Posts by Jess--

Hero to Jezero: Perseverance, NASA's most advanced geologist rover, lands on Mars, beams back first pics

Re: Been there, Done that

I recall speaking with someone involved with early terrain following attempts and being told of a slight error that they ran up against.

A few tests had been performed during the autumn / winter and everything had worked perfectly but on the day in january when it was demonstrated to the bigwigs it took off perfectly and went into a straight level flight as planned and then flew (perfectly straight and level) into the side of a mountain.

The final cause was found to be that the terrain wasn't being recognised any more because it was covered in a couple of inches of snow.

Robot wars! Scandi automation biz AutoStore slings patent sueball, claims it owns Ocado warehouse tech

Re: Patent system broken, anyway

At least that would make all patents that are identical to existing ones apart from adding the words "on a mobile device" worthless.

Ancient telly borked broadband for entire Welsh village

Re: Another Source of Interference

around here all the fttc connections fall over with the first flash within 5 miles from a thunderstorm.

it then takes 4 minutes with no further strikes to reconnect.

since a decent storm could take us offline for hours at a time we added a 4g dongle to the router as a failover, now we only notice if the fttc connection is down by the increased speed of the 4g connection.

Multiple customers knocked offline as firefighters tackle flames at Telstra's London Hosting Centre bit barn

Re: Did they guy who put in the Telestra UPS also handle Equinix?

You would almost think that these companies have furloughed most of their staff. Of course less people around means less chance of someone walking past a failing UPS and thinking that seems hotter than usual, we should check that it's ok.

Xiaomi Mi 9 owners furious after dodgy Vodafone software patch bricked their mobes

"this has only impacted a small number of customers"

In other words this has impacted every single one of our customers with this model of phone

You can get a mechanical keyboard for £45. But should you? We pulled an Aukey KM-G6 out of the bargain bin

typing this on a 1987 model M, and also have a few 1988 & 1989 spares stashed away in case I ever manage to break this one (which is doubtful).

still on a PS2 interface but there are some usb-ps2 converters around that can handle them.

Ofcom waves DAB radio licences under local broadcasters' noses as FM switchoff debate smoulders again

Sod VHF and MW, give me back my Atlantic 252 on LW

Education tech supplier RM smacked by UK schools closure

Memories of the Link 480z (with microvitec cub monitors) and RM Nimbus machines come flooding back

Drones must be constantly connected to the internet to give Feds real-time location data – new US govt proposal

Re: Kind of surprising

DJI will be against it as it will deter people from flying drones due to ongoing costs even when the drone is gathering dust on a shelf.

With the added costs if people buy less drones DJI as (seemingly) the largest well known maker will be the hardest hit.

The cost to DJI to add the capability would be under $10 (probably nearer $5) per new drone, for them it's a one time cost.

for the consumer they have the cost of registration (presumably renewed annually per drone) and the cost of maintaining the data connection.

Samsung cops to data leak after unsolicited '1/1' Find my Mobile push notification

Re: Push

I read it as Samsung will contact the customers whose details were leaked to other users trying to log into their systems (claimed around 150 users) rather than everyone who received the alert

Google exiles 600 apps from Play Store for 'disruptive advertising' amid push to clean up Android souk's image

Re: Disruptive ads

You see ads on youtube?

I haven't for a few years.

Don't use natwest.co.uk for online banking, Natwest bank tells baffled customer

Re: So not nwolb.com then?

Glad I'm not the only one using nwolb.com directly rather than following links from natwest.com / .co.uk

I must spend too much time moving money though as pressing "N" in my address bar gives me nwolb.com as the first option and nsandi.com as the second.

BOFH: Darn Windows 7. It's totally why we need a £1k graphics card for a business computer

Ctrl-Esc : Start Menu

Ctrl-Shift-Esc : Task Manager

Ctrl-Esc-R : Nothing

Ctrl-Shift-R : Refresh browser (and have to retype this post)

Running an IBM Model M keyboard (still with manufacturing label 1986 on the back) and it's still solid. A few keys have lost some of their texture (but not the lettering), it gets stripped every year or so and the keycaps take a trip through the washing machine & dryer (tied in an old football sock).

when it finally dies I will have to replace it with one of my 1987 ones.

the only downsides are that it can sound like a machine gun and there are no windows keys for various shortcuts.

