Posts by james 68

Chinese mobile giant OPPO claims new 125W fast-charging spec will fully fuel your phone in 20 minutes

Re: "you might not notice the fact that it isn't holding as much charge as it used to"

Ideally this would be accomplished by moving away from batteries entirely and instead using capacitors. Fast charging and long life.

White elephants in the mist: Google's upcoming Pixel 4A may ship without Soli motion recognition, per FCC filing

Re: Telekinesis

Capacitive is pretty old hat nowadays, a lot of screens are actually resistive based now unless you've got a bargain basement blower.

No longer a planet and left out in the cold, Pluto, it turns out, may have had hot beginnings

Re: It'll be a planet again

Earth also has several "moonlets", asteroids locked in Lagrangian orbits. So not so much with the orbital clearance as a category for planethood. Also how does clearing an orbit work for planethood when you consider planetary rings? Is Saturn not a planet then? Demoting Pluto was arbitrary and capricious, which is why they waited until most of those present went to lunch before forwarding the motion.

Couple wrongly arrested over Gatwick Airport drone debacle score £200k payout from cops

Re: Facial recognition

It gets shared around the station for them to masturbate over. Whereas common folk cannot fly near houses or over crowded parks and beaches, plod can and do. In the process their drones seem to spend a lot of time loitering in areas with the prettiest/most skimpily dressed females for some reason...

Fujitsu unveils new laptops 'optimized for remote work' – erm, isn't that what laptops have always been for?

Re: Nope missing an obligatory element

Funny you should mention a fridge magnet as an authentication device.

I used To work for an ISP and the pencil botherers decided that every internal door should have magswipe security which doubled as timecards and basic workplace snooping. My domain in the server room and "control suite" already had good old fashioned pin number locks.

Cue much frustration and general gnashing of teeth as people forgot their ID cards at home or on their desks.

Until some scruffy intern in the web design department discovered that using any magnet from any of the memo boards liberally distributed around the company would open any door with a quick swipe down the card slot.

Bloody expensive but about as secure as a politicians moral compass.

SpaceX Crew Dragon docks at International Space Station

Re: this is only half the trip

Landing, "coming down again", isn't as easy as you'd expect. To increase your orbit you add velocity, to decrease you slow your velocity. What happens when gravity effects the rate of descent? The capsule gains velocity. "Coming down again" might actually be more difficult (relatively speaking) than going up.

Surprise! That £339 world's first 'anti-5G' protection device is just a £5 USB drive with a nice sticker on it

They beat you to it. There is a huge supply chain out there selling "magic rocks" from £30 and upwards each, while claiming they'll cure everything from full blown aids to poltergeist. They are unsurprisingly indistinguishable from the contents of bags of large quartz gravel you'd normally find in any garden center or DIY store at around £15 for a 20lb bag.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to save data from a computer that should have died aeons ago

Re: Hybrid children watch the sea

@FuzzyWuzzys

Ah lawnmower deth, I remember them well and fondly. Still get satan's trampoline stuck in my head sometimes. Have an upvote.

Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia accused of hacking Jeff Bezos' phone with malware-laden WhatsApp message

Re: "it... may see the kingdom cut out of deals altogether"

Don't forget, they also got away with the largest and most heinous terrorist attack in history. (Allegedly).

World-record-breaking boffins reveal the fastest spinning thing on Earth – and it's not George Orwell in his grave

As fastest thing, sure. But this is about the fastest "spinning" thing, everyone knows that the fastest spinning things are Porsche 911's (of the early 930 variety) on just about any road with even a hint of a curve.

BOFH: 'Twas the night before Christmas, and the ransomware struck

Ahh, the memories

Reminds me of a place I once worked in Belfast. All the staff were looking forward to the usual Christmas bonus only to be told that there wasn't enough to go round that year (which came as a surprise to everyone considering the company had done rather better than normal). When everyone returned from the Christmas period what did we all discover? Both bosses had acquired brand new and fully optioned VW Passats. Purely by coincidence of course.... bloody cockwombles.

