* Posts by Danny 2

2212 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jul 2009

Be still, our drinking hearts: Help Reg name whisky beast conjured by Swedish distillers and AI blendbot

Danny 2

Re: Mr.

I was talking to a wry Scottish vegan ecologist about why vegans can't eat honey when it seemed to me it was mostly a workers rights issue (more honey, shorter flowers). Apparently bees are forced to die to make our honey. Like we force them to back to their factory.

"Bees are essential", I said, "but what how would you feel about using science to wipe out useless parasitic species such as the midge? Bats eat them but bats eat other things too, midges just make other species lives hell"

"Ah, no", she replied. "Midges play a vital part in Scotland's ecosystem. If we didn't have midges then we'd be over run with English tourists".

[I feel I may have told that anecdote here before. I keep telling the same folk the same stories until they get sick of me and I'm thinking I should just write my 1001 shitey anecdotes down in a blog. I used to use Wordpress for a different purpose but can anyone here recommend a similar web tool that isn't so surveillancy?]

Despite billions in spending, your 'military grade' network will still be leaking data

Danny 2

Re: Convenience will always win

I worked somewhere where they disabled USB ports with wire cutters. No port, no problem.

I've made awfully stupid mistakes in my own life though by trying to rush things out of impatience rather than taking my time. A VoIP call to my secret lover who was an activist, a mobile call from a Lothario activist who fancied her, and an unexpected landline call from the police. Wrong information to the wrong people, classic theatrical fiasco.

On the plus side I am very good at saying no comment when pressurised to give information. Ask me anything!

Army Watchkeeper drone flopped into tree because crew were gazing backwards

Danny 2

Thales Kill Whales

Oui, I know now the pronunciation doesn't rhyme. Thall Ess. A deaf whale is a dead whale and Low Frequency Active SONAR kills whales wasn't a great slogan. My idea was to fill two six foot inflatable plastic whales with helium, cover them with rape alarms, and leave them tethered outside a Thales office. It/they didn't float, too heavy for the helium.

Now I've got a six foot inflatable whale in my four foot bath, and a wee lass in Dumfries has, god knows, she is a grown woman now.

I met a single mother peace protestor on the beach at Coulport playing with her two toddlers when I was trying to unload this six foot inflatable whale so I said, "I've got a six foot inflatable whale if you want it."

Her response was quite funny. "Oh, I bet you say that to all the girls."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson moves to shut Parliament

Danny 2

Sorry, hoor

I voted Brexit partly because I thought the ensuing chaos would break up the UK. Apologies everyone, but this is going better/worse than I ever imagined.

You ken, you could all just come up to Scotland and live here for two years and we'd count you as Scots. We have a very low bar of inclusivity today. Just don't mention cricket or support the English football team over the Scottish one, maybe try to learn a few local words and adapt to the accent.

Ruth Davidson resigning has robbed the Tories of ten seats up here next election.

Apple says sorry for Siri slurping voice commands of unsuspecting users

Danny 2

No!

I don't want anyone else hearing me having sex with my partner, not even my partner. I was brought up in an age where we had to keep quiet so as to not alert parents so I am silent, but...too much information.

The most beautiful girl I ever had sex with would say 'No' when she was reaching climax. I was raised a feminist so no means no, and I'd stop to check she was okay. She tried to explain she didn't mean no, but I couldn't get past no means no. I tried to get her to say Yes or God or anything, but my worst love life ever.

Edit: I was a contractor at her company and I didn't know if she fancied me because I had a big company car and told her bosses what to do, so I quit my job to find out. It was the job. I kind of knew, but I was thinking of proposing so I had to find out.

Brits are sitting on a time bomb of 40m old electronic devices that ought to be recycled

Danny 2

Re: Fake News

"Added to this there are large swathes in India where the natives drink the stuff, to the detriment of their health since the ground water is heavily, and naturally contaminated with the stuff."

Mostly Bangladesh. It's the biggest mass poisoning in history. Today we call them locals, not natives, especially since Britain kept slavery alive there after we banned it in the rest of our former empire.