It’s not true no one wants .uk domains – just look at all these Bulgarians who signed up to nab expired addresses

Imagine the howls in 6 months time if Nominet decide to mimic what has been done with the EU registry and make it so that all *.UK domains have to be held by a UK resident or entity.

So you locked your backups away for years, huh? Allow me to introduce my colleagues, Brute, Force and Ignorance

Re: Hammering...

I had to manually spin up a 2.5" external hard drive with the top cover removed recently (1Tb).

It had been dropped while running and the power had disconnected at the exact moment it hit the floor meaning that a combination of g-forces and lack of power left the heads on the platters rather than retracted.

when it tried to spin itself up it couldn't retract the heads (because they weren't floating) and it couldn't turn the platters because the heads were stuck.

A well timed spin of the spindle got the platters moving (with a screech) and the drive came back to life with everything apart from a couple of files intact.

once copied the drive was destroyed with a hammer.

Behold the Internet of Turf: IoT sucks waste energy from living plants to speak to satellites

Re: I'm kind a shocked

with a constant 1mA you can quite easily store that power in a large capacitor or battery that can then be used periodically for a burst of much higher current usage

Boffins show the 2017 Nork nuke can move, move, move any mountain (by a meter)

Re: Nice headline

I thought the titles from the Hempton Manor summed up their feelings towards their labels owner

Baffled by bogus charges on your Amazon account? It may be the work of a crook's phantom gadget

Re: Cancel the account challenge

UK here and most purchases through amazon I have to hunt for the small greyed out text "proceed without prime" instead of the big pay now button (that includes prime)

Criminalise British drone fliers, snarl MPs amid crackdown demands

Re: Make it like owning a vehicle

I would love to know how much damage you think can be caused by the drone I have been flying around (for a bit of fun in the wind) this morning, it's a little over 2 inches square and an inch high.

I suspect the only other things in the air that it represents a danger to are insects.

my planes and helicopter on the other hand are seriously dangerous but aren't drones so from your point of view require no license or training

Pro tip: Plug in your Tesla S when clocking off, lest you run out of juice mid hot pursuit

used to be duplexed with the base station operating around 451-453 Mhz and mobiles operating 13.9 Mhz higher (so if you hear the base on 452.8 the mobiles were on 466.7).

then they added a pitch inversion system (low audio frequencies become high and vice versa) which was referred to as Crypton.

then they switched to tetra and I gave up listening

Gearheads get their spudgers into an iPhone 11 Pro Max: Bi-lateral charging, anyone?

I once had a spare nokia that had been deep fried (literally in a chip fryer) for 10 minutes.

after opening it up and mopping up the oil it powered up and worked perfectly, the screen looked a bit odd thanks to the oil between it and the backlight but it was perfectly usable.

never did get rid of the smell though.

Ofcom 'fair deal' action: UK mobile networks agree to slash contract charges when lock-in ends – except Three

Re: 3 aren't entirely dodgy

They call you to try and sign you up for a new shiny & another 2 year lock in.

when it becomes clear that you aren't going to bite they offer to switch you over to sim only with a 12 month lock in.

only if you really insist do they switch you to a sim only monthly rolling contract

It's a fullblown Crysis: Gamers press pause on PC purchases, shipments freeze

Re: Real gamers ...

I think the last time I bought a complete system was somewhere around 1994, everything since then has been bits and pieces.

I tend to replace bits at 4 year intervals so...

year 1 : new motherboard / cpu (ram if required)

year 2 : new hard drives (the old ones are 4 years old and probably fairly full)

year 3 : new video card(s)

year 4 : anything else that needs replacing

current system..

