Posts by Rich 11

This is TRUE science: Harvard boffins fire up sizzling BACON LASER

A team of Harvard scientists has paved the way for a deadly laser pig weapon

'Generals gathered in their masses...'

'Fix these Windows 10 Horrors': Readers turn their guns on Redmond

Not quite

Which is another way of saying: “This work will never be finished.”

And another way of saying: "This work will never be trusted."

W3C's failed Do Not Track crusade tumbles to ad-blockers' Vietnam

...and hosts files?

Hah!

"When a consumer puts Do Not Track in the header, we don't know what they mean."

s/know what they mean/give a monkeys/gi

Your poster guide: A fascinating glimpse into North Korea's 'internet'

Turn up or drop out (of sight)

The nation just held its regional elections at the weekend, and scored a 99.97 per cent turnout. Not surprising given that if you don't vote, you disappear.

So the re-education slave labour camps have just gained something like an extra 57,000 inmates? Charming fellow, that Kim.

Re: Freaky picture

There is etiquette to dealing with dictators you know.

I expect it's even more risky dealing with dictators you don't know.

Microsoft kills TWO Hacking Team vulns: NOT the worst in this Patch Tues either

They probably know of vulns which they won't let MS patch. Not that I'm trying to make you paranoid or anything.

Re: Tell me about it...

2 hours do the patch tuesday's updates? You should probably think about getting a better computer

Those of us looking after a shedload of dev and live servers have to take a slightly more diligent approach...

Cell division: The engine of life – and of CANCER. Now some of its secrets are revealed

Re: "We all start out as just one cell"

Is there anything that could be said to be "us" before the zygote is formed?

A set of probabilities describing potentials, perhaps? Though that's still mostly the case in the zygote too.

My top three IT SNAFUs - and how I fixed them

Damp cabling

I had a similar problem to deal with about a year or two after Dave's (as best as I can determine). My IT Centre was housed in a Portacabin, and our 4800baud connection to the rest of the campus was a cable strung the 20 feet from one corner of the Portacabin to one corner of the nearest building. We soon noticed that whenever it rained, our connection would drop out. I borrowed a stepladder and checked the cable at each end, then noticed a blob in the middle. The cable (just a simple unshielded pair of wires) had been spliced and wrapped in insulation tape, and with this being the middle where it sagged the most, rainwater would collect on the cable and run down to slowly penetrate the tape. It would usually dry out by the following day, but I still had to unwrap and reseal it several times before I could get the damn bodge job replaced.

Shapps launches probe into Wikimedia UK over self-pluggery allegs

Look again

He has yet to receive either the data, or even an acknowledgement of the request.

Has he checked Michael Green's inbox as well as his own?

Forget lasers: how about sharks with frikkin' VOLCANOES?

Re: Wow, rare sharks

Tesco's Value Range Fishcakes.

Security gurus deliver coup de grace to US govt's encryption backdoor demands

Re: This is the Tommy Gun argument.

And no innocent civilians would ever accidentally get hit by the hail of lead.

Re: "I really am not a maniac (or at least my family says so)."

No, they wouldn't lie to him. If he suspected they were lying, he might have them waterboarded for their own protection.

Smart Meter biz case still there, insists tragically optimistic UK govt

Re: No mention of the Health risks!

I prefer a Readi-Brek orange.

Re: I had a smart meter fitted last week

The reduced consumption is temporary. Soon goes back to the previous consumption when the novelty of the meter wears off.

Absolutely true. I picked up a clip-on display half-price at some closing down sale somewhere, and enjoyed watching the graphics on it change whenever the kettle or the telly was on. When the battery ran dry, I couldn't be arsed to replace it. Since I was never in the habit of leaving any light on unnecessarily, or leaving devices on standby, or not switching everything off when I went to bed, the only saving I made was from turning the fridge setting down a little (and leaving a 3-litre bottle of cider in there to act as a cold sink).

Naturally the cold sink needed replacing every Saturday afternoon, but still.

ALIEN SLIME SHOCKER: Approaching comet probably NOT inhabited, say boffins

We need to herd that comet into a giant burger joint and freeze it with a CO2 fire extinguisher, then drop the shrunken blob-slime somewhere in the Arctic (because we know the ice cap will never melt).

Planet killer: Ex-army officer's Welsh space-rock mission

Re: What?

Not for another five years.

At least that's what Sarah Jane always seemed to imply in the 70s.

'The server broke and so did my back on the flight to fix it'

Re: Hubswitch

Why would anyone want to be so generous with the whisky?

The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who

Re: They Do Have a Word for It

Not at all; it's a Greek word to begin with

I think that was a joke, along the same lines as the French having no word for entrepreneur.

Rampaging fox terrorises rural sports club, victim sustains ‘tweaked groin’

Why didn't the others escape in the opposite direction when the man on the bike raced off into the field? I'm sure they could have raised a glass to his brave sacrifice at his wake.

UK TV is getting worse as younglings shun the BBC et al, says Ofcom

Squirrel!

German army fights underground Nazi war machine hidden in Kiel pensioner's cellar

Re: Must have been an interesting sight

What's German for 'Motherfucker!!'?

Re: Indeed

I nearly lost control there and then.

