Posts by Chris 244

John Deere now considers VMs to be legacy tech, Ethernet and Wi-Fi on the brink

Re: What they actually mean is...

CarPay Diem?

A lone Nvidia GPU speeds past the physics-straining might of a quantum computer – in these apps at least

Re: Horses for Courses

Quick check shows this comparison doesn't hold up.

First quantum computer was built 25 years ago (1998).

First car was built in 1886. Twenty-five years later the "Blitzen-Benz" set a land-speed record of 228 kph. Production cars by Mercedes had a top speed of over 110 kph. Model T had top speed of around 65 kph, significantly faster than the top speed of a horse with rider.

Autonomy founder Mike Lynch loses first stage in fight against extradition to US

Have an Irony Booster on me

7 is more than 5, which is the number of US nationals extradited per your reference.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G: Sub-$600 midranger makes premium phones feel frivolous

Sure you can!

Just have a Lefort osteotomy, genioplasty, and rhinoplasty. And once you can eat solids again pull some cookies out of the oven without using mitts. Simples. Repeat as required.

NTT slashes top execs’ pay as punishment for paying more than their share of $500-a-head meals with government officials

Shed a tear over curry

I still miss Lester...

That long-awaited, super-hyped Apple launch: Watches, iPads... and one more thing. Oh, actually that's it

Why no one likes the French

-Fetchez la vache.

-Quoi?

-Fetchez la vache!!

MOOOOOO!!!!

ICANN suffers split-personality disorder as deadline for .org sale decision draws close

Re: What About ICANN Insiders?

You can say that again.

What a meth: Elderly Melbourne couple sign for 20kg shipment of drugs, say cops

Re: Not them...

Whoosh...

Self-taught Belgian bloke cracks crypto conundrum that was supposed to be uncrackable until 2034

Re: Multiple Clusters

RTFA. Multiple clusters won't help.

Ok Google, please ignore this free tax filing code so we can keep on screwing America

Use StudioTax

Free, no silly line limits, auto-entry for T3 T4 T5 etc. Works great.

Trend Micro antivirus fails to stop measles carrier rubbing against firm's Ottawa offices

Re: get your Morissette meter tingling

Too soon my friend, too soon.

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

Picric acid

Worked in a small lab, found an old bottle of picric acid in the flammables cupboard. There were white crystals all around the cap of the bottle, so opening it would probably have blown up the lab.

Asked the lab tech in charge about it, he said he called the Fire Department once about it, they told him to call the Bomb Squad for disposal. So he ... put it back in the cabinet and left it there.

That was over 20 years ago. It probably is still there today.

College PRIMOS prankster wreaks havoc with sysadmin manuals

Re: Fatal Futil and inter-school rivalry

Bill would have had the same License as James.

Dot-com web addresses prices to swell, thanks to sweetheart deal between Uncle Sam, Verisign

Re: Say what?

Maybe he meant alphanumeric? 36^4 gets us pretty close...

Boss helped sysadmin take down horrible client with swift kick to the nether regions

Re: Catholic and Anglican Churches

I would argue the fundamental premise of both is provision of "magical protection against imaginary dangers".

Atari accuses El Reg of professional trolling and making stuff up. Welp, here's the interview tape for you to decide...

One Two Many

It's an actual counting system, and before chuckling at "primitives" notice how in English:

One -- First

Two -- Second

Three - Third

Four -- Fourth

And French:

Un -- Premier

Deux -- Seconde

Trois -- Troisieme

Quatre -- Quatrieme

Google Pixel 2 XL: Like paying Apple-tier prices then saying, hey, please help yourself to my data

Re: Boiling a lobster

Not in Switzerland. There it is a crime.

They forked this one up: Microsoft modifies open-source code, blows hole in Windows Defender

Re: Microsoft is the Anti-Midas of IT

Nope, I think the original Midas (a cautionary tale about unbridled greed and unintended consequences) applies perfectly.

Magic Leap bounds into SF's Games Developer Conference and... disappears

Re: I'll take a job...

You're hired! Here is your million ... in stock options (non-redeemable until product launch).

Geoboffins claim to find oldest trace of life in rocks 4bn years old

Torngat Mountains

Middle of nowhere. Literally. As in, try asking Google for directions.

Amazingly beautiful.

But bring a gun. The locals tend to get hungry.

Blame Canada? $5.7m IBM IT deal balloons to $185m thanks to 'an open bag of money'

Re: Could have been worse.

Nope, that happened too. To the tune of $250 M, most but not all of which has been recovered.