The British Geological Society is heavily complicit in that tragedy.

I took a year out to develop a water filter system for that, never got it developed because someone in California had already patented the same design for yachts and didn't want to share it. Patent law is a killer.

You monsters: Screen time murders your kid's imaginary friend – until they reach school age

Danny 2

Re: Celebrity Imaginary Friends

I used to listen to him under my bed covers on John Peel and bought his first album. Then I assumed he died because I was young, until he played my 40th birthday party

He is getting old now and so is his music. He latest music is by his own admission/ humble brag the best he has ever done - it really is. He is playing the 'early music' show at St Cecilia's hall in the Cowgate, Edinburgh on Friday. Scotland's oldest music venue, very ornate and proper. All 17th century instruments on a punk performance about the ranters and the levellers. Civil war stuff.

His poetry has improved too. I always liked it but it is just expletive/superlative now. I got him on BBC R4's Poetry Please with a long poem about his mother's dementia. Gut wrenching. He still plays everywhere all the time, over 3,000 gigs under his belt so you have no excuse not to see him. And talk to him, he is just the nicest guy ever.

Here is a taster, his shortest poem:

All Lost in The Supermarket

I don't want cash back

I just want The Clash back

That may seem jokey but most of his work is online for free, and it is more serious and in-depth. I could copy it or link to it but that could seem like advertising.

Danny 2

Celebrity Imaginary Friends

I was shown a TV play at school where a young lad thought a radio DJ was his friend. The reveal was the boy was Sid Vicious and the DJ was John Peel. At the time the older folk I most respected were Attila the Stockbroker and David Balfe. I imagined hard enough and now Attila is staying in my flat and he introduced me to Balfie on email. Admittedly you youngsters may have to look up all those names but for me they are a big deal.

My point is it's not the media, it's universal and timeless. Feeling connected with people in stories. The trick is to have good stories to imagine about. And ta to the internet, it is easier than ever to contact and connect with imaginary celebrity friends. Like, I've had actual normal friends who in fact were pretty poor friends in the long run, so were they imaginary friends? A friendship that ends never was.

One thing that consoles me when I get abuse on other internet forums is that I know for a fact I'm best friends with everyone on The Register. Maybe delusional but please don't burst that balloon.

Huawei goes all Art of War on us: Switches on 'battle mode' and vows to 'dominate the world'

Danny 2

Re: no longer required US components

When I was 21 I had five 17 year old apprentices in an electronics factory. I got two or three good anecdotes from that, here is one.

One of them had a great grandfather in the British Army force in Russia fighting the Reds in support of the Whites, and he took photographs that my boy brought in to show us. They were of mass slaughter, mass hangings, torture and decapitations. That sort of stuff.

My first reaction was to say, "You do know he was a war criminal, right?"

"Oh no, his unit just came across these scenes and he photographed them. They'd been committed by the Bolsheviks before they fled, and they just wanted to document it."

"So, this photo when they are all sitting smiling in a group for the camera and holding up severed heads, that was for history?"

Britain committed undocumented war crimes in Russia at the start of the 20th century. Less than a hundred years ago. And not just there, Tibet, Afghanistan, China, India.

I'm amazed the rest of the world doesn't treat us the way we treat Germans and Japanese.

[One of my great grandfathers fought in an Afghan war. And in India. Economic recruit. Bred with his sister]

RIP Danny Cohen: The computer scientist who gave world endianness meets his end aged 81

Danny 2

Re: Flat Earth Society?

I'm a Reverend in the Universal Life Church. I can marry you in certain US states but I lost interest when I was told I needed your permission. Of course it was a joke.

In my twenties I was a small endian but in my forties I became a big endian.

I've yet to see a realistic flight simulator - one with passengers panicking, screaming and vomiting when you lose control. I speak from experience there.