Amazon: Trump photon-torpedoed our $10bn JEDI dream because he hates CEO Jeff Bezos

Re: No one is crying for Amazon

Nitro hypervisor.

Move over Ceres! There's a new, smaller dwarf planet in town called Hygiea

Eh?

Looks more sort of 'potatoish' rather than spherical. Either way, solar systems largest potato or solar systems smallest dwarf planet, still one for the books.

Just a friendly reminder there were no at-the-time classified secrets on Clinton's email server. Yes, the one everyone lost their minds over

Cue:

Rabid screaming of "But Benghazi...!!" In 3...2...

Boris Brexit bluff binds .eu domains to time-bending itinerary

To me the obvious solution is that the UK is (like it or not) Part of the European continent even if it leaves the union and is therefore entitled to .eu domains (for an understanding of EUrope as opposed to European Union), of course that could change if all the vote leave folks get their oars out and start furiously paddling the UK towards open ocean whilst yelling "Brexit means Brexit!!"

Personally I couldn't give a toss outside of the bemusement and amusement factors, I saw this shit show coming several years ago and buggered of to live in Japan with both a UK and an Irish passport in hand.

Valorous Vikram lunar lander – or Star Wreck: Enterprise? India's Moon craft goes all silent running during descent

Re: Moonmen?

Surely you mean Clangers? Perhaps the soup dragon was feeling testy.

Boffins discover new dust clouds in the Solar System, Mercury has a surprisingly filthy ring

Re: Make Pluto great again

I was paying attention in school which is why I know that the mass IS relevant. Speculation on my education aside, you might want to refresh your memory on Kepler's laws of motion, I'll even supply a quick primer http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/Newton-Kepler.html

Re: Make Pluto great again

Your forgetting about the mass. Unless each mote of dust has the same mass as the planet it shares an orbit with then it won't be orbiting at the same velocity as that planet.

Ah, this military GPS system looks shoddy but expensive. Shall we try to break it?

Re: "in the hangar in the tank park"

It is, but it leaves too many tell tales for a faffing session. It's a good way to get replacement kit after a training exercise. Like when your SA80 receiver is buggered and fouls regularly, the powers that be won't replace it, but they will replace it if it gets "accidentally" run over by a tank. You get a grand bollicking though.

Surrey Uni mans the space harpoons, and NASA buys more seats on Russian rockets

Re: brake

Earth's atmosphere extends out past the ISS, though tenuous in the extreme at such a distance, it is there and will slow a spacecraft accordingly. This is why satellites and the ISS must expend fuel to maintain their orbits and why satellites in near earth orbit eventually sink low enough to burn up after they have expended their fuel supplies. Depending on the orbital path, relative speed and the surface area of the spacecraft this form of atmospheric de-orbiting can take anywhere from weeks to years to accomplish, the large sail is essentially just a means to hasten the result.

How's this for sci-fi: A cosmic river of 4,000 stars dazzles lifeforms as it flows through a galaxy. And that galaxy is the Milky Way

Re: Continents and Stars

Your compass could just as easily be pointing South and your just looking at the wrong end.

Jammy dodgers: Boffin warns of auto autos congesting cities to avoid parking fees

A very bad idea.

"A time-based charge for occupying the public right-of-way, whether parked or in motion."

This is a corruption scam waiting to happen, as it will encentevise local governments to ensure that their road systems get worse instead of better, simply to create congestion to reap larger profits from the taxes added to the gains from not spending on improving infrastructure. Screwing over everyone else into the bargain both in money and time. Somebody gag the chap who suggested this before he gives the clowns even more ideas.

I studied hard, I trained for years. Yay, now I'm an astronaut in space. Argggh, leukemia!

The problem with that is: would an earthly virus or bacterium even be able to infect an alien lifeform? Given the relatively low cross infection rates in different terrestrial species it's very unlikely that they could colonise something which would be so biologically different. Death due to a native Martian infection compounded by reduced immunity caused by prolonged space travel is much more likely. Though given that the book is based in early 1900's science they could conceivably mistake the deaths as being caused by terrestrial means.

