Posts by DJV

To have one floppy failure is unlucky. To have 20 implies evil magic or a very silly user

Re: Copy Protection Blues

Yes, a lot of Commodore 64 protection was done in a similar way. Make a straight disk copy, run a program to corrupt a specific sector which the loader then checked for and would bomb out if it didn't encounter it.

I once had some copy protection that used a bit psychological warfare on the user in that, at one point about 3 or 4 levels in, the entire program was ORed with a string of characters that read "THIS COPY PROTECTION IS 50 LEVELS DEEP" (or something similar). It wasn't actually that deep at all.

That sounds exactly like the UEA (University of Easy Access, um, East Anglia) who also had the same issue in the 1990s when I was there.

University of Hertfordshire pulls the plug on, well, everything after cyber attack

Re: Learning without a computer

You're lucky! I have to get up even earlier in the week as mine come on a Monday!

Re: I never could read my own handwriting

Indeed! And it predates the likes of us as well. I remember my mother (born in 1919) once asking me if I could read something she'd written as she couldn't read it herself. I definitely inherited that "talent" as well.

Vote to turf out remainder of Nominet board looks inevitable after .uk registry ignores reform demands

Re: Shine a light

Yep, I've been moving my domains from Heart who are part of (please hurry up and) Go (away) Daddy to Mythic!

UK watchdog blesses Virgin Media and O2's union, says there's no risk of market distortion or competition loss

Yeah, but look at who is involved - of course, it won't get any better...

The COVID-19 pandemic is still going – and so is the PC buying spree: Shipments up 55% on the Before Times

I'm sure Gartner are preparing one right now...

For blinkenlights sake.... RTFM! Yes. Read The Front of the Machine

@Shadow Systems

Cheers!

...I just wonder who the downvoter was on that one...

Re: totally SHITE file transfer tool

Obviously, someone was, um, accessing the wrong orifice...

Re: Blinkenlights ... they are not just for looks.

Yeah, bloody repeats! The Reg forum is getting as bad as TV for this!!!

(Actually, I shouldn't complain, I've told my "washing my balls" story at least twice here - no, I'm not going to repeat it again, go look it up.)

Re: Broke my little toe...

I tell people I once dislocated my toe playing Monopoly...

Well, it was actually more due to getting the Monopoly box from off the top of a tall wardrobe in a bedroom. I wasn't wearing shoes and the box was just out of reach. So I jumped up, grabbed the box successfully and landed. It was only when I started walking away that I realised something was wrong and discovered that the second toe on my left foot was pointing straight upwards at the second joint. I clicked it back into place and then had to suffer a swollen toe and limping for several days. What fun!

(And, no, I can't even remember whether or not I won the game of Monopoly.)

How to ensure your tech predictions catch on in a flash? Do the mash

Re: Jackie Chan kung-fu fighting scenes...

Or any old broadcast of the Old Grey Whistle Test where tracks were set to ancient and obscure b/w cartoons.

Website maker Wix embarks on weird WordPress-trashing campaign, sends 'influencer' users headphones from 'WP'

Re: made me get a premium account

It made me get an ad-blocker instead!

Post Office awards Fujitsu a £42.5m contract extension for the IT system behind wrongful subpostmaster prosecutions

Re: That was then..............

"And here we are today............more "configure" possibilities........no end in sight"

Absolutely, and it reminds me of something else that appears to be a trainwreck of piled together crap looking for a place to happen (i.e. crash)....

systemd

How big might IT spending get in 2021? Gartner: How about $4 trillion. And no, you can't have a new MacBook

No, no, no! What you have to realise is that Gartner's ability to be wrong nearly 100% of the time is actually "negative cedibility". This means people pay attention to what they predict - because they always know that the exact opposite is much more likely to happen.

We finally get to spot a burnt-out comet and what is it covered in? Talcum powder

Ding dong!

...or it's an interstellar Avon lady plying her (rather limited selection of) wares.