All the media report the best joke of the Edinburgh Fringe. It used to be mostly an arts and music festival, and the headlines would be 'best play of the Fringe'. Best joke of the Fringe was 1989, Will Durst, I forget the joke but it was better than anything I've heard since. He picked on audience members but he was gentle with them, friendly and apologetic.

Best joke of the Fringe this year, apparently, was a pun on tourettes and florets. The funny thing the Tourettes Society went ballistic at the comedian and demanded an apology. I can't imagine the language they used.

It will never be safe to turn off your computer: Prankster harnesses the power of Windows 95 to torment fellow students

Danny 2

I was hospitalised by a psycho BOFH fan

He rigged a monitor grounding plate to 17,500 volts and asked me to work on it. I survived, barely, and it was covered up so I couldn't prove anything, but I keep track of where he lives and he is top of my bucket list. There is a longer version of this story but I'll save it for when I am caught.

When you write a jokey column it's maybe worth bearing in mind that some of your readers will actually be psychopaths.

And you thought the cops were bad... Civil rights group warns of facial recog 'epidemic' across UK private sites

Danny 2

Hypocratic oath for maths and tech

Off topic again, doubly sorry but I can't email a funny story securely so I read this:

Maths and tech specialists need Hippocratic oath, says academic

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/16/mathematicians-need-doctor-style-hippocratic-oath-says-academic-hannah-fry

How did that oath work for Dr Shipman and Dr Mengele?

On the other hand my crappy tech college snuck ethics into our classroom. They left six old copies of Plato's The Republic in the bin in our portacabin, and naturally we stole them and prized them. I also read Russell's History of Western Philosophy in the weeks before my Electronics exams, and still passed.

Logic unites science and philosophy. Oaths, not so much. I promise you.

Danny 2

ProtonMail outage

Off topic, sorry, but ProtonMail seems to be either underattack or just plain failing just now. Not just me, I checked.

By chance I only noticed because I was about to email a communist to grass up my mum for being inadvertently racist. It is a fairly funny anecdote but two too many racial smears to publish here.

"Account temporarily unavailable. Please try again in a few minutes"

On and off for the past hour, longer for others. Kind of security related since the last time this happened it was totally GCHQ.

If you are going to use ProtonMail for the next 24 hours then maybe don't grass up your mum.

All roads in US cable biz GTT's Brit network seem to lead to Menwith Hill

Danny 2

Re: They spy on us we spy on them

Are you Dutch? That is an old Dutch saying.

It honestly makes little sense in the UK. They spy on us and we have no idea who they are or how they are spying on us.

I mean, it is a nice idea, but the spying and tech bias tends heavily to the state.

Danny 2

I was arrested at Menwith Hill at the Independence From America demo over a decade ago. The Guardian called me an ingenious young man, one third correct. Undercover PC Lynne Watson had chatted me up to join my ironically 'unarrestable' group. I think I was the first male to be the subject of a female police seduction this century- Readers, she failed.

Great to see El Reg covering this! Beware of plain boring women trying to seduce you.

It was the one time in my life I ever had to beg, for 20p for a phone call, and I was homeless for ages. I was in Leeds and the police arrested me and released without charge in York. Not adjacent! Not effing close.

Y'know how everyone hated it when tuition fees went up? Cutting them now could harm science, say UK Lords

Danny 2

Re: Not a UK issue

I take your point, presumably someone pays for my prescriptions too - just not me.

I applied for a masters in electronics, and Heriot-Watt rejected me over the phone because I didn't have a degree. They were really quite rude about it, saying I'd never pass and it would be a waste of their time and resources.

I told them my employer would be paying for it in full, and they replied I was in. The instant volte face showed me the shameless money grabbing aspect of further education.

Danny 2

Not a UK issue

There are still no university fees in Scotland. Unless you are English, and even then you qualify as Scottish if you live here for two years.

I'm not being smug, I couldn't even afford a free university education.

Cloudflare punts far-right hate-hole 8chan off the internet after 30 slayed in US mass shootings

Danny 2

Re: inspired by 8chan

Remember, far more US citizens have been shot dead this year than 911 and the Oklahoma bombing combined. What is it, nearly 9,000? And it's still just August.

