Posts by Yet Another Anonymous coward

Double double, soil and trouble, fire burn and heat shield bubble: NASA cracks rover, has dirty talk with ESA

Re: I think I heard this one before....

The chances of getting stuff to Mars isn't looking much better

Re: No news here ...

It has to fly into space. Making every part 700% stronger, and heavier, than it needs to be isn't really an option

IBM turnover shrinks $28bn in 6 years but execs laugh all the way to the bank

The RFQ only specified a crust - it didn't say anything about the base. A base could be implemented in a future stage for a mere aditional $Bn

"Were are 130,000 people just up and going to find new jobs ?"

Delivering hot food?

Can you imagine if IBM delivered pizza?

Delivered 3 years late, costs $1M/slice and the only flavor is pineapple and anchovie

James Webb Space Telescope + luck = long distance astrofun

Re: Avoid using Musk!

it needs to fly on a rocket that is depressingly free from inovation and change,

Don't worry it's flying on one that blew up on its maiden flight

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

Re: When I was a kid

I doubt if any of my family could have *proven* they had the right to be there to the standard now being asked.

They probably could - it's a very simple paper based test.

If your skin is the same colour as a piece of paper you are ok

Data protection also means not destroying data that is needed surely?

Data protection means protecting you from the data

Like fire protection is protecting you from the fire

Blighty stuffs itself in Galileo airlock and dares Europe to pull the lever

Re: EU friends apparantly

Don't be ridiculous. India invented the internet:

Well the zeros anyway, you can still use the ones

Re: Yet Another Satellite Navigation System

Better to invest in alternative navigation systems

Map + compass + sextant. There is a reason the Royal Navy doesn't rely on GPS

Re: Non-EU

The clock units are Swiss and part of the core technologies involved.

The clocks also don't work

Who will fix our Internal Banking Mess? TSB hires IBM amid online banking woes

TSB's switchover team use the same back office systems as branch personnel and will probably be inundated.

So if you do it you get nowhere.

If another giant bank gets no response to a milllion transfer requests it phones up the banking regulator and suggests TSB get fined a few million/day until they comply.

I don't think - we would love to abide by the rules for the time it takes to transfer a customer to a competitor, but the computer is acting up - works as an excuse

ISO blocks NSA's latest IoT encryption systems amid murky tales of backdoors and bullying

Re: Very helpful NSA

In my professional experience Israelis, especially Israeli academics, are easily pushed around by simple bullying.

You don't think that IKEA is some global plot to take over the world?

Even the Milk Marketing Board fear them

Re: 'a source that has compromised security-related ISO standards just a few years ago?'

Rather like hacking a european maker of sim cards so you can spy on everyones calls and then begging to be included in security arrangements once you leave the eu

Inconceivable

If you can't trust American spies to behave openly and honestly for the good of all Nations - who can you trust ?

The tech you're reading these words on – you have two Dundee uni boffins to thank for that

This invention was for TFT - ie practical high resolution displays - not for the LCD mechanism.

Incidentally LCDs were invented in Hull (possibly the only place more glamorous than Dundee) and at RSRE

TSB outage, day 5: What do you mean you can't log in? Our systems are up and running. Up and running, we say!

Re: All code is written by offshore idiots to the lowest price

All code is written by offshore idiots to the lowest price

That's their mistake - offshore the customers, it's much cheaper and easier

Russians poised to fire intercontinental ballistic missile... into space with Sentinel-3 sat on board

Re: Venery Name Game

That star on it's own - it forms the constellation we call "The Dot"

Audiophiles have really taken to the warm digital tone of streaming music

I've yet to hear a HiFi system that sounds like real-life.

There is a system called Windows

- specifically you open the window and stick your head out, it's real life but the controls for what is playing are a bit limited

Re: Streaming? Nah!

The worrying part is that there are a dozen different versions of the track and the audiophiles argue about which set of zeros really represents the true experience

Re: Streaming? Nah!

There is an audiophile streaming service that just streams a stream of '0' so they can bask in how low the noise is on their system

Brexit has shafted the UK's space sector, lord warns science minister

Re: Brexshit WILL be a disaster.

Lots of young people are looking to move over with the jobs.

If the Eu really wanted to stuff Britain this would be a clever move.

The Eu invent an Eu citizenship that gives them the same rights to live/work in any Eu 27 that they currently have - and offers it to any UK STEM graduate under 25, or PhD under 30

Then everybody is happy, all the young people that voted to remain can move to the Eu. Berlin's startups ,Frankfurt's banks and ESA get all the developers and rocket scientists that they need, old people in the UK get to have Brexit free of all those remoaner young people.

Because the state projects keep your R&D infrastructure busy while you compete for the commercial contracts.

Boeing may have the resources to keep 1000 rocket scientists employed between the end of one project and the start of the next but I doubt that Surrey Satellite Tech does

Re: As expected

They are already happening, UK universities are being dropped from collaborations because nobody knows what the rules are going to be next year - which makes it rather tricky to plan long term programs.

Re: Space sector, who knew?

We have some of the best STEM talent in the world,when are we going to get back to doing what we do best

Keeping them in menial jobs for minimum pay because only PPE graduates can be bosses?