Why millions of Brits' mobile phones were knackered on Thursday: An expired Ericsson software certificate

Re: I see that...

Y! Mobile also, and yes, it's because of the same dodgy Ericsson cert.

Cops called after pair enter Canadian home and give it a good clean

In the UK forcing a door or window is "breaking and entering", entering through an unlocked but closed door or window is "illegal entry" and entry through an open door or window is "trespass" which can be upgraded to "criminal trespass" if there is intent

How an over-zealous yank took down the trading floor of a US bank

Re: Unplugging the keyboard = kernel panic ?

@onefang, lucky you. Up top I've got salt and pepper going on, down under though.... slap a red hat on it and it'd look like an ugly santa impersonation. Only reason I can think of is how when some people get a sudden shock their hair turns white. Truth be told over the years it has seen things, things that would terrify H.R.Geiger so perhaps I shouldn't really be surprised.

FCC boss slams new Californian net neutrality law, brands it illegal

@JLV The plants.... Meh. Huey Dewey and Louie were the stars of that movie, still brings a tear to the eye when one of them gets taken out and all that's left is his foot. Bloody good storytelling to give the feels for a box on legs.

Silent Running is an excellent movie, but I believe he may have meant The Running Man.

New MeX-Files: The curious case of an evacuated US solar lab, the FBI – and bananas conspiracy theories

Re: 三体

The kanji "三体" means "3 body" in JAPANESE, now sure kanji has a Chinese origin and therefore the same characters do have a Chinese meaning, "Trisomy" which is a chromosome disorder related to the development of down syndrome. Japanese and Chinese translations of characters are NOT equivalent.

If you weren't rich enough to buy a Surface before, you may as well let that dream die

Re: Ah, but...

That's what I thought too, until I started using them for teaching. I still wouldn't want one at home, but in the classroom they're perfect and beat the usually standard iPads (Apple has a major push for iPads in schools) by a huge margin.

TLDR: they have their place even if that place is limited.

Huawei pleads with FCC to overturn US ban, says it's 'anticompetitive'

Re: When it comes to national security...

Which won't keep anything safe against a compromised cpu. Who's going to notice that there's an extra core in there hard coded to transmit data taken directly during the encryption/decrypt process?

Re: When it comes to national security...

All well and good, but shouldn't they then ban apple products? (Since they're made by a partially government owned company in China) amonst many others who also have their kit made in China and just slap an American brand name on it?

Jupiter suffered growing pains before becoming our system's big daddy

Doh!

318 times the mass of the sun? Really?

I think you might want to correct that, considering that in the reality where the planets orbit the sun and not the sun and planets orbit Jupiter it's around 0.001 times the mass of the sun, but it is 318 times the mass of earth.

Muslim American woman sues US border cops: Gimme back my seized iPhone's data!

Re: When Booking-Travel now the first thing I usually do is:

Only if your rich, buddies with a Trump, or of Russian background.

Southport: Come for a round of golf, stay for the flesh-eating STIs

Coincidence?

Donovanosis infection menaces Brit home town of El Reg's HR department

Flesh eating disease found in the same location as an HR department? Correlation or causation do you reckon?

Feds charge Man after FCC boss Ajit Pai's kids get death threat over net neutrality axe vote

Seriously?

An adult is capable in most cases of defending themselves against another adult or failing that devising alternate means of protection. A child is many times more vulnerable.

At least threatening an adult because of an action they have considered and acted upon can be understood though rarely condoned, what pray tell are the children guilty of to merit such?

Oh and congratulations, you've managed to use the standard pedophile defense with a straight face. Anonymous Coward indeed.

Pai is a gormless twat, but here (and I can't believe I'm saying this) he's in the right. Someone threatens you and it can be laughed off, no harm no foul. Someone threatens your kids on the other hand.... You screw em and you screw em HARD.

Japanese dark-web drug dealers are so polite, they'll offer 'a refund' if you're not satisfied

Re: It is often presumed

Maybe so when they work in the service industry, but outside of the job they are just as ignorant (often moreso).