Danny 2

Re: Guns or the people using them?

Anecdotal, but if me, my sisters, cousins, parents or classmates had easy access to guns then most of us would be dead. I learned how to shoot as a child in the centre of Edinburgh but the guns and bullets were kept locked up. Thankfully.

The NSA's own bastard operator from Hell, aka Edward Snowden, puts out memoir next month

Danny 2

8chan

Some Anonymous twat once threatened to set 4chan on me because I'd criticised their decision to use the identifiable Low Orbit Whatever. I told them to have sex with themselves before they all got arrested. They mostly all got arrested. Now there are mainstream calls for 8chan to be closed down.

8chan: the far-right website linked to the rise in hate crimes

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/04/mass-shootings-el-paso-texas-dayton-ohio-8chan-far-right-website

Admittedly tangential but The Grauniad did eff over Snowden with its coverage of, well, Snowden. Look forward to his story of his story.

German privacy probe orders Google to stop listening in on voice recordings for 3 months

Danny 2

Free phone calls

I bought two Google Minis for me and my parents for £48 mostly because you can make free phone calls on them. I've taught my parents to leave it unplugged unless they are using it. Speech recognition is scarily accurate, when I bought the first Dragon Dictate it could understand my dad but not my accent. Free phone calls though, why can't BT do that from phone boxes?

Broadcom billionaire Henry Nicholas and pal on drugs rap cough up $1m to avoid the clink

Danny 2

Trouble is...

What they were charged with is not all that they should have been charged with. They dosed peoples drinks with MDMA.

A "friend" dosed my Guinness with LSD for a laugh. I liked Guinness and I liked LSD. I also liked knowing what state I was in and who I could trust. I'm going to beat that guy up any year now.

Pi in the sky as ESA starts testing encrypted comms on International Space Station

Danny 2

"LOL memory, for Little Old Lady memory"

Brilliant. I never knew what LOL meant. There are a lot of little old ladies online.

New UK Home Sec invokes infosec nerd rage by calling for an end to end-to-end encryption

Danny 2

Re: Estonia tells you who in government has been looking at your data

Estonian citizen smartcards are made by Gemalto - I used to work for NewsGem, their Murdoch Sky News branch. They were specifically targetted by our security services. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/19/nsa-gchq-sim-card-billions-cellphones-hacking

They were also hit by this flaw: https://www.ft.com/content/874359dc-925b-11e7-a9e6-11d2f0ebb7f0

Everyone has been looking at Estonian data.

He's coming home, he's coming... Hutchins' coming home: British Wannacry killer held in US on malware dev rap set free by judge

Danny 2

Re: Excellent news, my best wishes for his future BUT...

I've got it. This is THE BAD PLACE!

Brit infosec firms urge PM Boris to reform the Computer Misuse Act

Danny 2

WannaCry

I want to cry every time I read about Westminster legislating on IT, but quick survey, is Marcus Hutchins ethical or a baddie?

Hell hath no fury like a radar engineer scorned

Danny 2

Re: Concrete Tornado

Thanks to Jonathon Green, Allonymous Coward, David Neil, and ridley for both the confirmation and the correction to my second hand story.

At college in the late eighties my Ferranti classmates were still being made to learn about valves (valve amplifiers) which they still claimed were superior to transistors. Ferranti even tried to get it made part of the curriculum, though our employers insisted on microprocessor coding.

Danny 2

Concrete Tornado

I was at college with Ferranti apprentices who told me this story - I admit it may be fictional but it's not my fiction, they believed it and it seems credible to me. The nose-cone of the Tornado was meant to house a Ferranti radar but they mucked up metric and imperial and had to house it in the back of the aircraft. To balance it out they had to put some concrete in the nose-cone.

It amuses me that state of the art aircraft were flying around with concrete ballast due to a measuring error. I find that credible because similar mistakes were made in my company.

