* Posts by Danny 2

2212 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jul 2009

Flat Earther and wannabe astronaut killed in homemade rocket

Danny 2

Hiya devTrail,

Mike didn't explain in depth how he was planning to launch the craft from a balloon in the documentary, just that he planned to launch it from a balloon to get to 63 miles high. I know for a fact that could never work, at least not with his resources, but I also know the Earth isn't flat.

I tried to launch two 6' inflatable whales covered with rape alarms once as part of a war protest. They didn't fly, not with all the helium in all the balloon shops in Glasgow. That was as crazy and experimental as I ever got.

Mind you, Lawnchair Larry took off and survived so what do I know.

.

Danny 2

He was planning to go 60 miles up, by launching his craft from a balloon. This was just a test flight to get the craft ready.

Danny 2

Re: I doubt he was bright enough to build a rocket

Too true JDX. In the documentary about him he quotes scripture to explain why the world is flat.

In the past decade Inverness has had a tourist boom in evangelical US Christians, who for some reason believe the Loch Ness monster is proof that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Danny 2

Re: Stupid is as Stupid does

"You don't need to die to win a Darwin Award. Surviving with loss of reproductive functions is sufficient - though a rarer outcome. As long as you remove yourself from the gene pool, it counts."

As long as you haven't already reproduced. He had two estranged sons, according to the Amazon Prime documentary "Rocketman: Mad Mike's Mission to Prove the Flat Earth". Well worth a watch because well, 'mostly harmless'.

I'd rather Mike's fate than this guy from Haddington who survived but certainly qualifies for a Darwin award:

Unfortunately for the young man, his organs couldn’t be reattached as the Old English bulldog had eaten them, The Times reports. A police source revealed that ‘peanut butter, or another food spread’ had been applied to the man’s ‘crotch area’ before the dog attacked. The dog, who has been named as Biggie Smalls, was put down after the owner gave their consent.

That story always made me scared of Mr Peanutbutter in Bojack Horseman.

The Wristwatch of the Long Now: When your MTBF is two centuries

Danny 2

Engineering to last 100,000 years

"Into Eternity: A Film for the Future" is a 2010 documentary on the Onkalo nuclear waste repository in Finland. The waste has to be stored safely for 100,000 years which seems like an engineering impossibility in itself, but it also raises questions such as what warning signs will be understood by then. It's impossible to watch it and still support nuclear fission power plants.

Get in the C: Raspberry Pi 4 can handle a wider range of USB adapters thanks to revised design's silent arrival

Danny 2

In an age of affordable multimeters

Resistor colour codes remain a pretty way to 'hide' numbers in plain sight.

A Hughes failure: Flat Earther rocketeer can't get it up yet again

Danny 2

Not with a whimper, but a bang

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51602655

Google product boss cuffed on suspicion of murder after his Microsoft manager wife goes missing, woman's body found, during Hawaii trip

Danny 2

Televised suicide by steam powered rocket

On the subject of dodgy media coverage, the Science Channel just broadcast the predictable death of Mad Mike Hughes.

He was trying to prove the Earth is flat, and he certainly made it a little bit flatter.

Assange lawyer: Trump offered WikiLeaker a pardon in exchange for denying Russia hacked Democrats' email

Danny 2

Hack you

When Malcolm Rifkind was chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament he forwarded his work emails to his BT account. I know that because I emailed his parliamentary account at 3am one Saturday and got a reply ten minutes later from his BT account. That and the fact that official US mail servers are so often hacked are reasons I'm sanguine - unimpressed but unsurprised - about US political email leaks.

Nobody should be extradited from the UK to the US unless they are a fugitive US citizen who committed their crimes on US soil. US courts are political, US prisons are barbaric.

I don't believe Russia was involved in the various email hacks, but they were and are definitely mucking around in the US elections. Beating up Assange in a '24' scenario won't affect that, and I suspect it's not intended to. Amnesty International correctly ascribes it as a deliberate 'chilling effect' against journalists.

"The US government’s unrelenting pursuit of Julian Assange for having published disclosed documents that included possible war crimes committed by the US military is nothing short of a full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression,” said Massimo Moratti, Amnesty International’s Deputy Europe Director.

“The potential chilling effect on journalists and others who expose official wrongdoing by publishing information disclosed to them by credible sources could have a profound impact on the public's right to know what their government is up to. All charges against Assange for such activities must be dropped."

