Posts by Sgt_Oddball

'My PC needs to lose weight' says user with FAT filesystem

Re: @ Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese: Windows 98

Schneider Euro PC packing an Intel 8088 running some archaic version of DOS. Gold monochrome monitors...ahh the height of computing in secondary school..

Re: SMTP

Now thats downright evil... I like it.

Lifetime customer....

Just tell him he's got bloatware on his machine and needs a new one every so often to stop it getting heavier again...

Or is that just a tad mean?

Amazon granted patent to put parachutes inside shipping labels

Air mail..

Does it also specify the load baring rate of the box and adhesive properties in low temperatures?

Not to mention moist weather.

Just imagine, one short sharp jolt as the parachute opens and suddenly it's raining contents as the box falls apart.

Maybe an air raid siren might be in order to warn people below?

After reusing a rocket, SpaceX tries reusing Dragon capsule for ISS resupply

Clean underwear?

You mean to tell me they can recycle water, make an espresso and do mind bogglingly complex experiments but can't get a dry cleaning machine to work space?

Humm.. maybe thats why 70's scifi always made the jumpsuits look like they were wipe clean....

(Coat because I like mine nice and clean me)

Virtual reality headsets even less popular than wearable devices

You missed one...

The PS4 has the PSVR headset and so far that works pretty well on a mass produced console.

Admitedly It's still about £330 on top of the £300 PS4 price but you'd be paying more than that for just the headset of the Vive or rift never mind a machine capable of running them.

Boffins play with the world's most powerful X‑ray gun to shoot molecules

You did it yourself?

What's a mad boffin got to do to get a good Igor these days to press the switch/pull the level/{interact} the {thing} ?

British prime minister slams Facebook and pals for votes

Re: The leadership of Afghanistan/Egypt were unpalatable

So what of Brunei? A Muslim country with Sharia law that's pretty peaceful and not been invaded by anyone? (Though we did think about it for a while) Malaysia (whist not under sharia law) also seems to be doing quite fine thank you so much even whilst they're in the firing line of ISIS too?

Nether of these countries are actively supporting terrorism both are friendly to the west and they're proof that Muslims can get on their neighbours without too much fuss.

Pirates hack was a hoax, says Disney boss

pirates of the Caribbean 47.

'Johnny Depp stars as a robot pirate and looses his wife in a game of poker and tries to win her back with hilarious consequences....'

- future of the left / Robocop 4: F*** off Robocop.

That song sounds more and more prophetic everytime I hear it...

Go ahead, stage a hackathon. But pray it doesn't work too well

Re: Kerbal

And surgeon simulator too if memory serves (that's why the controls are notoriously difficult.)

LastPass now supports 2FA auth, completely undermines 2FA auth

Re: Better alternatives...

I think I speak on behalf of a number of us here but we'd prefer a secure password manager you a good looking one. Both would be nice but first and foremost it should be secure.

Robot lands a 737 by hand, on a dare from DARPA

Re: Ooops

Yeah, I noticed that too... setting the air brake by pushing it into a dive..

No,no it just needs topping up every now and again when the air goes down.

And don't call me Shirley...

Leeds cops issue appeal for man-sized todger

I hope..

He gets felt by the long arm of the law.

It also shows that the police in Leeds don't dick around...

No mention of the offender having hairy hands or going blind though.

Just hope the victim gets a happy ending.

Mines the one with the mats bar in the pocket....

IoT needs security, says Microsoft without even a small trace of irony

hey now..

Trying not to come across as an ms shill but at least they've got they've taken a stand and said it. They've also avoided aying that they've got the solution to it.

For people not in IT having a giant like MS state it's problem tends to get peoples attention on just how bad it is which can only be a good thing right?

74 countries hit by NSA-powered WannaCrypt ransomware backdoor: Emergency fixes emitted by Microsoft for WinXP+

Re: Risk Management

If the piece of hardware is xp reliant than take it off the network. That way you only have to rely on removable media that can be checked by secured machines first thus reducing attack vectors.