Brilliant Boston boffins blow big borehole in Bluetooth's ballyhooed barricades: MAC addy randomization broken

Danny 2

Re: Dear Danny_2

There are a few obvious problems with anonymity, such as it's easily astroturfed. That's why when I speak out in favour of anonymity I put my name to it. To portray me as anti-privacy is silly. My surname isn't really 2, and I trust El Reg more than I trust the readers of El Reg. No offence.

There are obvious tech reasons why a unique identifier on any network was useful; there are obvious socio-political reasons today why it is dangerous. This article isn't about whether MAC addresses should be spoofed or not, it is about a flaw in one corporations spoofing. DIY.

Danny 2

Re: I still think...

I was the second person to downvote you, seconds ago, and the reason was you posted anonymously while decryng anonymity. If you had posted that under your username then I wouldn't have downvoted you.

I could explain every downvote I make - very few, mostly upvotes all round - but that would be boring for everyone else. You were downvoted this time for hypocrisy on anonymity - no offence, just so you know.

Literally rings our bell: Scottish eggheads snap quantum entanglement for the first time

Danny 2

Photograph or it didn't happen

Okay, you have a photograph.

XKCD cartoon or I won't understand it.

US border cops' secret racist Facebook group a total disgrace, says patrol chief. She should know, she was a member

Danny 2

Re: DHS: part of the ratchet effect?

I'd go with apparatus, like sheep.

The limitation of free speech is still cloudy. It's illegal to shout 'Fire!' into a crowded theatre, even if the theatre is on fire, but is it illegal to shout, "Please make your way to the nearest exit, while ignoring the smoke and flame"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_ratchet#Why_it_fails

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean Google isn't listening to everything you say

Danny 2

Re: I bought two of them for my parents

The Famous Five is havering? Typical Rangers or Celtic or Hearts or Dundee or Dundee United or Partick Thistle or Queen's Park or Queen of the South or Kilmarnock fan. There is a reason Beorge Best became a Hibee.

I could talk 500 miles, and I could talk 500 more, but I have broken my specs so I probably won't be posting here much in the near future. I can't actually read it without making it huge.

Danny 2

I bought two of them for my parents

...and I'll be taking one back for myself.

My dad was diagnosed with dementia and he asks me silly questions, and he asks me interesting factual questions.

He asked google, "Who were the Famous Five?", and it correctly responded, "Gordon Smith, Bobby Johnstone, Lawrie Reilly, Eddie Turnbull and Willie Ormond."

Now for most folk The Famous Five, if you google it, is a series of Enid Blyton books. But my dad has a Leith accent, and they/it knew he was talking about 1950s Hibs.

That is scary. They can localise a search according to accent so accurately. I doubt any of your parents would get the same results unless they were from Leith.

I am going to take it to my flat because it gives you free phone calls. I am going to keep it unplugged until I need to phone someone. This is Uber level of disruption to the telecoms.

Imagine an Upside Down world where a vastly inferior OS went on to dominate... Stranger Things have happened

Danny 2

Re: Binged myself ill

I'm fully aware when Windows came out. In 1985 I'd have still been on the Spectrum.

In 1986 I was offered a job in a Californian record store on the strength of my Xmal Deutschland T Shirt because Americans didn't know squat about European indie music and that signified I was an expert. I had a good apprenticeship by then so I turned it down but the guy kept on phoning me asking what I thought about British bands he knew of and what bands I'd recommend.

As to monsters, Cat Sìths, the Nuckalavee, Each-uisges and Wulvers. Plus the dreaded midge.

Danny 2

Binged myself ill

I watched the new season in a day, and I'm not a big fan. 1985 was obviously better in Britain, musically at least and better monsters. It was okay. I played D&D back then (but I didn't wear shorts). Windows 3.11 was the best it ever got.

I just made myself ill -vomit, pus and blood ill - trying to binge watch 'Too Old To Die Young' . I think I'm on episode 8 but I fell asleep so I may have to rewind when I'm better. The first episode is 133 minutes long, and could have been 33 minutes. I'm thinking the series is meant to be a high art take on the corrupt cop story, but it comes across as slow TV interspersed with sudden violence. Each episode is like a bad movie, some worse than others, but I'm guessing that is deliberate and it might piece together by the end.