Edit to add: Tory MPs all use Signal today. That change is not for state security, it's because they were getting caught out on sexual and financial scandals.

London's Metropolitan Police flip the switch: Smile, fellow citizens... you're undergoing Live Facial Recognition

Danny 2

You buy a pair of spectacles with LEDs. Then you replace the LEDs with IR LEDs. Then you walk around as normal as normal can be, except there is a glare hiding your face on any CCTV.

We solved and deployed this before the Guy Fawkes masks were deployed by the anti Scientologists. I have a couple of related tips if anyone is interested.

'That's here. That's home. That's us': It's 30 years since Voyager 1 looked back and squinted at a 'Pale Blue Dot'

Danny 2

Re: Human curiosity

Sunshine must cause heart failure then.

https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/heart-disease-kills-nearly-one-person-per-day-dundee/

The number of people in Dundee killed by heart disease has risen by almost a fifth in three years to nearly one every single day.

New figures from NHS Scotland revealed that the number of deaths from heart attacks, heart failures or coronary heart disease (CHD) has risen by 19.2% from 280 in 2013 to 334 in 2015.

It’s the highest level reported in six years, above the national average and equivalent to 0.91 deaths a day.

The majority of deaths, 72.1%, were caused by CHD.

Cache me if you can: HDD PC sales collapse in Europe as shoppers say yes siree to SSD

Danny 2

Re: HDD only, here

I politely disagree. I haven't heard an HDD in fifteen years and when I did back then I knew it was because it was about to fail. They often gave you a few reboots to salvage. I have the opposite worry, that an SSD will fail suddenly and silently. I recall reading here that Linus lost a major upgrade due to this.

I'm on the fence. For cheapness and nostalgia I like HDDs. In 1993 I learned how to repair stuck heads in an improvised clean room - a polythene food bag, plastic gloves, and some lubricant (I forget why the lubricant). I loved being able to fix things rather than just replace them, it underlined I was still an engineer.

My phone has a micro SD card that has more storage than any HDD I ever had, but nostalgia. In 1996 I sent my mate in Indonesia a 10Mb HDD with all the songs he'd missed. I contracted around Europe with a bigger HDD in my pocket, the first time I was relieved it survived the customs X Ray.

And just the sheer kudos of the arcaneness - being the only person among more senior engineers who knew how hard disks worked, what a FAT table was, how to use a disk editor was - flattering.

I worked at SWIFT in the late '90s on their first MS project. I was forced to take part in video conference meetings with the Belgians, yet I've been self-isolating since 1989. The project had four clustered servers, mirrored disks, at the time the most bleeding edge implementation. I didn't even want to speak but I was forced to so I told the meeting we had to have disk defragmenting. The meeting leader, a pompous French developer, berated me claiming NT didn't require defrag. I'd done the tests against the benchmarks and provided them. He smeared me so I shut up. I was correct though.

A couple of months later I left the job, but I made a point of phoning up the con and berating him and his French team for being frauds, and whatever French university that had credited them as frauds.

Iowa has already won the worst IT rollout award of 2020: Rap for crap caucus app chaps in vote zap flap

Danny 2

Re: The Fiasco

The Company That Botched the Iowa Caucus Was Formed Only Months Ago

The company’s core team, led by CEO Gerard Niemira, is made up of veterans of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency in 2016...Gerard Niemira, the CEO of Shadow, was the director of product for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, working on voter-outreach tools...That’s one reason clarifying the relationship between Shadow and Acronym is important. McGowan’s husband, Michael Halle, was Hillary Clinton’s lead organizer in Iowa, and has deep links to the state-party infrastructure. For those upset by the caucus situation—particularly Bernie Sanders supporters who have long had beef with the Democratic hierarchy—the fact that Halle is now a Buttigieg adviser won’t do anything to tamp down their anger. Ben Halle, Michael’s brother, is Buttigieg’s Iowa communications director

Danny 2

Re: Don't blame the users for the app failure

I'll take you and the reporters word for Nevada. I'm emailing someone from Arizona and may have suffered brain-leak.

Let's hope they have a Plan C. The app failure looks like a self-inflicted injury but next time it makes the phone lines an easily compromised 'single point of failure'.

Danny 2

Re: So why are you so undemocratic?