I've seen ultrasound scanners treated In the same way.

PC repair chap lets tech support scammer log on to his PC. His Linux PC

Re: For the phone scammers ...

I've managed similar results before. Had a pickpocket try no less than 3 times to get into my pockets at a music festival (metal zips and tight back pockets make it quite the challenge) which on his third attempt resulted in one grasped hand. Which got squeezed...alot. enough that I felt something go pop followed by frantic pulling and a look of terror from a member of the audience.

Play with fire and all that.

Try not to scream: Ads are coming to Amazon's Alexa – and VR goggles

more and more I'm becoming convinced..

That the powers that be are dystopian fiction readers or at least getting they're ideas from them.

In this instance go read transmetroplitan and wonder just how long before ebola cola and caribu eyes become a thing (and I'll never be partial to long pig even if it was vat grown).

Facebook loves virtual reality so much it just axed its VR film studio

right now

The price of access is too high and there's confusion over which expensive system to invest in (because fuck having something useful for customers like and industry wide set of apis ) as not all games will work with all systems. There's also yet to be a truly killer game on vr.

If we saw something like Call of duty or gta getting in on VR them it'd be a different story. The fact that no major studio has released a big game yet is very telling.

Australian Taxation Office named as party preventing IT contractors being paid

Re: @ Red Bren

Not so in the UK. As redbean stated. If you have an account with the issuing bank then no problem.. to a degree. But if the cheque is cashed, money taken and then it is discovered that the payee had insufficient funds then the money will come back out of your account.

There are services that will cash the cheque on your behalf but they will take a healthy slice off the money.

It's mostly an anti fraud measure to stop accounts being setup, cheques paid and cashed without funds and money vanishing into thin air.

Anti fraud measures like this are why banks in the UK can afford to offer banking services to private individuals for free.

It's all down to local laws and regs rather than some international standard.

CompSci boffins find Reddit is ideal source for sarcasm database

Who said Americans don't understand sarcasm?

People who do...

HMRC beer duty bungle leaves breweries struggling to pay online

Re: Clearly this tax change has taken all the devs by surprise

On the plus side... if they can't do the taxes then maybe we have a shot at immortality after all....

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

Re: The Shawshank Connection

Escape from LA(N)

Prisoner memory block H

Cool SPAM Luke

Old bit

Ok I'm done...

Hasta la Windows Vista, baby! It's now officially dead – good riddance

I'd bee to differ

Despite all the hate against win8 I found it worked much better than Vista on the same machine. Though circumstantial I doubt I'm the only one. Win 7 though looks to the next xp and really it was a massive system pack so it's still sort of with us (see the kernal versions Vista 6, win7 6.1 and win8 6.2)

Official science we knew all along: Facebook makes you sad :-(

No mention of...

Using Facebook to organise a meeting of a group of close friends... that must really mess the figures up.

(Having recently partook in stag do organised via Facebook and arranging a whiskey meet up for this weekend I can attest that both of these have/Will improve(d) my mood no end though drinking May also have played a part..)

Boeing 737 turns 50

Re: if it ain't broken

This is most likely the case a reasonable assumption but assumptions cam wrong and the simple reporting of figures can give implications when given without clarifcation and would probably require more reading than in currently prepared to give it of idle curiosity .

if it ain't broken

Don't fix...

Dad to hear of the number of accidents and fatalities but you have to wonder how many of those where human error rather than design flaws? In the same way that very popular cars have a high number of deaths involved with them does not make them inherently accident prone or unsafe.

Enquiring minds and all that

Machine vs. machine battle has begun to de-fraud the internet of lies

So what about?

Chaos is bad for business.

So how do you explain the daliymail.co.uk? Or fourchan, they both thrive and survive on chaos surely?

(Also the chaos that is the commentard community is a big draw for me personally, helping me view ads for the register directly but that's my own bias simply explained)

That said... Don't feed the trolls....