I7 4790k (water cooled)

32Gb ram

nvidia gtx970 driving 3 23" ips screens @1920x1080 (5760x1080)

1tb SSD + 2x4tb spinning rust

Techie in need of a doorstop picks up 'chunk of metal' – only to find out it's rather pricey

Re: Mercury, and Titanium

It seems a lot of places with decent engineering capabilities churned out some variation of the 50P coins when they were first introduced, a "rumour" I heard was of a large facility near Hemel that dedicated almost an entire week of night shifts to mass producing passable copies and that at the end of the week all of the dies and cutters set up for the job were destroyed.

of course the fakes absolutely flooded the local area but were being accepted everywhere (because the fake coins outnumbered the genuine coins the genuine coins were suspected of being fakes).

About a month later the police visited the facility with a message along the lines of "We know it was you, You know it was you, but we can't prove it.... just don't do it again"

A distant relative was stationed overseas after the end of ww2 and ended up where the german subs were being decommissioned.

On his return to the UK a lot of his friends had souvenirs confiscated (guns etc) but all he had on him were a standard kit bag (no extras), 1 packet of cigarettes, 1 lighter and one matchbox.

The matchbox bought a farm outright and paid for livestock.

It was packed solid with platinum contacts that had been removed from switchgear on the german subs

I can hear the light! Boffins beam audio into ears with freakin' lasers

Re: Ain't science wonderful ?

That was my first thought too.

walking past shops could become very annoying.

driving towards an unscrupulous garage could result in unusual noises seeming to come from your car

Are you sure your disc drive has stopped rotating, or are you just ignoring the messages?

Re: Re:No Display Detected

Seen in an API

"Error 999 - Something seriously fucked up"

Brit bomb hoax teen who fantasised about being a notorious hacker cops 3 years in jail

with grey monotonous skies that go on for a bit if memory serves (not followed link)

Support whizz 'fixes' screeching laptop with a single click... by closing 'malware-y' browser tab

Re: Push volume button to mute

Astra (late 90s new shape one)

Omega

both had the pull the headlight switch for internal light

Cracking the passwords of some WPA2 Wi-Fi networks just got easier

Re: Nice Model M KB in piccie

I only have four here, all with manufacturing stickers from 1988 on.

one in use and three in case I ever actually manage to wear one out or break it.

since I've been trying to kill this one for 30 years I suspect someone will be gaining 3 boxed model M keyboards in my will.

looking at mine a little more closely it's now due for a decent clean...

this involves popping off all the keys, sticking them in a pair of old football socks and putting them through the washing machine

Super Cali goes ballistic: mugshot site atrocious

as I see it they fell foul of the law because the only way of getting a picture taken down was to pay.

if they had a free option (will be taken down within 6 months of request) and a paid fast-track option they may have got away with it.

Windrush immigration papers scandal is a big fat GDPR fail for UK.gov

some of the examples I have heard about did hold british passports and only ran into problems when they came to renew their existing passport

They're back! 'Feds only' encryption backdoors prepped in US by Dems

by relatively unique I mean it is theoretically possible for someone to have generated an identical key even if the odds are vanishingly small. but even if there were an identical key out there somewhere the odds of that key being tried in my lock would be even smaller.

this talk of encryption that can be accessed by the owner and law enforcement make me think of locks that can be opened by 2 different keys.

Key 1 is owned by you and is relatively unique, Key 2 is on the keyring of every member of law enforcement worldwide.

of course nobody could ever possibly get a copy of Key 2!

I can't help thinking of luggage locks.

NASA on SpaceX's 2015 big boom: Bargain bin steel liberated your pressure vessel

Re: A bad move by NASA

Have I missed something?

what is this U.S. Space station you refer to?

I think the only space station currently active is the ISS (International Space Station)

Batteries are so heavy, said user. If I take it out, will this thing work?

Re: Earlier phones saved you the effort of removing the battery yourself.

almost as bad as the nokia with the spring loaded sliding mic & cover.

you pressed a button and the cover flicked down answering an incoming call, to start with.... eventually you pressed the button to answer the call and send the cover / mic flying across the floor

New Sky thinking: Media giant makes dish-swerving move on Netflix territory

"I was in the area, so I thought I'd come and fix it now".

also known as

I screwed up your line at the other end while working on another line and without a tracer plugged in here I can't fix it.

Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Siemens tease electric flight engine project

Re: "powered by batteries and an onboard generator using jet fuel"

I think the efficiency will come from running the single generator engine at it's most efficient speed / loading, where it can provide enough power for flight and some battery charging.

if we assume that there will be on generator per electic motor on the plane we may end up with a plane flying on 4 electric motors but only running 2 generators rather than 4 jet engines

with regard to the electric motor the plan is for seimens to build a 2MW motor (assuming 2MW = 2 MegaWatt rather than 2MW being a model No)

I suspect the jet powered generator will be running at a fixed speed / output and anything not consumed by propulsion will be dumped into batteries.

for takeoff I would guess power would come from both batteries and direct from the generator but once airborne (where the power would usually be dialled back) the generator will provide enough power for flight and recharging of batteries (ready for the next takeoff or high power demand time)

basically it's the plane version of a prius

Amazon Key door-entry flaw: No easy fix to stop rogue couriers burgling your place unseen

Re: Background check

more like "can you hire a van"

Car insurers recoil in horror from paying auto autos' speeding fines

Re: Farmer Giles

round here (lincolnshire coast) it would be easier to signpost where there isn't mud on the road.

even on A roads we get stretches that are miles long where the road marking are obscured by a layer of mud

Re: Critical updates

logic should dictate that if the vehicle is in use when it is aware an update is available (critical or not) it should delay installing the update until the current journey is complete.

by all means download the update while in use but don't try and apply it until the vehicle is not in use.

so after leaving the car underground for a month it pulls out and gets notified of an update

this displays an icon to the user and a time (the approx time it will take to install)

the user then know that the next time the vehicle stops (and they get out) the vehicle will be unusable for that time and can plan accordingly (they may decide to go straight to work rather than stop at a coffee shop on the way)

BOFH: Oh dear. Did someone get lost on the Audit Trail?

Re: Ah!!

the non dyed diesel was known as DERV (Diesel Engined Road Vehicle) and gets charged extra tax

the dyed version is intended for non road vehicle use (agricultural vehicles / plant generators etc)

an oddity in the law is red diesel is used in boats and it up to the boat owner to declare what percentage of the fuel is to be used for propulsion (taxed) and the proportion used for other purposes like charging batteries or heating (untaxed)

Thousands of hornets swarm over innocent fire service drone

Re: "drone was attacked by the hornets while being used [..] to locate the creatures' nest"

we get normal wasp nest underground in the garden here.

I just stick a 12v high speed fan (9 inch) over the entrance and leave it for a week.

no more wasps (plenty of wings left over though)

Ofcom pops 37% spectrum cap on mobile providers' domes

Three want some more of the lower frequency spectrum as that has better building penetration. (900-950mhz from memory)

originally only Cellnet and Vodafone had these frequencies, T-Mobile and Orange had higher frequencies (1800 mhz from memory)

Three originally only had 2100mhz available.

I see that Three now have some spectrum at 1800 mhz (presumably freed up by the combining of Orange and T-mobile into EE) and some at 800mhz

This AI stuff is all talk! Bots invent their own language to natter away behind humans' backs

his solution was to wipe the AI's memory every night, which it bypassed by printing it's memory and having a team of typists feed the memory back in each day

User jams up PC. Literally. No, we don't know which flavour

Re: Back in the 1990's...

I remember the old PS/2 full tower machines.

absolutely rock solid (literally) and would work forever on one condition....

never... ever... clean inside them

New UK laws address driverless cars insurance and liability

Re: updates

I'd rather not wait while the car tries to download it's updates over the (1 bar if you hold the antenna in the right spot while waving in circles with your other hand) gprs connection that is available here.

far better option would be to disable autonomous functions until it is updated.

University DDoS'd by its own seafood-curious malware-infected vending machines

Re: I'm guessing the slightly tough part.

Trouble is on a lot of these things you can't change the passwords.

for example on a cctv dvr manufactured by dahua (and heavily resold under many brands) you can change all of the passwords apart from 2, the 1st is a remote view login (33333333 / 33333333) the 2nd is a root login (88888888 / 88888888)

the box itself is a cracking bit of kit but you can't deploy it because there is no way of making it secure.