I have no wish to strive for pareto optimality. I wish for a better off person to want to help a poorer person.

Your conflict seems inherently greedy and humans are a pack animal with an inherited sense of justice even dogs have. I used to pay 50% tax, and I know I could have clawed most of that back but I felt it was fair that I paid more than the less able.

I'm an anarchist so I'm not suggesting the voting systems I've proposed are just or perfect, just better than what happens in the US today. And indeed in the UK today.

For the record I didn't down vote you because you made a valid argument worth disagreeing with.

Danny 2

Re: Don't blame the users for the app failure

I fully agree, the Labour leadership should just be elected by Labour party members. Instead it's a combination of them, the existing MPs and major unions.

The Tory party is worse, BoJo was originally made PM by around 90,000 party member votes, 30,000 of whom had just joined for that vote. He later got elected in a General Election, which is more sensible than the US system(s) but still. First Past the Post is silly. You need to look to Scotland for sensible voting systems.

Danny 2

Don't blame the users for the app failure

"That was fine for the occasional 20-something that acted as a caucus chair and who is perfectly comfortable with downloading and trying out new smartphone apps"

Misplaced ageism. TV news reported one precinct manager was 18 years old and he couldn't use it due to an opaque error message.

I thought it was Arizona rather than Nevada that also plans to use the app on the 22nd, but the solution is obvious - have a well staffed office with enough phone lines as a backup. That's what really failed in Iowa.

As a tech guy I have to say the best elections have the least tech.

As a Brit constantly learning more about the obscure and arcane framework of US politics, just WTF? Let me get this straight. You have to register with a party to get a vote, fair enough. Then you have to turn up in a wee room to cast a vote. Then if your chosen candidate doesn't make the top two in that wee room then you have to vote for someone else. Then the room vote is eventually phoned in to the state tally, and the number of delegates depends on those totals That is so 17th century.

Here's an idea, a single transferable vote nationwide on a paper ballot on a single night. Everyone eligible rates the candidates from best to worst. The popular vote wins once the ballots are hand counted. All over in a couple of days.

School's out as ransomware attack downs IT systems at Scotland's Dundee and Angus College

Danny 2

Re: "mass panic worse than the coronavirus"

Ta David.

Before I considered myself a Scottish engineer I thought of myself a Scottish poet. Scotland had already given the world it's worst poet and it's best poet, so I was always going to be mediocre.

The coronavirus has panicked me into considering washing my hands.

Danny 2

"mass panic worse than the coronavirus"

It must have been an awful sight,

To witness in the dusky moonlight,

While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,

Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,

Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,

I must now conclude my lay

By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,

That your central girders would not have given way,

At least many sensible men do say,

Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,

At least many sensible men confesses,

For the stronger we our houses do build,

The less chance we have of being killed.

Artful prankster creates Google Maps traffic jams by walking a cartful of old phones around Berlin

Danny 2

Re: Iowa Caucuses Cauc-Up App

Wolf Blitzer: Shawn Sebastian is joining us just now from Story County, he's a precinct secretary out there, what can you tell us about this delay in getting any results, Sean?

Shawn Sebastian: Well, Wolf, I have been on hold for over an hour with the Iowa Democratic Party. They tried to I think promote an app to report the results. The app by all accounts just doesn't work so we've been recommended to call into the hotline and the hotline has not been responsive.

Wolf Blitzer: Sean, have you got any explanation at all as to what's been going on?

Shawn Sebastian: No, I have not, no. I'm just waiting on hold and doing my best to report the results from my precinct.

Wolf Blitzer: What are you hearing? I know you're listening to a conversation from the Iowa Democratic party.

Shawn Sebastian: Umm...

Hotline: Can I help you?

Shawn Sebastian: This is a coincidence Wolf, I just got off hold just now,

Hotline: Hello?

Shawn Sebastian: So I've got to get off the phone to report the results

Wolf Blitzer: Go ahead and report your results, can...

Hotline: Hello?

Wolf Blitzer: ...we listen in as you report them, Sean?

Hotline: [Click]

Shawn Sebastian: Yep

Wolf Blitzer: Let's listen in

Shawn Sebastian: Alright. Okay. Hi, hello? They hung up on me. Shhiii...they hung up on me. Okay, I've got to get back in line on hold. They just hung up.