Boaty McBoatface sinks in South Atlantic on her maiden deployment

of abysml water masses

The waters not that bad surely?

Mines the yellow sou'esters with the pocket radio set to the shipping forecast...

Crafty Fokker: Norfolk surgeon builds Red Baron triplane replica

I remember the wings game on amiga having a reference to just such a problem and advising not to fly just after a hearty breakfast...

Londoners will be trialling driverless cars in pedestrianised area

Keep death off the roads!

Drive on the pavement

US border cops must get warrants to search citizens' gadgets – draft bipartisan law emerges

Re: Another political 'feel-good' move

I'm a bit unsure what the correct answers would be anyway.

That's easy... admit you like to grab em' by the pussy.

Mines the one with the tickets to Canada...

Startup remotely 'bricks' grumpy bloke's IoT car garage door – then hits reverse gear

Re: Remote Garage Door opener

As well as 6 points on your licence in the UK unless you stop the car and turn off the engine before operating the phone.

That said my car has Bluetooth surely the car itself could be used for this sort of thing?

Mac Pro update: Apple promises another pricey thing it will no doubt abandon after a year

how many...

Apple pro users wanted some thing so compact?

What was so wrong with the old g5 power Mac/ mac pro case?

Optical boffins tweak antennae with photons so MIMO can make WiFi serve more masters

Re: This is astonishing.

Quite a few since they were instrumental in developing WiFi (including some of the first patents which still form the fundamentals of making WiFi work) though admittedly it was byproduct of looking for black holes with radio telescopes

Microsoft wants screaming Windows fans, not just users

2 pence worth

I think they're looking for that same zeal that Mac users have but they seem to be missing the point. An OS is a tool. It is not meant to be loved worshipped and adored, it's just meant to work nothing more and certainly nothing less.

And as for Bieber...no just no

Cheap, flimsy, breakable and replaceable – yup, Ikea, you'll be right at home in the IoT world

Re: Why?

They can have the wine.. Its the liquor cabinet I'm worried about.

USA can afford golf for Trump. Can't afford .com for FBI infosec service

Re: just you wait...

No David ford (Requiem)

just you wait...

Every administration blames through one from last year.

Trump's America looks like a lousy launchpad, so can you dig Darwin?

and I'm just here...

Waiting to hear when LOHAN will get launched

Squirrel sinks teeth into SAN cabling, drives Netadmin nuts

Re: SAN?

I think you're thinking of a NAS same letters but less advanced.

Error prone, insecure, inevitable: Say hello to today's facial recog tech

125 million...

Of which only about 5% are in prison or on parole. That's a hell of a lot of people who really probably shouldn't be in that data base.

It also doesn't state if that includes foreign nationals or passport photos or clearly denies those either.

Large Hadron Collider turns up five new particles

Re: This is the stuff that binds Quarks together

shed more light on how strong forces works I thought we were talking particles not photons?

Mines the one with the black hole Ineed the pocket....

Beijing deploys facial scanners to counter public toilet abuse

Re: six squares ?

And I thought my 4 year old daughter was bad (she uses about a third over a day)

BOFH: Don't back up in anger

Outlook had never been good.....well not since they used word to render html in it anyway

Never

Bullshit a bullshiter....

Judge issues search warrant for anyone who Googled a victim's name

Re: but what if..

More like the family name is concentrated in Yorkshire (as in there's less outside than in. Happens when you can track the name back to one individual).

but what if..

Hey have a name like Dave Gorman? There's at least 52 of them about...

I also know my own name is rare but there's at least 5 that live within 50 miles of me(one owns a fish and chip restaurant that I keep meaning to try out).

Hell freezes over: We wrote an El Reg chatbot using Microsoft's AI

need any help?

It looks like you're trying to welcome a new robotic overlord, would you like some help with that?

Also.... how well would this bot behave to insults?

Paris because she probably still smarter

60 slow-mo A-bomb test videos explode onto YouTube

kubrik would have loved these...

Or how I learned to love the bomb....