Easily distracted by too many apps, too many meetings, and too much asparagus

Re: April fool video

Regarding that "convert a black-and-white television into a colour set using nylon stockings" video. As I don't speak Swedish I turned the subtitles on whereupon much merriment was discovered as YouTube tries to take spoken Swedish and generate English subtitles from the sounds - try it and laugh at such delights as "sucks one holotape you see lemon a little were technical" and "so many Celicia genitals I stooped addressed unto me van of a fighter voluminous problem man". Fantastic, and may give us a clue as to where amanfrommars sources his material!

In a devastating blow to all eight of you, Microsoft pulls the plug on Cortana's Android, iOS apps

Try this: https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-10-decrapifier-18xx-19xx-2xxx

I can truthfully state that Google have never done that once!

killedbygoogle.com/

AI recommendations fail fans who like hard rock and hip hop – official science

Re: "music taste is exceedingly personal"

Absolutely! And it reminds me of back in the 1980s listening to the Radio 1 John Peel show late one night when in between the "usual" stuff that daytime radio wouldn't go near, he played Sheena Easton's Nine-To-Five - explaining that he couldn't understand at all why he liked it, but he did, so he played it!

South Korean regulator recommends Apple be prosecuted for hampering fair trade probe

Re: Such blatant disobedience deserves a harsher punishment

Damn, you pipped me to the post in saying that!

The kids aren't all right: Fall in GCSE compsci students is bad news for employers and Britain's future growth plans

"another similarity to being an author"

Indeed, they are very close (I should know as I do both). However, upgrading a paperback book to a new version because of a missed typo isn't quite as easy for the end user as downloading an update for a software program. E-books are definitely a closer match, though.

Re: In other words Office 365 is not the same as Python or C++

I know what you mean. Back in the 1980s when I was a Pascal and C programmer at a small software house, I had to carefully explain to a member of staff that using a wordprocessor to type letters and documents was NOT programming, despite what she claimed!

Remember Apple's disastrous butterfly keyboards? These lawsuits against the iGiant just formed a super class action

"Apple was not immediately available for comment"

Really? How unusual! </sarcasm>

Move aside, Technoking: All hail the Sweat Master and his many inspirational job titles

Saw them coming...

There's a gullible idiot born every minute! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVvcD4Czx4Y

Desperate Nominet chairman claims member vote to fire him would spark British government intervention

Re: “We have been warned"

My pitchfork will be the one warmed up (to red glowing hot status) beforehand and ready to poke Hawarth in the place he thinks the sun shines out of.

Why yes, I'll take that commendation for fixing the thing I broke

Re: How to become an alcoholic

Or, turn into Wally and, while you you remain employed, you never actually do any work ever again.

Google emits data-leaking proof-of-concept Spectre exploit for Intel CPUs to really get everyone's attention

Re: Do-be-do-be-doo

Nope, I came here to post the same thing but you beat me to it!

Third time's a harm? Microsoft tries to get twice-rejected encoding patent past skeptical examiners

I wonder why nobody hasn't patented fire or the wheel yet

I quite like the idea of tying all the idiots in the US Patent Office to a large wooden wheel and setting fire to it - would that be close enough?

Google and Microsoft's public squabble over who's the worst is giving us life right now, not gonna lie

Re: I found El Reg...

I found El Reg before I'd ever heard of Google - it was probably via Alta Vista.

The stench of progress: Sweat may power your personal tech in the not-so-distant future

Re: Try the 1780s...

I would do but I can't work up enough sweat to power my time machine.

Gummy bears as a unit of measure? The Reg Standards Soviet will not stand for this sort of silliness

Re: the sheer deliciousness of gummy bears, Haribo or otherwise

Woohoo, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when your Missus discovers you broke her rule in order to come and comment about it!

How Facebook uses public videos to train, deploy machine-learning models and harvest those eyeballs

"videos of tractors"

Wooo! Tractor porn - can't get enough of it!

A Code War has replaced The Cold War. And right now we’re losing it

Re: high qubit quantum computing and artifical general intelligence

Yes, this ^^^ absolutely!

Recently, I've been looking into web-based page turning/flipping code. Most of the available options seem to come as black boxes that hauled in God-knows how many extra libaries (and all the unknown cruft that comes with them) and each one looks like it probably only does 95% of what I want (but each does a DIFFERENT 95%) - but adding the extra necessary 5% is probably impossible without weeks of work.