They all start with a page of warnings - "Strong Sexual Content", "Graphic Violence", "Brief Nudity", et cetera, but there is no warning about how slow it goes, or that the "Brief Nudity" will be an old gangster being murdered.

30 Rock Quote-

Jenna:

Don't cry for me, Tartine. I've had a full life. Oh, the things I've seen. The first Clinton administration. The Nagano Olympics. Microsoft Windows '95. But I'm 41 now. Time to die.

Metropolitan Police's facial recognition tech not only crap, but also of dubious legality – report

Danny 2

Re: Unfortunately....

Katherine Helmond died this year (star of Brazil and Soap).

Brazil was a brilliant movie that lost a lot of power when Jean Charles da Menezes was shot dead for the crime of looking Arabic aka brown.

When real life becomes worse than satire then satire is deflated. Accidental Death of a Brazilian.

[Edit: Oh, and I posted this before I read the thread and saw other people name checking him. Poor guy, could have been any of us]

DoH! Secure DNS doesn't make us a villain, Mozilla tells UK broadband providers

Danny 2

Re: El Reg, I love you

Okay, I get where you ar coming from, you've lost a lock. I just want to point out nobody would use a toilet with CCTV.

If you are not tracking folk, only uninvited trackers, then I can see the 'ethicacy' of a MITM attack. You could still just stop inviting the trackers in.

In terms of people though, I could easily explain to my nephew and niece that there is no internet access for them over my router because I'm a wee bit paranoid. I'd find it harder to say I'd be intercepting all their communications - and there were cameras in my toilets.

Danny 2

Re: El Reg, I love you

"covering the inside of my own home with surveillance cameras."

Nothing wrong with a 'nanny cam' in your child's bedroom, but something seriously wrong in the bathroom. You get my point?

"This is about trusting websites and applications."

I honestly don't understand why you would Man In The Middle yourself. That is not a criticism, I am out of date by a decade at least. Please explain. I'm assuming you think your machines may be hijacked, and you want to stop that. My point was you are going about it the wrong way.

MITM attacks are detectable by anyone, and anyone would assume the worst.

Danny 2

Re: El Reg, I love you

I assume you are a Sys Admin and not just stalking your former partners. It's still wrong.

A man in the middle attack is an attack. If you don't trust the people using your computers then do what my former employer did, put a CCTV camera facing every internet accessible computer. They had an excuse, what is yours?

For other people worried here by MITM attacks, Steve Gibson has a tool.

https://www.grc.com/fingerprints.htm

Danny 2

El Reg, I love you

We went from a highly educational and interesting discussion on a privacy feature to porn - which is understandable due to the daft porn 'ban'. Then to kiddie porn extremis, less understandable. And then to a gun control debate‽

@JohnFen, there are simple ways to monitor what is happening on your machines beyond yielding all similar control to the state or corporations. This is a sledgehammer to your nuts.

FBI and immigration officials trawling US driving licence databases for suspects

Danny 2

Holiday romance, askance

A few years ago I searched for the American girl who gave me my first good sex, and up pops her police cell mug shot. Apparently it was legal for them to repost police mugshots and request a fee for them to be taken down. She hadn't even been charged with a crime, she was just in a car where someone else had a small amount of cannabis.

Not a civilised nation.

Dear El Reg, Will Windows 10 break my VPN? I read it on the web so it must be true

Danny 2

Silence of the LANs

There is comedy gold in these here hills.

If any of you El Reg writers want to reach a wider audience for your wit then I suggest you jointly putting on a show for the Edinburgh International Festival. It used to be for art but it's mainly comedy now, and you can use my flat for free.

Don't underestimate your appeal. I introduced a pal to XKCD, and this guy is technologically illiterate, but now he is a devotee who gives me gifts of XKCD merch.