Danny 2

Iowa Caucuses Cauc-Up App

The Iowa Dem caucus results were due in an hour ago. Apparently they are voting by a smartphone app! And surprise, surprise...

https://xkcd.com/2030/

Quote of the night: "We've been recommended to call in to the hotline and the hotline has been...unresponsive" - Shawn Sebastian, Story County Precinct Secretary.

'US Democracy. Have you tried turning it off and on again?'

Danny 2

Pi Streamer

Singers and songwriters get little recompense from music streaming services. I'm thinking of setting up an RPi to constantly stream my favourite poor artists just to get them extra micro-payments. I've more bandwidth than time.

Star wreck: There's a 1 in 20 chance a NASA telescope and US military satellite will smash into each other today

Danny 2

Faces of Death

The mondo-porn website Live Leaks published CCTV footage of a guy jumping in front of a high speed train, I think in a Moscow underground station. Very successful suicide attempt from his point of view. I suppose the guy expected to be splattered harmlessly. What actually happened is his corpse bounced off the train and took out two other people waiting on the platform at roughly the same speed the train was going. Accidental homicide by suicide - and that's not even the worst thing I've seen on that website.

I'm a big believer in assisted suicide and companies like Dignitas because people are so awful at it. Suicide should be illegal for anyone that doesn't have a qualification in chemistry, physics or biology. At least put up signs at train stations, "If you are going to jump in front of a train, please do it at the end of the platform not at the start."

Who honestly has a crown prince in their threat model? UN report officially fingers Saudi royal as Bezos hacker

Danny 2

Re: Ethical Hacking

Ironies intended as humour I thought would be obvious even to Americans:

"Only $35 billion"

"We are all super-rich in IT"

MBS as "a poor Arab kid working at his dad's petrol station"

The rest of it was serious though.

Danny 2

How a video can be delivered through "an encrypted downloader hosted on WhatsApp’s media server" ?

This is what VICE writes (and report too):

Hiya. First, this is El Reg and so we can't quote Vice (or the Daily Mail) as a source.

Ta for your thanks for an explanation. The "encrypted downloader" is a red herring. Any good hacking tool can remove traces of itself from the version it leaves behind. Blame Ken Thompson.

Danny 2

Ethical Hacking

Bezos not only cheated on his wife, he cheated her out of a fair divorce settlement - she only got $35b while his net worth is still $115b.

We are all super-rich in IT, so it's understandable that a poor Arab kid working at his dad's petrol station would try to hack us to expose our moral failings.

Good folk of Forfar: Alan Hattel would like you all to know he's not dead despite what it says on his tombstone

Danny 2

Re: He need some new friends

It'll be in the local paper obits.

I was devastated when Sammy Squirrel from the West Lothian Courier told me my first love had married. I fear the day when Sammy tells me she's died.

Danny 2

Two days to Burns Night

I've never prematurely buried an ex before. Wish I'd thought of it.

The Burns Unit - Since We've Fallen Out

You've quit town

Ahead of me

We've fallen out

At least on this we're agreed

So don't come around

No checking up on me

Since we've fallen out

I've been left here to seethe

And your enemies

Became my closest friends

Since we've fallen out

Fallen right over the edge

My patience wore

And my temper thinned

Since we've fallen out

Never to make up again

Never to make up again

Such a waste of a friendship

Since we've fallen out

Spiralled out of existence

So forget that we happened

I've picked over the bones

Since we've fallen out

I've tortured and torn

My soul from its core

My soul is ripped from its core

Since we've fallen out

I don't believe anymore

Unlocking news: We decrypt those cryptic headlines about Scottish cops bypassing smartphone encryption

Danny 2

Re: People SUSPECTED of a Crime

Also apart from being arrested there is being prosecuted and then being convicted, completely different things.

I was once arrested on 'suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage' at 'RAF' Menwith Hill. Released at the end of the day 70 miles away. You have to laugh at any crime called 'suspicion of conspiracy' no matter how much they deliberately endanger you.

I've been prosecuted a fair few times, only convicted (well, admonished) once and that time I was actually guilty. Breach of the Peace, which basically means anything that isn't an actual crime but we still want to charge you for. The irony of charging a peace protestor with Breach of the Peace, well, I pled guilty and was still released.

Never get arrested on a Friday, you are in the cells until Monday. If you smoke then put on a nicotine patch before your arrest, they confiscate nicotine chewing gum now.

