Posts by Rich 11

Poop to save planet as boffins devise bullsh*t way of extracting gas

Re: Crap Digesters

One suggestion is to cut holes into their stomachs and collect the stuff directly

That would also decrease their risk of suffering an agonising death from clover bloat.

London Mayor calls for social networks and sharing economy to stop harming society

Re: Leader of the free world

Our "turned around" economy is #1 on that list.

Economies are like supertankers: they don't turn around in such a short space of time. Also, what's good for one group of people in the economy is not necessarily any good for a much larger group of people, so what one person might interpret as an indicator of improvement means quite the opposite to another person: Trump's recent time-limited tax cuts are an example of this, as is his unwillingness (or inability) to invest in national infrastructure at anything like the level he promised while campaigning.

What would Jesus sue? The FCC, it seems

Re: 30 Pieces of Silver

Apparently his annual salary is $455,000, but like with most of these high profile appointments in any country, the real money is made in the years after public office from directorships and sinecures.

Age checks for UK pr0n site visitors on ice as regulator cobbles together some guidance

Lot better than nowadays. Shakespeare was still around...

So was smallpox.

Fear the wrath of robots, for their judgement is final and irrevocable

Re: Provided it does not revoke another fundamental right

as long it does not revoke my fundamental right to deliver said forgiveness using a sledgehammer.

I suspect a sledgehammer would not be much use against a massively-parallel distributed system. You'll need a pre-crime analysis of an early-stage AI so you can identify it as problematic before it causes any trouble.

Basically, you've got to hit them when they're young.

Tim Berners-Lee says regulation of the web may be needed

I resolved this issue by outliving most of my family. The ones left don't know their arse from their Facebook.

Like trying to smite a clay golem.

Yeah, +2 longswords are a bit thin on the ground these days.

I blame Brexit.

Sneaky satellite launch raises risk of Gravity-style space collision

Re: I recall an incident

based on non-mainstream science

That's wishes and rainbows, isn't it?

In space no-one can hear you scream "Alexa!".

Will the defendant please rise? Utah State Bar hunts for sender of topless email

Re: Terribly American

Too many men have been castrated by radical feminism

Bob, you really are an utter twat.

Re: Apoplexy

So the case flopped.

They just couldn't keep it up.

As a member of the British Computer Society can I please just say that I really don't mind if they send me an email showing a pair of tits.

Jobs and Wozniak?

*ducks*

Your mouse can't reach that Excel cell? Buy a 'desk extender' said help desk bluffer

Have you solved a problem with a lie?

Is there anyone who never has?

Defra to MPs: There's no way Brexit IT can be as crap as rural payments

Re: quite the contrary

When we leave the EU we will continue to have the GBP as we had before the EU even existed!

Wow, I never knew that! Thanks for clearing it up. Now I can be confident that the economy won't take a hit, that further austerity won't be imposed as a result and that the food banks can all be closed.

Oh, how I wish I'd voted for Brexit now. But I missed my chance. All I can do to make up for my mistake is to worship at the feet of Johnson and Gove instead.

FBI chief asks tech industry to build crypto-busting not-a-backdoor

It is then up to people and the media to explain the problems to the law makers etc in a succinct manner.

And in words of just one syllable. Slowly.

Re: If the FBI get this ability, the FSB also get it

How much did Putin pay you?

Far less than the bank loans Putin nodded through for Trump and Kushner, I'm sure, but the kompromat was particularly exquisite.

Re: Have you ever done that thing...

Yes, I have. Just yesterday I did that with the word 'work'.

Hackers create 'ghost' traffic jam to confound smart traffic systems

Pigeons. Russian pigeons. Russian pigeons with umbrellas. Russian pigeons with umbrellas and a fanatical devotion to the Pope.

Re: Yet we applaud this 'always connected' world????

There clearly is no future for us as a race...

Certainly not if there are traffic lights on the racetrack.

ESA builds air-breathing engine that works in space

Re: sustainable?

Maybe the panels need to be shaped like an aerofoil and given the right angle of attack...

Re: Lack of moving parts

Also wouldn't the drag in even a depleted atmosphere negate the acceleration from the ionized air?

That would depend primarily on how much energy you have available to ionise and accelerate the collected air. I expect they've done the calculations, what with them being, you know, fucking rocket scientists.

Half the world warned 'Chinese space station will fall on you'

Re: Hit the US?

The Chinese are deathly afraid that it will land in the US, because then they'll be forced to pay tariffs on the steel and aluminium content. And Trump will feel vindicated, taking to Twatter to announce an easy victory and the security of American jobs, fine American jobs, the best jobs, the big jobs.

Apple's new 'spaceship' HQ brings the pane for unobservant workers

Carousel!

Re: Been there done that

I threw myself against the latter like Christopher Pike in the Menagerie

Did you end up in a wheelchair?

Josh? He's free on Thursday afternoons. Good rates.

Re: Solutions

It's good practice for ducks.

Re: Post-It (tm)

Do the architecture police deconstruct cases along classical lines and detain suspects in rusticated retention zones?

Reddit 'fesses up to just a little Russian reaming

"Trade wars are good, and easy to win"

"I believe the biggest risk we face as Americans is our own ability to discern reality from nonsense, and this is a burden we all bear."

See title.

Boffins discover chemistry that could have produced building blocks of life in space

Promise me eternal life and I will gladly agree with you. And help you smite the unbelievers, of course.

