Posts by Real Ale is Best

Elon Musk to destroy the International Space Station – with NASA's approval, for a fee

It makes me sad.

As a child, I eagerly watched the first launch of the Space Shuttle, my imagination running wild with the things our species could now do with our new reusable lift to the stars.

Then came Hubble, unlocking so many beautiful images of starscapes previously unimagined; launched by the Shuttle.

Next, the beginnings of the ISS; with it's dreams of space cooperation and progress...

Alas, the cooperation never really lived up to it's potential, and then the Shuttle was retired.

And now the ISS is to come crashing down too, and I do not see anything, yet, to stimulate the young minds of tomorrow's scientists and engineers.

I guess our hopes and dreams now lie in the hands of SpaceX, and those private companies planning on building inflatable hotels and labs.

It still makes me sad that we have to scrap the ISS.

Another airline finds loose bolts in Boeing 737-9 during post-blowout fleet inspections

If it's Boeing...

... I ain't going!

First Brexit, now X-it: Musk 'considering' pulling platform from EU over probe

X - Formerly known as Twitter to leave Europe.

Boo hoo, Boo hoo.

What a personal disaster!

I'll see your data loss and raise you a security policy violation

Doug.

Well, he didn't get in trouble, but Doug's dead.

NASA to outdo most Americans on internet speeds, gigabit kit heading to the ISS

ILLUMA-T

ILLUMA-T.

Was this project created at the beginning of April?

Aliens crash landed on Earth – and Uncle Sam is covering it up, this guy tells Congress

I think Grusch is confusing "professional and personal retaliation" with ridicule.

Forget these apps and AI, where's my flying car? Ah, here's one with an FAA license

There's a big difference between a firkin = 72 pints and a barrel = 4 firkins = 288 pints.

Germany to examine China-made kit in its 5G networks over security concerns

It occurs to me...

It occurs to me that China could well have caused more disruption to the West by creating a rumour that Huawei kit is snooping on traffic without having to go to the trouble of doing so.

Massive energy storage system goes online in UK

Re: Real numbers

> When homes are preparing the Sunday roast on a bitter winter day with the heating full on

Gas heating and cooking here. I'm pretty sure I don't use 10kWe while cooking dinner.

Powering the grid and providing backup?

Something that seems to be missing:

If the data centre batteries are providing energy to the grid, if there is then a powercut, they'll be out of energy to provide backup.

Choosing one or the other task would seem advisable.

Foreign spies hijacking US mid-terms? FBI, CISA are cool as cucumbers about it

You are mistaken.

Your systems are already owned.

Engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

I was sponsored as you have described. I was very happy with the arrangement.

Technology moved on, and they retrained me in software, eventually programming windows apps.

I program in PHP nowadays, but maybe I should look at hardware again if it is in such high demand.

Being declared dead is automated, so why is resurrection such a nightmare?

Life Certificate

I Ain't Ded

P.S. We need a Granny Weatherwax icon.

Thinnet cables are no match for director's morning workout

Coincidently...

I found my stash of t connectors and terminators just yesterday.

I wasn't sure what to do with them, so they went back into the box of obsolete IT parts for another ten years.

Study: How Amazon uses Echo smart speaker conversations to target ads

Rather than mining my interactions, I'm more concerned about the devices mining conversation I have near my device, rather than with it.

Looking at you, Android.

NASA will award contract for second lunar lander to a biz that's not SpaceX

A second lunar lander?

1) It'll never get off the ground.

2) If it does, SpaceX moon base will be ready to receive them.

3) It'll not be able to dock if it does get there because of a predictable difference in docking adapters.

4) See (1).

5) It'll be cancelled due to cost overruns.

Computer scientists at University of Edinburgh contemplate courses without 'Alice' and 'Bob'

Why not:

* Sillius Sododus

* Biggus Dickus

* Incontinentia Buttocks

A tale of two dishwashers: Buy one, buy it again, and again

Adverts

Adverts are worse. Search for a product, and then everywhere you look is an advert for said product.

I've not experienced the phone eavesdropping on conversation yet, but I guess it's just a matter of time.