Edit: For US readers, I confessed to all my crimes to the cops here, and I know of people/protestors in the US who did far less than me there and are serving many years in your much more horrific prisons. You need to get a grip on that.

Danny 2

Re: What the fuck is...no comment

I appreciate your comment, truly, but I think things are getting worse. As evidence I'd cite this article.

Danny 2

Re: What the fuck is...no comment

I was beaten up as a 17 year old at a party by a psycho with a bottle of Martini. Still can't drink Martini. I was sitting missing teeth and my skull fractured next to two cops in A&E who asked what had happened to me. They recommended I buy baseball bats, get some mates, and bash the psychos head in. They gave me their names and badge numbers in case I got caught as they'd get me off any charges.

I could've done that but Asimov wrote violence was the last refuge of the incompetent.

I soon regretted that choice because the same psycho hospitalised another nice guy two months later. I kind of preferred 1980s policing, DIY justice.

Worse for my first employer, they'd hired a clean cut kid and the next month I turned up looking like a war veteran.

I disagree with you about XR - I'm not a fan but I have donated kit and advice because I think they are correct on their cause. They are not terrorists - they couldn't scare a bairn if they tried, and they would not say boo to a baby. If the word terrorist and terrorism laws mean anything then reserve them for people who are intent on killing folk.

Danny 2

What the fuck is...no comment

Ignore the pro/anti Scottish comments as irrelevant, this is a British issue. For institutional background, Strathclyde Police was one of the nastiest police forces in the UK (except the MET and City of London and Cleveland Constabulary) and it became Police Scotland in a takeover of the other Scottish forces, but Lothian and Borders Police weren't much better.

My background is I was an accidental peace protestor for four years, wrongly blacklisted from IT a year before I decided to be an actual protestor. I was pressured into stopping any activism by police informers/infiltrators one of whom claimed to be MI5. The way they pressured me was raids/visits on my elderly parents home, I lost count in double figures. They knew I didn't live there but they knew that would be damaging to me - gangster tactics imo.

Most raids on my parental house were within hours of me visiting them. I had an old 2G phone during most of that time. I put in an official complaint on the last raid, because it damaged my parents health, and I got a sham 'inquiry'. I pointed out it was obvious they were using their tracking of my phone to time their raids and was laughed at because "That's ridiculous, that would be too expensive, we don't have the budget".

They also said if I pursued the complaint they would have to visit my parents repeatedly to pursue my complaint that they were visiting my parents repeatedly.

I've a letter from them saying I was questioned as a terrorist in 2007. Pacifist. Just today Greenpeace have been listed as terrorists, and last week Extinction Rebellion were. Not my cause but yeah, ha to the governments greenwashing claims.

Scotland is a police state. Britain is a police state. The police are riddled by fascists, masons, and other kow-towers to the aristocracy - not our best and brightest. Not all police are bastards. I've been in cells far too often but I've never been sent to prison, and certain cops could have sent me to prison but chose not to. The highest ranks are bastards though.

My Chinese New Year resolution is to comment less here so often and give more tech advice to the climate newbies.

From Soviet to science fiction icon, the weird life of Isaac Asimov 100 years on

Danny 2

Re: My experience with Dr. Asimov

"Jailbait has nothing to do with rape... but under the age of consent."

Under the age of consent is rape. If you can't consent then it is rape. If you are under the legal age of consent then it is rape because you can't legally give consent.

Jailbait is only jailbait because it is rape.

Oh, and for the record this behaviour was never societally acceptable in the 1970s or 1980s. Benny Hill wasn't a rapist, he wasn't a signal. Sir Jimmy Saville was a child rapist, and it wasn't societally acceptable then. You can't blame the attitudes of the 1970s for 1970s criminals because in some ways societies attitudes have regressed.

Danny 2

Re: My experience with Dr. Asimov

Stevie, that was my point too.

I watched a US TV film thing yesterday that had a Gary Glitter song in it, not for the first time. Unlike Michael Jackson and many others celebrity 'creators' Paul Gadd was convicted and yet his dubious work is still in popular culture earning someone royalties.

There is a philosophical argument about the work of monstrous humans and how we approach it, but in my opinion there should be no argument over profiting from it.

I'd be offended by Gary Glitter the Musical, but I'd be appalled by Paul Gadd profiting from it.