You had ONE job: Italian firefighters suspected of starting blazes for cash

Re: Nothing new for Sicily...

It's been a few years since I read The Godfather but I'm pretty sure one of the schemes was to run a shipping company using overloaded trucks and also have the road repair contracts for the routes the trucks ran on.

Bank of Canada finds flaws with current blockchain solutions

Re: What a surprise!

The BoC is not that kind of "Bank". It is Canada's central bank, analogous to the Fed. Duties include formulating monetary policy and promotion of a safe, sound financial system in Canada.

Considering how stable our banking system has been here compared to our neighbours to the south, probably makes sense to pay attention to what the BoC has to say.

Mastercard launches card that replaces PIN with fingerprint sensor

Re: Just a little question...

I can quite easily rattle off the long-dead phone numbers for my old mates from when I was but a young lass. Can't remember my own cell phone number ... that I've had for at least five years.

My prefered method

1. Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C

2. Place non-stick cookie sheet in oven, preferably with some nice chocolate chip cookie batter on it

3. Bake for 14 min or until cookies lightly browned

4. Remove cookie sheet from oven without the aid of oven mitts

Will remove your finger prints for about two weeks, but that's okay because you'll need more cookies by then!

Prisoners built two PCs from parts, hid them in ceiling, connected to the state's network and did cybershenanigans

Re: Marketing Hack / Caged Heat

How about:

Faraday Caged Heat

Verizon's bogus bills tanked my credit score, claims sueball slinger

Re: Canada, Rogers, repeat

And TV broadcasting company and radio broadcasting company and magazine publisher and sports team and venue owner and bank and credit card company and home security monitoring company and customer rewards program company and marketing company and onetime real estate brokerage (sold off) and digital media streaming company (shuttered).

Your internet history on sale to highest bidder: US Congress votes to shred ISP privacy rules

Re: Opera Browser

You might want to re-read the part of the article warning against using free VPN services. You may also be interested to learn that Opera Software is now owned by the Chinese company Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I Limited Partnership.

Intel's Atom C2000 chips are bricking products – and it's not just Cisco hit

Re: Uh oh

Probably not a good idea to have faith in Synology. They are still promoting said products on their website:

https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS1815+#spec

And the resellers the Synology website sends you to are still reselling:

http://www.ncix.com/detail/synology-ds1815-diskstation-8-bay-diskless-71-103588.htm?promoid=1721

There are some really crap budget phones out there. Vodafone's Smart Ultra 7 isn't

Re: New word

Lots of great Yiddish words out there, "dreck" being only one of them. The term "glitch" (to slip, nose-dive) is also Yiddish.

VW Dieselgate engineer sings like a canary: Entire design team was in on it – not just a few bad apples, allegedly

Re: 376 MPG

The "car" was a stripped shell without even a proper seat. No transmission (straight chain drive off the engine to the rear axle), no radiator, 500 ml fuel capacity, hard rubber tires and no suspension. This thing was never driven far enough or hard enough to need a cooling system!

In real-world conditions I can go faster further and more comfortably more safely using my bicycle, and instead of requiring nasty petrol I can do it powered only by 500 ml of 5% ABV 100% eco-friendly barley-based fuel.

Oooooklahoma! Where the cops can stop and empty your bank cards – on just a hunch

Highway Robbery

Literally already happened. In left-leaning Ontario. In 2009.

http://thenewspaper.com/news/32/3248.asp

Knackered Euro server turns Panasonic smart TVs into dumb TVs

Re: Time for my new Expression

To get really pedantic, the term "red shift" is NOT interchangeable with "the Doppler Effect" as it INCLUDES shift from the Doppler effect AND other effects such as the shift due to the expansion of the universe (cosmological redshift).

In this specific case I believe "blueshift" or "negative redshift" would be the best term to use. One cannot exclude a contribution to the wavelength shift caused by the gravitational effects of falling into a black hole.

Easter Islanders didn't commit 'ecocide' after all, says archaeologist

Re: Incorrect book, and deeper evidence

My first thought on seeing the headline was "Lewis is back!"

For fsck's SAKKE: GCHQ-built phone voice encryption has massive backdoor – researcher

Re: Pizza for delivery

Guzman was busted after his lackeys ordered tacos for delivery. Dos cervesas frias por favor.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/12108746/Chapo-Guzmans-taco-order-led-police-to-his-door.html.

Stephen Hawking reckons he's cracked the black hole paradox

Re: I'm told that bald men have tiny hairs too

They don't in fact lose hair, it just migrates...

...to the eyebrows, nose, and ears.