Or exporting them to countries that actually invest in skills?

Re: Why would the ESA want this?

Which would presumably apply to the other non-full members (like that well-known European state Canada!)

It does - even Switzerland (that well known terrorist nation) doesn't have access to the secure part of Galileo

No problem, on leaving Europe it will be possible to reposition Britain in the global launch market.

Some areas of the Caribbean are close enough to the equator and with the necessary down-range oops ocean to make this practical, I suggest that Britain is moved there

Or deciding that the high value / skills are in the payloads and the science not in re-badging ICBMs to chuck the stuff up there

Petty PETA rapped by judges over monkey selfie copyright stunt

Re: It flung feces at the lawyers...

And ironically then won the turner Prize

What legal agreement did the monkey sign to allow PETA power of attorney to act on its behalf?

It flung feces at the lawyers - which in America is considered reasonable behavior toward an attorney

Next monkey sues PETA

For unfairly giving it that name and so causing it to be a victim of fascist imperialist oppression by PETA

IETF: GDPR compliance means caring about what's in your logfiles

Otherwise they can carry on collecting and selling an EU citizens data forever.

Presumably at some point the buyer of the data is going to want to use that data to do business in the eu - otherwise there wasn't much point in buying it - then you hit them.

Sysadmin unplugged wrong server, ran away, hoped nobody noticed

Re: Yep. Only the UK is developed. Every fule no that.

Everybody else on the planet is obviously wrong.

Especially those that drive on the wrong side of the road.

Planned European death ray may not need Brit boffinry brain-picking

Re: Useless

I think it is currently a zero-role non-combat aircraft until some future upgrade

Re: Useless

If you want to stop war, stop the "few" politicians/criminals that use it as a means.

Or divert all military funds into either impossible imaginary weapon systems or platforms so expensive you can never afford to let come near harms way

Re: It's The Sun wot won it

What about a giant magnifying glass mounted on the White cliffs of Dover pointed at the continental hoards?

Then the Sun can (if it ever came out) win it

Amazon, LG Electronics turned my vape into an exploding bomb, says burned bloke in lawsuit

Re: Health Hazard?

Not to mention the drug "known to the state of California to cause cancer" that so many of el'reg readers drink to excess

Tech bribes: What's the WORST one you've ever been offered?

Re: Probably...

Just an off-by-one error

Re: Probably...

IIRC there are some states which oral sex is legally referred to as sodomy

Wrong endianess surely?

There is no perceived IT generation gap: Young people really are thick

But the charity gets to claim tax rebate for the big donation but the widow is unlikely to be a higher rate tax payer.

I thought that the parable was that churchs should concentrate on rich large donors and widows were just an annoyance.

OMG! OIG to audit SLS: NASA probed over big rocket project's big budgets, big delays

Re: You know it!

Except the goals of the organisation in this case are to funnel money to all the aerospace companies (and congressional districts) that don't currently have Boeing or Lockheed contracts

Hello DARKNESS, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again... about a 10,000-pixel alien-hunting camera

Remember each "pixel" of this camera is also able to measure the energy (ie wavelength) of a photon and its arrival time

Re: 10,000 pixels?

I'm a little surprised how little progress has been made in these devices, it only has a R=10 and 10K pixels is useful but we had 8x8 arrays back in the 90s with energy resolutions of R=500 (IIRC)

There was a bit of a hope that they would make practical near IR spectrographs for 1-2.5um

I guess there are no other applications of the technology - and the cryogenics is "challenging" so not a lot of industrial RD has gone into the field. Although I can think of a few uses for large area array SQUIDS

Scissors cut paper. Paper wraps rock. Lab-made enzyme eats plastic

Re: old fashioned paper bags

That's an unfair stereotype. The other half of drivers use the more elegant and tasteful SUV.

Towed behind their RV ?

Re: old fashioned paper bags

funny how the Americans never made the move from paper to plastic "grocery" bags , from what I can see in the movies.

But the paper bags only have to be carried out to the F150 in the parking lot.

It's not easy to carry paper sacks with no handles when you're walking

What Israel's crack majority-women Unit 8200 hackers can teach tech about diversity

Conscription ?

That's the answer - force all women to do CS degrees or go to jail.

ps would be interested in what their racial and religious diversity profile looks like.

Pentagon sticks to its guns: Yep, we're going with a single cloud services provider

Re: Optional

I hope IBM gets the contract because after years of delays and billions in cost overuns it still won't work

It could do more to stall the DoD than a generation of peace campaigners

Re: The Toddler in the White House

It's not a negotation.

The Washington post doesn't say nice things about POTUS - therefore is an enemy

Bezos owns the WaPo

Bezos owns Amazon

Therefore Amazon is an enemy

Supreme Court punts on Microsoft email seizure decision after Cloud Act passes US Congress

Re: As has been noted...

Imagining that unencrypted on-premises data is secure indicates too much faith in your OS, your router/firewall software, your operational security an the trustworthiness of your staff

Re: Local providers?

You think GCHQ wouldn't hand over any data the NSA wanted anyway - in the name of cooperation?