5G masts will be strapped to lampposts and traffic lights – once £4m project figures out who owns them

Here in Aylesbury they have rolled out 5G masts all around the town. They each come equipped with a couple of large cabinets, so I'm not sure how they are going to squeeze their contents into a streetlamp.

Have you tried restarting? Reinstalling? Upgrading? Moving house and changing your identity?

After similar experiences with websites, I now just avoid freemium and paywall sites and apps that do this.

Sorry, my sanity and time are not worth it.

Crack team of boffins hash out how e-scooters should sound – but they need your help*

Hire Scooters

I'd prefer the makers to find a way of preventing them from being ridden on pavements.

The hire company ones in particular, though these are at least trackable to the person whose account was used to hire them.

RAF shoots down 'terrorist drone' over US-owned special ops base in Syria

Re: Technically fantastic but...

You'd think a few rounds from the Typhoon's cannon would have been more economic.

Dutch nuclear authority bans anti-5G pendants that could hurt their owners via – you guessed it – radiation

5G Rollout

EE are busy installing 5G masts in my hometown.

I'm honestly surprised that none of them have been set on fire.

Looking at the rate they are charging, I think Starlink would be the cheaper option if I cared to replace my FTTC connection.

Google Chrome's upcoming crackdown on ad-blockers and other extensions still really sucks, EFF laments

I guess I finally need to get around to implementing a piHole on my home network.

Facebook may soon reveal new name – we're sure Reg readers will be more creative than Zuck's marketroids

Ono-Sendai might be appropriate too.

Schools email marketing company told us to go away when we told them of exposed database creds, say infoseccers

Looks like an old version of Laravel...

... with Debug switched on in the .env file.

Oh dear.

Probably a developer checked in their local copy of the file overwriting the production copy.

Use The Forge Luke!!

Rumors of satellite-comms-capable iPhone abound. The truth could be rather boring

Aliens are coming! And the governments know...

I think it's quite clear that hostile aliens are on their way, and so the US government has commissioned Amazon, SpaceX et al to launch a protective shield of satellites into LEO to prevent any ingress of alien craft.

When they are done, there will be hundreds of thousands of space weapons in place, ready to bombard incoming hostiles with orbital velocity shrapnel.

/j

Starliner takes off ... back to the factory and not space

Re: Next space race

I certainly wouldn't bet on Starliner getting there before Starship.

And if NASA won't allow SpaceX to dock, the next Starship can do a loop around the ISS on it's way to the moon.

Chocolate beer barred from sale after child mistakes it for chocolate milk

Re: I am afraid the whole idea makes me feel yuk

Luckily there is a wide variety of flavours to suit most tastes.

Noone has to like and enjoy every flavour.

I might have an opinion...

There are a number of cholate beers available in the UK, a large number of which, probably the majority are not sweet.

cocoa, naturally a bitter flavour, fits well with hops in a dark malty beer. I agree completely that packaging it in similar packaging as a product aimed at children is not smart.

While possibly in danger the advertising iceberg, Plum Porter is an excellent beer for those that prefer sweet dark beers.

The same brewery produces a Cappuccino Stout that is served best with a shake from the cocoa shaker typically used on Cappuccinos.

Don't knock it before you try it!

Tesla battery fire finally flamed out after four-day conflagration

Extinguishers...

Maybe they need to keep some tanks of liquid nitrogen on-site for putting out fires; I suspect CO2 handheld extinguishers won't be up to the job.

I guess halon is out of the question.

I'm actually surprised the containers don't have piping for injecting such fire suppression measures.

Cloudflare launches campaign to ‘end the madness’ of CAPTCHAs

So basically

So this is a system that swaps several minutes trying to work out what is in some fuzzy pictures, with many minutes trying to find your U2F key from wherever you put it after Google last asked you to sign in with it.

Ok... And which of my two keys (and two backups) should I be using?

I'm not completely certain, but I'm sure that leaving the key permanently installed in your computer's USB socket is not secure behaviour.

Still, it's at least better than having to dig out your phone, start the Authenticator app and copy across the six digit code. If you can remember the right one to use.

Chinese rocket plunges into Indian Ocean, still lands sharp rebuke from NASA

The easiest way to stop China dropping space junk on other countries is to launch "covert CIA operations" to recover all the pieces.

