no end.

I have never been unfortunate enough to have a work accident, thankfully. However, like AC said earlier, the one and only time i *almost* did, I was chatting to a colleague, and as someone needed to get past us, I backed up a little to give them space, and very very nearly went flying over a 'Wet Floor' yellow sandwich board. It does make me wonder what % of accidents in the workplace are caused *BY* Health & Safety....

Samsung Galaxy S9: Still the Lord of All Droids

I think that's one of the dangers of buying a 'new' phone that has already been out quite a while at the time of purchase. The S6 was released on 10th April 2015, so it's a 3 year old device, even if yours is only 14 months old. On the positive side, you get a phone for (usually) a considerable reduction compared to it just having been released. There is the downside you described as well though......

Blackberry snaps, yakkity-yak Snapchat app brats slapped with patent trap rap

No thanks, I'd rather have a nice cup of tea.

Stephen Hawking dies, aged 76

What a time....

When I was just a child, and started hearing about Einstein at school and all that he did for science, I thought to myself 'Imagine being alive while such a genius was around.....' Well, guess what, we have been. Not only a fantastic scientist but great sense of humour and an inspiration for generations to come.

RIP and all the best to his loving family.

Android P will hear no evil, see no evil, support evil notches

Priscilla

Queen Of The Dessert? That's a confectionary, right?

UK third worst in Europe for fibre-to-the-premises – report

I hadn't checked for ages on availability for mine but you prompted me to. Mercifully, I have Virgin fibre for my broadband as BT's offering has always been dire where I live. So, let's see what is on offer today shall we:

Estimated speeds

1Mb-3.5Mb

512k Lowest assured download speed

Oh, and I also get the 5 months blah blah for fibre message too. I'm a little South of you, on the Wirral, if anything changes in the next 5 months I'll be suitably astonished.

Virgin Media's profanity warning triggered by chief exec's name

Sweary

Well, Virgin Media is pretty much encouraging me to swear today anyway, as their spam filter seems to have been placed into the 'Off' position. My inbox is being flooded by all sorts, I'd rather have the spam filter working than a profanity filter, thank you very much.

You'll get a kick out of this: Qualcomm patents the 'Internet of Shoes'

Just what we need...

Won't somebody save arseho...... erm..... our soles!!

It's a bit of a shame Sneakernet is already a thing.

NASA's Cassini snaps pic inside Saturn's ring – peace among the stars

Incredible, well done all!

Cassini really has been a remarkable spacecraft, it will be a little sad when it meets its demise. Congratulations to everyone on the team who made it such a huge success!

BOFH: Don't back up in anger

10/10

Best one in a while, loved it, thanks for bringing some good laughs on a Friday! :)

You have the right to be informed: Write to UK.gov, save El Reg

Done

Just completed the Free The Press form, only takes a few seconds to do, good luck El Reg, hope many more people sign up too!

Lester Haines: RIP

Re: :'(

Currently at 55 upvotes, I would add mine, but 55 seems a good place to leave it.

Thank you Lester!

Wow, this came as a shock today, have read, laughed and loved many of his articles over the years. He was most definitely a big part of El Reg and one of the writers whose articles I would always look out for.

Very sad to hear this, RIP and hope that his friends and family take some small solice in how many people loved what he did and will remember him fondly. Here's to you Lester!

Russia faces Ukraine and Georgia in Eurovision deathmatch

Yep, that's been my approach too, albeit wine, rather than cider in my case. It definitely makes the whole proceedings a lot more fun :)

A cracked window on the International Space Station? That's not good

Re: Surely...

Well, he is usually pretty good with vacuum's

Samsung's little black box will hot-wire your car to the internet. Eek!

IoD

When the first car with one of these fitted, crashes, do we officially have the Internet Of Dings?

Flying Finns arm octocopter with chainsaw

Bet that costs an arm & a leg

Especially if you screw up the landing.....

Virgin Media goes TITSUP, RUINS Tuesday evening

Interesting to see it made the news here, in the North West I noticed the email service was down last night but fibre broadband was working fine, thankfully.

Sir Terry remembered: Dickens' fire, Tolkien's imagination, and the wit of Wodehouse

Terribly sad that Sir Terry has passed. So many happy memories of how his books over the years have made me laugh, smile and think.

I was lucky enough to meet him at a book signing once in Liverpool. He was all smiles, witty and so much time given with a sense of fun to all the many fans who queued to see him.

A man who mixed childlike wonder, silliness, endless imagination, with wisdom, sharp wit and intelligence in his work.

He will be missed by millions, thoughts with his family and friends. RIP.

Nationwide Building Society's services out for the count

Re: It seems to be working again now

Yeah it was down but only briefly, all good again

BOFH: On the contrary, we LOVE rebranding here at the IT dept

Re: Time to rebrand HR....

Now that's a proper HR department!

Huawei Ascend P7: We review the PANORAMIC SELFIE smartphone

Sound quality / updates ....

Would be nice if the review included something on audio quality through headphones. As phones these days are the modern 'iPods' for most people it would be good to know.

Also, what are Huawei like for Android updates? Good, or forget about it? If they're hopeless can another ROM easily be flashed to these things?

Seems a good spec for the price, phone looks nice, UI looks pretty awful but another launcher could fix that. With the Nexus 5 currently down to £249 in CPW I wonder how they both compare.

Microsoft Surface 3 Pro: Flip me over, fondle me up

Re: just not interested...

That was exactly my thought too. I really like it, but not at those prices. It may well find a market but I suspect it's going to be a fairly niche one. On the upside, those Surface 2 tabs should drop in price pretty soon.

Multiplayer Elite to debut on May 30th

Re: £100!

And you won't have to...... as stated in the article that's for "Premium" Beta access for super keen people who absolutely *must* get in there early.

For the rest of us, we'll just wait until it's released, wait for some reviews and if it seems any good, buy it for a more normal price.

Stop bullying SUPER FAT GODZILLA, urge movie stars

Re: False story...

Media blowing things out of all proportion? Surely not!