Danny 2

A fair few folk have mentioned Arthur C Clarke

[Disclaimer: Totally innocent according to Sri Lankan police who were about to be participants in genocide]

Each time I see a little boy

Of five or six or seven

I can't resist a joyous urge

To smile and say

Thank heaven for little boys

For little boys get

Bigger every day

Thank heaven for little boys

They grow up in

The most delightful way.

Those little eyes

So helpless and appealing

When they were flashing

Send you crashing

Through the ceiling

Thank heaven for little boys

Thank heaven for them all

No matter where,

No matter who

Without them

What would elderly scifi writers do

Thank heaven

Thank heaven

Thank heaven for little boys.

I know this is an unpopular view but being a good story teller or whatever, being old or dead, is no excuse for causing harm to others. Me, I wouldn't sexually molest a fly.

Danny 2

Re: My experience with Dr. Asimov

"Classic jailbait"‽ You mean she was tempting him into raping her because she was a pretty child, and you'd sympathise with him if he had?

This metoo# movement must be as confusing to you as it is to your pussy grabbing President.

Danny 2

I have no mouse and I must squeak

But there was a darker side, which some would argue (as Harlan Ellison did) was simply the way things were done back then.

Oh, Harlan. To quote Mandy Rice-Davies, "He would say that, wouldn't he."

If any young singletons have read this thread, don't alphabetise your sci-fi books. Any sane girl, except librarians, will run in horror and you'll either be nominated for a Darwin Award or polluting the gene pool. Leave them in random order, and interspersed with other books you don't even have to read or like. Give the impression of normality. Plus it makes looking for a book more fun.

National Lottery Sentry MBA hacker given nine months in jail after swiping just £5

Danny 2

I heart the comments here

It's life affirming that not everyone is as irrational as other forums suggest.

My first love is now a small business owner who recently told me she'd sacked an employee for stealing from her till and stealing a charity box. I think she expected me to side with the thief but I told her the sacking was just and I would have called the cops for the charity box. My first loves complaint is she pays twenty times more in local taxes than the shops across the road.

It's worth bearing in mind that a year in prison costs tax payers circa £45k.

I have a funny anecdote about a Spanish girl who was taken to court for eating a policeman's sandwich after he arrested her for shop lifting a sandwich. She got off after calling him 'a fat peeg' in court, partly because he was portly. I got her benefits in the UK after a year of her sleeping rough and being wrongly told by the DWP that she didn't qualify for benefits here.

We live in an irrational society full of irrational systems. It's your job to fix that.

What was Boeing through their heads? Emails show staff wouldn't put their families on a 737 Max over safety fears

Danny 2

Re: CAA 101

Well, first you take a slow boat to Mandalay.

Danny 2

CAA 101

The first lesson I learned subcontracting at the CAA was not to answer when anyone excitedly asked me, "What flight were you on?"

They'd always respond with some scary tale. There are far more near misses than are reported. Yet the CAA staff still fly using their employee benefits.

I'm not scared of dying in an aircrash, been in a non-fatal one so I know, but everyone else was and I'm surprised so many still fly for no good reason.

Check if your flight is over a war zone. If so, delay or take the train. You can look and tell a Boeing 737 Max visually, and weigh your life against the ticket price.

I don't think Boeing will exist in five years. Nobody trusts the FAA today. All the adults have left the Whitehouse.

Ring of fired: Amazon axes multiple workers who secretly snooped on netizens' surveillance camera footage

Danny 2

"what would the scummy company likely do?"

I think it is a legal necessity that all companies have to be be scummy. Prioritise profits over anything else within other laws.

There are lurking lawyers who post here on occasion, hopefully one of them will contribute now.

Whatever, whenever there is a corporate blunder there is always a sacrifice made to the gods - sometimes the babies, sometimes the elders. I've never even seen a goat.

Having trouble finding a job in your 40s? Study shows some bosses like job applicants... up until they see dates of birth

Danny 2

Dell, Limerick

First time I encountered ageism at an interview:

"You're 32. The average age here is 27. Do you really think you'd be able to fit in?"

"Well the best places I've worked have had a wide age range from teenagers to sixty somethings because they bring different attributes."

The gobshites didn't even pay my promised travel expenses. I told that to my later bosses who were all older than me and none of them ever bought Dell again.

Don't put your age on your CV, dye your hair, leave your first ten years of work off. IT isn't the most ageist industry, that would be modelling or football, but we are up there.