It would not be long before China modify their rockets to only land in Chinese controlled teritory.

US declares emergency after ransomware shuts oil pipeline that pumps 100 million gallons a day

When will they learn not to connect critical infrastructure to the Internet?

Really this is just asking for trouble.

Listen, son... Monster trucks just aren't cool anymore. Real winners drive Tesla Roadsters

Can I have a red one on top of a model Falcon Heavy, please?

Yep, the 'Who owns Linux?' case is back from the dead

Awards

Doesn't SCO still owe Novell (and possibly IBM) some damages awarded by the court?

Or has that magically disappeared in the bankruptcy fairy dance?

Founders of medical science upstart uBiome once likened to Theranos now indicted for, you guessed it, fraud

Alternative "medicines"

I'd like the producers of alternative medicines, such as homoeopathy, prosecuted for making unfounded and unevidenced claims about their products.

I'm deeply disturbed that companies such as Boots the Chemist sell these so-called cures to the gullible public, rather than providing educational material on how to improve lifestyle; changes that have proved to improve health.

This developer created the fake programming language MOVA to catch out naughty recruiters, résumé padders

Ahhh!

You're good, but are you a Rockstar Developer?

Apple's latest macOS Big Sur update stops cheapo USB-C hubs bricking your machine

Repairs

I'd just be happy if I could get my Big Sur bricked Macbook Pro back from the Apple store that repaired it.

Due to covid, they've not been open since I took it in at the beginning of December.

Posting it to me was beyond them.

Bill Gates on climate change: Planting trees is not the answer, emissions need to be zeroed out to avoid disaster

If he really cared...

This book would be freely available to download via pdf, kindle* etc.

* Other eReaders are available.

UK watchdog fines two firms £270k for cold-calling 531,000 people who had opted out

> "If you sign up to the TPS, you should not expect to get nuisance calls. It's as simple as that," said Andy Curry

I signed up years ago, but my mother in law still calls every week.

Future astronauts at risk of heart attacks, strokes if radiation allowed to ravage their cardiovascular health

Re: I want(ed) to be an Astronaut

It does depend on the radiation and the material.

I believe polythene is a good shield for some types (lots of hydrogen, apparently). Lead also being useful, if massive.

See here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01707-2

Apple drops macOS Big Sur on the world – and it arrives with a thud, sound of breaking glass, sirens in the distance...

Unfortunately, my macbook succeeded to download and install Big Sur.

It rebooted, and all I've seen since is a black screen.

Thanks, Apple.

Windows 10 October 2020 Update has arrived... and so have the fixes. Plus: Fancy a discount on a Surface Duo?

That's great...

... if I could get Windows to update at all.

It tells me there are missing updates, tries to install them, then:

Windows Error 0x800f0988 - I can't be arsed.

Reboot, disconnect hardware, run trouble shooter, make more free space. Nope, not going to work.

Relics of the past to be found in Oxford: A medieval friary, a Saxon wall, and... Windows 7

Westgate

I think the new centre is rather nice.

Good food options, and the view from the upper level is nice in the summer.

We've reached the endgame: Bezos 'in talks' to turn shuttered department stores into Amazon warehouses

The truth...

Amazon developed Covid-19 as a final plan to abolish all other retail and become the world's sole supplier.

#tinfoilhat

UK utility Thames Water splashes cash as host of IT consultancies appointed to handle £100m worth of deals

Leaks

To be honest, I'd be much happier if they spent a bit more cash and attention on reducing the huge number of leaks in their ageing pipes, especially in London.

SpaceX to return NASA 'nauts to Earth with a splash

Meanwhile...

The booster that launched Dragon has been turned around and flown another mission, complete with a perfect landing, ready to be used again.

How quick can SpaceX refurbish their falcons? Pretty good for something that "couldn't be done".

Heir-to-Concorde demo model to debut in October

Starship?

I wonder if this will be superseded by extra-atmospheric flight by reusable rockets.

New York to Sidney in an hour...

Netflix starts 30-day video data diet at EU's request to ensure network availability during coronavirus crisis

Ooops.

I guess I shouldn't have downloaded all 37GB of Doom Eternal...