Swiss see Telly Tax as a Big Plus, vote against scrapping it

Re: Media and information

But... but... how else will Bill O'Reilly find the high-paying job he so richly deserves?

Re: BBC from the days of Yes Minister and Spitting Image - yes

The BBC of today wouldn't say boo to a goose. It's even too scared to hold the government to account for having no plans for the greatest economic and social change in decades.

That's because the government of the day -- of whatever flavour -- keeps threatening to defund it.

You have the choice of a public broadcaster which only occasionally dares speak truth to power, or a commercialised provider which will head even further downmarket in the chase for profit and sooner or later fall into the hands of a Murdoch or a Desmond, becoming little more than a mouthpiece for a billionaire.

UK peers: Is this what you call governance of facial recog tech? A 'few scattered papers'!

Re: Well

or killing someone.

(Unless this occurs as an entirely predictable result of government economic policy, of course.)

Re: Retro fashion

Time for the fashion to return in a unisex manner?

Beekeepers of the world, unite!

How do the authorities arrest a crowd?

With kettling, tear gas and snatch squads, as I seem to recall.

At least that's easy to correct, once you actually show them your face.

Every time there's a knock at the door I curse the quirk of genetics that has given me sixty-four medium-grey pixels for a face.

Re: 1984

Why "when"? It already is

You have to hold down the microphone button on the remote to speak to Alexa. At least that's what she tells me, and that's what she's trained me to do.

BOFH: Honourable misconduct

Re: Script for Leave

Doesn't your local do carry-out packs? For shame, sir. You need access to a better class of publican.

My PC is broken, said user typing in white on a white background

Re: Broken monitor

Who remembers the "Good old days" when you could steal the ball from someone's mouse...

Even though I've been using an optical mouse for well over a decade, I've still got a spare mouse ball in the top drawer of my desk. You never know when it might come in handy.

Re: No computer experience in 2005?

Ditto farmers in the UK. Most do now have a computer, but many still rely on their ag adviser to fill in the forms for them.

When clever code kills, who pays and who does the time? A Brit expert explains to El Reg

Re: Accountability is important.

The child learns, becomes an adult and is then liable for punishment at law for its adult errors. How do you propose to fine or imprison and AI entity?

Cut off its Internet connection and send it to bed without any electricity.

A game to 'vaccinate' people against fake news? Umm... Fake news

Re: 'Fake News' - I hate that Term!

Apparently all of the UK's current problems are due to Baby Boomers and older who have it all and won't give their homes away to Millennials if you believe some of their latest articles.

I think you may be confusing an opinion piece with a journalistic article. The Opinion columns are clearly labelled as such, and if the writer does also happen to be a Guardian journalist you'll find that stated at the bottom of the column.

Re: The problem that I have

The Guardian online comments are notorious for their moderators editing them without any indication they have done so.

They are? That's the first time I've heard of that, in a dozen years of posting there. I know they remove comments, sometimes what seem to me to be very innocuous ones, and say that they've been removed, but editing someone else's words without indication of having done so is an entirely different thing. It would be a huge negative step.

I think I'd want to see proof before accepting a claim like that.

NRA gives FCC boss Ajit Pai a gun as reward for killing net neutrality. Yeah, an actual gun

Re: We have the clueless leading the blind...

The Parkland School Massacre killed 17 people. 109 were killed by in/by cars that same day.

I see you are taking great care not to compare like with like, so let me help you. On an average day in the USA, 90-100 people are killed by guns. A few are accidents, some are suicides, the vast majority are murders. Now, you tell me: what are the proportions for those killed in or by cars?

The silence will be deafening.

Vatican sets up dedicated exorcism training course

He said there were about 500,000 cases requiring exorcism in Italy each year.

And Berlusconi is moving back into politics.

Poor Italians. It's a double-whammy of spiritual assault and financial assault.

IT peeps, be warned: You'll soon be a museum exhibit

Re: Back in the day

an _800MB_ hard drive. I was amazed and thought you'd be able to store your whole life's work on such a beast!

I bought a 500MB SCSI drive, in 1995, for video and animation work, thinking that it would be enough last me for the full MTBF lifetime of the drive. Now I couldn't even fit my music collection on something that size.

Re: What job will last forever

Fluffer.

Re: Strangely enough

I remember that leaving the full stop off the end of the first line in an otherwise perfect 500-line COBOL program would produce a 500-entry error report forty minutes later.

Re: Starting on the Museum exhibits, ending on them.

When I started learning IT at school

My school didn't buy its first computer until the year after I left. It reportedly took them a full year before anyone knew what to do with it, educationally speaking.

Nobody expects the social media inquisition! OK, everybody did, UK politicos

Re: "a connection between sitting in front of a screen and raised blood pressure"...

Daily M***

150/95. You bastard!

This job Win-blows! Microsoft made me pull '75-hour weeks' in a shopping mall kiosk

Re: Wants to have her cake & eat it?

No one can force you to work beyond your contract hours.

A recent letter to the Prime Minister suggests there are 62 MPs who would be willing to see this change. They are such great fans of free trade that they wish to walk away from membership of the largest free trade bloc on the planet. The only way that trade (with the added cost of moving products over greater distances) is going to be replaced in the face of cheaper labour abroad is by cutting costs, and you can guess where the first cuts will fall.

It's not like the party the 62 belong to doesn't have form, however much one particular minister (with a less than stellar reputation for consistency and integrity) currently declares that there will be no such race to the bottom.