GCHQ: A cyber-what-now? Rumours of our probe into London Stock Exchange 'cyberattack' have been greatly exaggerated

Danny 2

FTFY

The Wall Street Journal, ̶n̶o̶r̶m̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ once a reliable source for news

In fact, isn't this stolen from the plot of Messiah? Netflix should sue. Next there will be someone killed in the middle east after travelling to the border of Israel and Syria...

It's always DNS, especially when you're on holiday with nothing but a phone on GPRS

Danny 2

Re: It was a quiet Friday night and I wasn't on call,

I was engaged to be married to the most lovely Amsterdammer but was put on call in the Netherlands by an incompetent US boss. Months before the project went live and was still in test. Other end of the country so we had to live apart. I had to cycle three miles to work whenever the phone rang. Cycling for a Scot, it's like bungee jumping if you are English, it's a wee bit of a shock to the system at 3am.

Then I had to diagnose clustered NT Exchange servers, while I hadn't yet been given any Exchange course or even advice. The blue dots are doing this, the yellow dots are doing that, and are the red dots just in my eyes?

Reader, I didn't marry her. Got the fuck out of dodge.

I think I was only hired as a joke by the sardonic Dutch. He was fat as a gas giant, I was skinny as a rake, he was Denny, I was Danny. That's Dutch humour.

He eventually put us both on an Exchange course in Edinburgh, asked me to pick him up at his hotel at half seven, drive him there. Which I did, but he was furious at me when I arrived.

"I've been waiting an hour"

"You told me to come at half seven"

"But half seven is 6:30 in Dutch"

"I know, but I'm not Dutch and this isn't the Netherlands"

TikTok boom: US Army bans squaddies from using trendy app on govt-issued phones

Danny 2

'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman

I've obviously posted this here before as the title appeared after Rep. I should really clear my cookies or refresh my memory.

So instead I'll post this: Russia bans smartphones for soldiers over social media fears

I was tempted to go with the RN sailors crying in Iran because their iPods were seized, but apparently we are at war now.

Hey, who else applied to work for Dominic Cummings at No.10? I'll show you my application if you show me yours.

Y2K? It was all just a big bun-fight, according to one Reg reader

Danny 2

Bad day

The excuse-to-overspend comments here is why Y2K is widely perceived as a swindle, and that has harmed our profession and IT budgets since. Like most folk I spent a lot of time testing and fixing a genuine problem on standard recompense.

If you chancers try to pull this again on the next date then at least let a few planes fall out of the sky, maybe make one nuke explode.

No Motorola Razr comeback orders in 2019: Costly foldy nostalgia mobe pulled back

Danny 2

Re: The Original Razr Rocked...

Downvoted (sorry) because define 'decent'. Plenty of BR-50's out there.

Danny 2

Peddle has hit the metal

Chuck Peddle, the designer of the 6502 processor, has died. Just to prove Motorola over-pricing isn't new, this from Wikipedia:

In 1973, Peddle worked at Motorola on the development of the 6800 processor.

Peddle recognized a market for an ultra-low-price microprocessor and began to champion such a design to complement the $300 Motorola 6800. His efforts were frustrated by Motorola management and he was told to drop the project. He then left for MOS Technology, where he headed the design of the 650x family of processors; these were made as a $25 answer to the Motorola 6800. The most famous member of the 650x series was the 6502, developed in 1975, which was priced at 15% of the cost of an Intel 8080, and was subsequently used in many commercial products, including the Apple II, Commodore VIC-20, Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 8-bit computers and arcade video games, Oric computers, and the BBC Micro from Acorn Computers.

A sprinkling of Star Wars and a dash of Jedi equals a slightly underbaked Rise Of Skywalker

Danny 2

Re: No surprise there then

They're remaking Dune
Star Wars was a remake of Dune, before Dune was made.

The time PC Tools spared an aerospace techie the blushes

Danny 2

Back when Rick and Morty had just finished their 'Back to the Future' franchise

I had a yellow plastic utilities boot disk and a red plastic utilities boot disk, so the people knew how much trouble they were in. PC-Tools, XTree, Norton Utilities, Laplink (with a RS232 cable as few parallel connectors existed), various odds and sods routines and drivers.

I had legal copies of all the software but couldn't risk those disks in other peoples drives.