After eight years, NASA's Dawn probe brings Ceres into closest focus

Mole of Xenon

"The atomic weight of xenon is about 131 so 20kg is very roughly 1/6th of a mole."

You might want to double-check that. You're off by an order of magnitude or three.

Windows 10 lags 7, 8 … and even Vista in the channel race

"Hated" Vista

As everyone rants and raves about Microsoft trying to force a stealth Windows 10 update and "telemetry" on them, I find myself hating my old Vista notebook less and less.

Your browser history, IP addresses, online purchases etc all up for grabs without a warrant

Re: Fatalities as per the CDC 2013

Firearm Homicides: 11 208 (all homicides 16 121)

Firearm Suicides: 21 175 (all suicides 41 149)

Firearm Accidental Discharge Deaths: 505

Firearm Discharge Death, Undetermined Intent: 281

All Firearms Deaths: 33 636

Unintentional Falls Deaths: 30 208

Unintentional Poisoning Deaths: 38 851

All Injury Deaths: 192 945

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf

So sorry for the sentence spacing but El Reg comments set a paragraph break after every hard return. Anyone know how to do a soft return here?

GPS, you've gone too far this time

Re: didn't they disable that 'feature'

It's not a bug it's a feature.

http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/faq/

Disabled in 2000.

Micron has three bits between its PC disk-killing flash teeth

Actual reviews are ... not good

The thing is slow slow slow. Significantly slower than what it replaces. Slower even than Micron's very first SATA 6Gb/s drive. As slow as spinning rust under some workloads.

TL;DR Slow

Court to Wikimedia: Your NSA spying evidence is inadmissable, so you can't prove NSA spying

Re: Get a big broom, judge!

Regardless, it is enough sand that, poured directly on top of the judges, they would quickly change their tune with regards to the insignificance of a trillion grains of sand.

Wait, what's that noise I hear overhead? -->

US military personnel investigated for splashing $96,576 on strippers

I think he is referring to this:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/19/why-was-firefighter-marine-reserve-maj-jason-brezler-betrayed.html

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/at-night-we-can-hear-them-screaming-u-s-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys

The Ashley Madison files – are people really this stupid?

What is this HTTPS I keep reading about

"Don't trust your data to a non-HTTPS lookup site"

(Cough)

Lottery IT security boss guilty of hacking lotto computer to win $14.3m

Basic Maths

There have been instances where a Lotto ticket was a good investment. Here in Canada we have a Lotto that costs $5 for 3 plays with a 1 in 28.6 million odds of winning a (sometimes) $50 M jackpot with overflow into a series of up to 50 $1 M prizes.

So, wait for a big pot paid for by others and then buy just over 9.5 M cards at a total cost of $48 M and you can cover ALL possible winning combinations as well as collecting all of the overflow prizes. Even if you have to split the jackpot and several overflow prizes you still come out ahead.

Slippery, slimy find: LEGGY, WRIGGLY fossil shows SNAKES weren't legless. Or ARMLESS

Re: Out of interest,

Helmut Tischlinger

http://www.port.ac.uk/uopnews/2015/07/23/four-legged-snake-fossil-found/

NIST in suspected 'meth lab' blast: US Congress is demanding answers

Re: proper lab protocol...

He's not blind due to ethanol being an antidote for methanol poisoning. Methanol is not particularly toxic in and of itself, but is converted by alcohol dehydrogenase into formaldehyde (not good) and then aldehyde dehydrogenase converts that into formic acid (really really bad). Flooding the system with ethanol blocks this and gives the kidneys time to excrete the methanol.

Don't try to use methanol ingestion to get a free slug of ethanol at your local hospital, though. There is a specific alcohol dehydrogenase inhibitor available, so ethanol is no longer used as a medical treatment. The other treatment is dialysis, which in an emergency situation entails the placement of a temporary dialysis catheter. They are freaking huge and get shoved into blood vessels in the neck or groin with the aid of things like wires, stiffeners and dilators.

Robot surgeons kill 144 patients, hurt 1,391, malfunction 8,061 times

Re: I wonder

I wonder, would you reconsider your position knowing that the robotic approach lowers your risk of urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction after prostatectomy?

Mars rover Opportunity shuns dodgy flash chips, relies on RAM

Next components

Expect creaks and moans from the suspension esp. when a storm is a comin', difficultly focusing the near-vision cameras, and generalized failure of both solid and liquid waste disposal systems. This will result in a steady stream of reports on said failures intermixed with retransmission of data collected in 2005-2006, and funny stories from a trip long ago when he and his brother left home for the last time.