Just try walking in a large city in Japan or if you have overt masochistic tendencies try getting around any large metropolitan area by public transport during morning or late afternoon. This is my fourth year of living in Japan and from experience I can honestly say that the ignorance and intolerance is strong in this country, only when you enter the service industry or a person's home as a guest will you find the stereotypical overly polite Japanese.

Basho investor to pay up $20m in damages for campaign that put biz on 'greased slide to failure'

Re: People worked at Basho

It's a nice thought, and I fully agree, but the proletariat rarely see anything from these kinds of fun and games. The lawyers will get the lion's share, the bigwigs will get the remainder and the taxman will get the scraps.

Labour MP pushing to slip 6-hour limit to kill illegal online content into counter-terror bill

Re: Funny how everyone points at the Tories doing all kinds of shenanigans...

That would be New Labor, essentially Tories in a sluttier dress and with a slightly different definition of the term "pearl necklace". Far removed from the actual Labor party.

I am not in favour of the Tories or Labour, they're both rampant Muppet farms, but New Labor and the Blairites are/were even worse than either.

Xiaomi the money? OK, here's a one beeeeellion dollar loss ahead of IPO

Re: Not surprised at the loss.

Really? Because everything you need is right there on the website in English AND it's automatic, both for unlocking the OS and the bootloader.

http://en.miui.com/thread-246705-1-1.html

No, Stephen Hawking's last paper didn't prove the existence of a multiverse

Re: As far as I can tell, you can prove

My problem with the infinite number of universes theory has always been that somewhere out there, exists a universe where they destroyed our universe at suppertime last Tuesday. That we do in fact still exist disproves it.

Apple: Sure, we banned VPN iOS apps in China, but, um, er, art!

Re: A non story

and provide a nice, easy, way of evading the restriction

By "allowing" Chinese users to only access "government approved" communication apps which are constantly monitored and provide backdoors to access the devices at will? Yes.... good Apple.... glorious Apple.... bow to the Apple... my preciousss Apple... Whoops, almost fell down the rabbit hole there.

Donald Trump's tweets: Are they presidential statements or not?

Ahem

"It would strangely fitting if a constitutional crisis was caused over something so shallow as a Twitter account president Trump."

Fixed that for you.

CopperheadOS stops updates to thwart knock-off phone floggers

Re: Folks stealing their stuff?

Folks "stealing their stuff" which presumably contains other various flavours of opensource code. I assume they are compliant with all the various licences and their requirements?

I somehow doubt it if they're expecting payment for the product (OS) rather than for tech support.

I side with the snakes on this one.

ATM fees shake-up may push Britain towards cashless society

Re: Also, in an increasing surveilance society

@Kiwi I have a simpler guide that works for me:

Have I communicated with anyone today? if yes then mission accomplished.

Re: Also, in an increasing surveilance society

Strangely enough I did have a badge, right up until yesterday, it was all silver and shiny too.

Makes me wonder if Mr Orlowski got a little stroppy because I commented that his latest HTC hit piece review sounded somewhat whiney and the admission that they're actually good phones was just tacked on the end.

TBH it carries little to no meaning so I can't say I actually care.

Re: Also, in an increasing surveilance society

Heresy, I know, but I am of the opinion that the works of Douglas Adams are utter shite. I have read the majority of his books and they never failed to disappoint - much like Tolkien, good premise but bad execution.

But to each their own, different folks have different tastes and that's what makes 'em interesting. Being stuck in a room with people who have diverse tastes makes for much more interesting conversation than the conversational circle-jerk when everyone likes the same thing.

Scientists think they've found primordial goop whence life first sprang

Original experiment was on the fertilization of barley huh? What are the odds they were studying beer production and accidentally discovered this while just trying to find a way to get hammered?

US judge orders Sci-Hub be excised from the internet

Re: court says Google can safely ignore Canadian search ban

Yes, and watch how quickly they'll throw their toys outta the pram when it starts happening in the other direction.

Should be a good show, I'll spring for beer if you bring the popcorn.