Two weeks ago I found a simple piece of code that was about 7 years old and, while it was buggy and partly relied on the abandoned CSS Regions proposal that only Chrome implemented for a short while, I managed to pick it apart myself, gained a full understanding of how it worked and fixed it up so that it now works properly in a modern browser (all in a couple of days). I now have a usable tool that stands alone, has a tiny footprint, and can be maintained and improved by myself as necessary.

University of the Highlands and Islands shuts down campuses as it deals with 'ongoing cyber incident'

"We do not believe personal data has been affected"

But, as it's been encrypted and we haven't yet paid the ransom, we really haven't got a clue.

Now, what did we do with that backup we took the other day, erm week, um month... year. Oh, yes, panic over, here it is, on this 1.4Mb floppy...

The torture garden of Microsoft Exchange: Grant us the serenity to accept what they cannot EOL

"if Microsoft did things well"

I am still using a Microsoft Internet Keyboard Pro - it's well over 20 years old (had the keycaps replaced once from the similar non-Pro version so that I can now see letters on the top of the keycaps once more). This device is probably one of the best things they've ever made!

Unfortunately, it may be the ONLY best thing they've ever made - when it comes to their software - all they seem to build is absolute shite of the highest shiteness!

GPS jamming around Cyprus gives our air traffic controllers a headache, says Eurocontrol

Re: The blocker needs a present

A man with a paper map and a red flag will walk in front of it.

Hidden text in MacOS 11.3 beta suggests removal of Rosetta 2 compatibility layer in some countries

"We’ve asked Apple for comment."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkUOACGtGfA

Splunk junks 'hanging' processes, suggests you don't 'hit' a key: More peaceful words now preferred in docs

Re: Primary...

How about Gru and minions?

Rookie's code couldn't have been so terrible that it made a supermarket spontaneously combust... right?

But, to my knowledge, my code (or any code I have been involved in) has never set fire to anything

You're obviously not trying hard enough!

Robots that take out your garbage? Oh What A Feeling, says Toyota as it opens its very own smart city

Re: assisted living facilities

Yes

Linux Mint users in hot water for being slow with security updates, running old versions

Re: Solve the Nvida problem and I'll be on board

Well, if you're going to the Nvidea website instead of the Nvidia one then that might be part of the problem!

Nominet sets the date for extraordinary meeting where members could fire CEO

Boo hoo...

Fuck off...

Doctor, I think I have an HDMI: Apple starts investigating M1 Mac Mini graphics issues

Re: Shonky soldering

Please name and shame the brand involved to protect the rest of us.

Healthy 32-year-old offered COVID-19 vaccine because doctors had him down as 6.2cm tall with BMI of 28,000

Re: Input range checking

Nah, she definitely signed all those rights away as part of the divorce.

Re: Input range checking

Not COVID vaccine related... but having reached 66 this week, I got my DWP pension details information come through a few days ago. There was one glaring error on them - they said my date of marriage was 3rd March 2004 and my divorce was 4th March 2004. That was one HECK of a long day - felt more like well over a decade! As it seems they don't want to talk on the phone for such "trivial" details and finding an email address to send the correction through is totally impossible it looks like I will have to sharpen up a quill to compose a written missive and post it to the idiots instead!

I fully agree with you. I was told by a text from my GP surgery on the 12th Feb to register for my vaccination. So I phoned up and booked it for today (20th). I am 66 with no underlying health problems. A friend of mine has an uncle who is 75 and lives only about 10 miles from me (same county, though different GP) who has yet to be contacted at all!

...and someone with a BMI of 28,000 would have made an interestingly sized crater!

Big Tech workers prefer 3 days at home, 2 in the office. We ask Reg readers: What's your home-office balance?

Re: To be truthful

In theory I could have retired 3 days ago on my 66th birthday (the bus pass, ordered on my birthday, arrived today - yay!). Trouble* is I've been a self-employed web developer/programmer since 2005 and have worked fully from home since 2008 and people keep chucking work my way!

* for maybe an enviable level of "trouble"