Of the vehicle or your bowels?

UH OH: Windows 10 will share your Wi-Fi key with your friends' friends

Re: RIPA and passwords

Humbly.

Re: Off

That may be a quick question, but it's not a quick answer!

Crowdfunded beg-a-thon to bail out Greece raises 0.003% of target

Re: I do not see why it should succeed

They have shown conclusively that their are unable to elect a competent administration, so what can you do?

Take a leaf from Greek history and appoint a tyrant? Rarely ends well.

Audit finds new flaw at US Office of Personnel Management

Lo-tech hi-sec

The discovery of the vulnerability, the newswire says, has some agencies switching to handling security clearance information on paper

Typewriters and carbon paper. Just remember to dispose of the carbon sheets and the ribbon cassette properly.

As the US realises it's been PWNED, when will OPM heads roll?

and play Net-Trek.

Surely they'd prefer to play Net-Hack?

Damn. Haven't played that for decades. Got to get a port for my tablet now.

Amazon enrages authors as it switches to 'pay-per-page' model

Re: So....

You omitted the final line:

The shop keeps the money which doesn't go to the pizza maker, even though it hasn't worked more to earn that extra profit.

THEY WANTED OUR WOMEN: Neanderthals lusted after modern humans

Re: Early modern

This isn't about history. It's pre-history.

This whopping 16-bit computer processor is being built by hand, transistor by transistor

In ASCII mode, yes.

Ecobee3: If you're crazy enough to want a smart thermostat – but not too crazy – this is for you

Re: Does it really save that much?

And if you are a miser who only has the system on when in the house, and always turns it off over night and when out of the house, again you won't save much

Yup, that's me. But it's not about being miserly, it's about not being wasteful. It's like not leaving the light on in any room you're not going to be in and out of frequently.

Climate change alarmism is a religious belief – it's official

A judgemental God who doesn't like beer and fighting was never going to be a big hit here.

It's all been going downhill since Thunor left.

Version 0.1 super-stars built the universe – and they lived all the way over there, boffins point

Re: God is bigger than the Bible

A point apparently missed by small minds at both ends of the spectrum.

First, demonstrate that God exists. Without that, theology is just mildly entertaining conjecture.

Sharing Economy latest: Women's breast milk is the new 'liquid gold' of the internet

Re: Clearly...

Probably regarding the premium attached by the free market to product sourced from providers with different levels of celebrity status.

Why are there so many Windows Server 2003 stragglers?

Health care systems in non-dystopian nations are government funded. There's no excuse for these organisations to be behind.

Unless successive governments are run by cretins insisting that some special financial rule they've inflicted on themselves is adhered to, getting the service deeper into debt, or sociopaths obsessed with running down a service so that they can create an excuse to flog it off their mates and funnel public money into private, offshore, hands.

British banks consider emoji as password replacement

Re: Somebody please stop the planet...

Or has the general public became so dumb they can't remember 8 digits in sequence any more?

Everyone can manage 8 digits, as long as it's their birthdate: yyyymmdd. Can't see a problem in that.

Re: "What's clear is that the younger generation is communicating in new ways,”

Because some knob-end thinks they can make money out of selling the idea to idiots.

Re: Great Idea!

Patent pending on input device.

Just hold own the Alt key while entering + and the hex code...

Zionists stole my SHOE, claims Muslim campaigner

El Reg was unable to contact Mossad for comment

Find someone who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Russian or (as a last resort) French:

https://www.mossad.gov.il/pages/contactus.aspx

LastPass got hacked: Change your master password NOW

Enjoying the thought...

...that someone would use a password manager and then use the exact same password for some other web site somewhere. But I'd be willing to bet it's happened.

INTERNET of BOOBS: Scorching French lass reveals networked bikini

Re: Why IoT

A simple built in buzzer would do perfectly well.

Which raises the question of where exactly the buzzer should be placed.

The Martian: Matt Damon sciences the sh*t out of the red planet

Once you get out beyond the magnetosphere she gets orders of magnitude rougher.

Nature's a bitch at even twenty metres up: if you don't die on landing you'll at least break your ankles, and there's not enough time for your parachute to open.

Indie review of UK surveillance laws: As you were, GCHQ

Re: Yeah, but...

Stop giving them ideas!

Cops turn Download Festival into an ORWELLIAN SPY PARADISE

Re: Eugh

RFID wristband

The Number of the Beast!

Women are fleeing from the digital sector, reckons UK.gov report

If you'd hired a woman for the job, what can you use in place of "greybeard"?

VAX expert?

Well said, how many male primary school teachers do you see ?

Now ask yourself why you don't see many male primary school teachers. Check your answer with a primary school teacher (male or female).

MONSTER GALAXY spotted hiding behind IMMENSE BLACK HOLE

Re: Just so I understand this right...

I would guess that any temporal effect there might be on a photon when it zips past a 100,000ly galaxy is going to be pretty insignificant in comparison to a) those 100,000 years and b) the 11,000,000,000 years of the rest of its journey.

Paper driving licence death day: DVLA website is still TITSUP

Re: Gross stupidity and idiocy

Please stop insulting half-wits by comparing them to these, these, these... words fail me.

Quarter-wits.