I can't get you a vulture but I could probably get you a buzzard, maybe a sea eagle, if you promise to return it unharmed after your stint.

Florida man pretending to be police pulls over real police, ends badly, claim cops

Danny 2

F_the_CIA

This is unrelated to the article and only tangentially related to my previous comment of distrust authority. It amuses me though so maybe it'll amuse you.

I was a teenager at an American blue-chip in "Silicon Glen" in the early eighties. I'd designed (with a great deal of help from my mentors) a high end computer board. A high speed relay board on the VMEbus spec. It sold for thousands of pounds, but it was our most basic product. Basically it opened 16 switches at high speed, big deal, but I was proud of it and my name was all over it.

A few months later I got a call at my desk from the CIA telling me it was breaching US sanctions because it was being exported to Hungary and I'd be arrested if that didn't stop because the relays were restricted technology. Cold war and all that. I called BS, said, "Fuck off and die, you are not the CIA" and slammed the phone down. I was sure it was a prank played by my fellow apprentices using one of their Tucson colleagues.

A couple of minutes later the same American phoned me up with the same spiel and I responded, "Aye right, do you know Hungary has developed it's own super-computer, why would they possibly be interested in these cheap relays?" I got that info from reading the precursor to this mag, Electronics Weekly or something similar - the BOFH is older than most here know. The CIA guy said, "Don't hang up again, can you give me your managers extension?"

Turned out it was the CIA.

Wasn't the worst mistake I made with that board. I did it all, including the CAD, and the CAD component was inverted so the prototype had to have it's relays fitted on the rear side. Plus when I was doing testing it burst on fire, well smoking at least, because I was pumping ten times more current through it than it was designed to take. Faulty multimeter, and I didn't think to use another multimeter because mine had just been calibrated. I burst into a boardroom meeting to warn them my product was dangerous, and it wasn't.

Danny 2

Fake Pigs (Facon)

I remember four or five cases of fake cops in Scotland, the most recent in August 2018. Some of them were Walts (Walter Mitty), some scammers, but some were rapists/murderers.

A healthy distrust for authority is advisable. One woman who was pulled over by a sole fake cop late at night had the common-sense and awareness to ignore him and instead drove to a police station. [Not this case but similar]

https://www.scotland.police.uk/whats-happening/news/2018/august/warning-over-men-impersonating-officers-in-cowdenbeath

Sergeant Paul Cochrane said, "The woman did the absolutely right thing in this instance by removing herself from these men and contacting police to report her concerns.

"I want to stress that if you are stopped by genuine police officers at any time, they will produce identification and explain fully the reason for you being stopped.

"Members of the public should remain vigilant and should they also be stopped in a similar manner by anyone claiming to be an officer, but not in uniform, or in possession of appropriate ID then leave the area immediately before reporting the matter to police immediately.

A Register reader turns the computer room into a socialist paradise

Danny 2

Re: College in the 80s

Novell, not Novel. It's the company Eric Schmidt destroyed before he moved on to Google.

DeepNude's makers tried to deep-six their pervy AI app. Web creeps have other ideas: Cracked copies shared online as code decompiled

Danny 2

Re: Just Imagine.....

Choose one:

Julian Assange's head on Pamela Anderson's body;

or

Pamela Anderson's head on Julian Assange's body.

Danny 2

Re: Am I the only one who...

Nude dogs

https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/hairless-dog-breeds/

Danny 2

Re: Am I the only one who...

The first good sex I had was with an American girl who said, "That was nice. All the other boys I've been with treat sex as a performance, while you just seemed to enjoy yourself."

I chose to take it as a compliment though I still worried about 'all the other boys'.

Thank god for the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul. I've been in enough sweat lodges, saunas, and on enough nudist beaches that an app that can put clothes on the internet is needed.

Uh-oh .io: Question mark hangs over trendy tech startup domains as UN condemns British empire hangover

Danny 2

.US was the first ccTLD

And yet nobody uses it because they are ashamed of being yanks.