Posts by Mystic Megabyte

GOOGLE is COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN

Ridiculous!

Children under 12 should be playing outdoors in the garden, that's the only place they can smoke these days.

Apple knob refusenik Sir Jony Ive handed award - for talking BOLLOCKS

Mangy

adj: having many worn or threadbare spots in the nap

Or more likely in the app.

FBI warns of disk NUKE malware after Sony Pictures megahack

It appears that the attack on Sony is just the latest painful lesson for all enterprises

The lesson is that if your OS is not a "productivity suite" but instead costs millions in lost productivity, then change it. This poor choice of OS could quite possibly send even a large business to the wall.

The beancounters should do the sums.

TalkTalk email goes titsup FOR DAYS. Cheapo telco warns: Changing password WON'T fix it

More [off topic] woe

A friend told me her tale of woe yesterday.

After years of paying her BT bill in the name of her ex-partner (Joe Bloggs) she got annoyed at constantly being called Mrs. Bloggs.

BT assured her that the account name could be changed at no cost. Now her phone number has been unnecessarily changed and she has no internet connection.

A nice man in India has told her that to fix the problem the road will have to dug up. WTF!

Oh BOY! The MICKEY MOUSE Apple Watch is no heart-throb

spontaneous

"Wearers will receive a "gentle tap" on the wrist when a message arrives on their mobe and can connect with "favourite people in some new, spontaneous ways not possible with any other device".

Reading that, I just spewed!

Home Depot hacker hosing cost a wallet-draining $43m (so far)

Double bad luck

"Home Depot has forked out $43m to quash spot fires "

They got hacked and caught fire?

Ten excellent FREE PC apps to brighten your Windows

file manager

I have not used Windows for several years but if I had to I would need Total Commander. The free version has the least annoying nag screen in existence. It's a clone of Norton commander, Midnight Commander etc.

Actually, anything is better than Microsoft's Explorer!

http://www.ghisler.com/

NASA 'nauts have a go on Star Trek replicator IN SPAAAAACE (sort of)

zzzzzzzz

I started to read the article but drifted off...

El Reg reanimates Cash'n'Carrion merchandising tentacle

Re: /steel

It looks a bit heavy, 2,571.87 kB worth of pixels to lug around

South Londoner wins Reddit MILLIONAIRE not-a-lottery lottery

Do not give money

"So what will he buy with the proceeds? A jetski, he hinted, although there are "not many places to use one in southern England".

So he can join all the other annoying dicks on the water? Clueless!

Too 4K-ing expensive? Five full HD laptops for work and play

Options

The article also forgot to mention that the Chillblast has the option to have no OS, saving £41.66.

If I chose to do that I could up the memory to 16GB for only £58 more than the original price. How well it runs Ubuntu would good to know as well.

NXT: The first SPAAAACE cryptocurrency

Theme tune?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2HVYwQzrmU

Apple Fanboi? Stand by to get Beats Music LIKE IT OR NOT

Re: Still using the term "Fanbois"..... really?

In 1902 a company called Fanbois & Sons started to sell gold plated mop-buckets. These differed from the usual oval design in that they where rectangular with rounded corners. Another innovation was that instead of the standard universally interchangeable mop-head they used a propriety threaded mop-head. It was an immediate success, those who bought Fanbois had to keep buying their mop-heads from them.

Everybody else just kept using their standard mops and the others became jokingly referred to as Fanbois.

Just thought I'd give you the background.

Azure TITSUP caused by INFINITE LOOP

Low lying fog

tl;dr Azure can't be seen when there's a break in the clouds.

You know those WEIRD glass sheds in New York? They'll be replaced with Gbps WiFi

Dumb

In my experience* New Yorkers are so dumb they couldn't tie their own laces. When their apartment catches fire they will run up to one of these booths and start yelling at it, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" whilst waving their hands around in a suspicious manner. Then someone will shoot them**.

*Two tours of Europe with NYC musicians.

**Another Darwin award!

The Nokia ENIGMA THING and its SECRET, TERRIBLE purpose

NoXo cubes

Reindeer flavoured stock cubes. For all your festive stews. Yum!

(Pedant disclaimer: Cubes because they come stacked in packs of three)

Bouncy bouncy: Comet probot Philae landed twice

Astro Chicken

Were the boffins using this simulator or did they fool children into thinking that it was just a game?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgt17LwmT7c

HOT YOUNG STAR about to GIVE BIRTH, long range images show

Re: Huh!

Yes I know it is a radio telescope but let me use an optical one as an example to clarify my question.

With a small telescope I could see the whole of the moon and record an image of it.

With a big telescope I would see only small amounts of the moon but by moving it I could stitch together a picture of the whole thing.

So is the image of the planetary disc in the article recorded in one go or made up lots of small images?

Huh!

I completely fail to understand how they get this image. Is it composed pixel-like by scanning tiny areas of the planetary disk. Considering the distance I don't know how you could aim with such accuracy.

But have a beer and consider me amazed.

UK superfast broadband? Not in my backyard – MP

The iPlayer test

Rather than talk about speeds why not use the ability to watch the BBC's iPlayer as a standard. In my house this is just about possible, most of the time.

Also why do the iPlayer devs think that everyone has a fast connection? There is no option to watch a programme in a smaller window. I would even prefer to watch a show in black and white rather than not at all.

Met Office: 2014 was fifteenth warmest on record

daft regulations

In Scotland a new build house has to be pressure tested to ascertain if it is too leaky. You have to pay the Council £500 for this test. My neighbour's was found to be too airtight even though it has trickle vents on the windows and extractors fans in the kitchen and both bathrooms. So to get the house certified he has now got to replace the bathroom fans with continuously running fans.They cost £98 each! (They run continuously at 6 l/s and then increase to 15 l/s when the light is switched on)

So all the warm air from the air-source heat pump and underfloor heating will now be sucked out and wasted.

Don't they realise that people will just open the window if it feels stuffy?

Why bother specifying a massive amount of insulation in the walls etc. What a waste of energy!

HP's pet lizard is feral peril says wildlife group

@John Tserkezis

The simple remedy to your problem is to give away your TV. I did it years ago when the adverts became too annoying. The top two culprits were for cars and shampoo.

Car adverts usually say, "This amazing family car can go really fast so you can wipe-out your entire family".

Shampoo ads., "This 5 cent product has <made-up_chemical_name> in it and is yours for 5 dollars".

Then just run AdBlockPlus in your browser and you're good to go :)

Snapper's decisions: Whatever happened to real photography?

Astronomical

I took pictures of a neighbours house across the bay by attaching my Pentax SLR film camera to a 10 inch aperture reflecting telescope. Being by default F5, I got good results at 1/250 sec. I scanned the negs. and stitched two shots together to create a pleasing image of their property. I framed it and gave it to them as a present. One of them (the woman) said "Oh! you could have done that with a helicopter".

I replied, "But I don't have a ****ing helicopter!"

A classic facepalm moment.

Making an entrance: Remote door-opening tech

Re-boot

Maybe things have changed but my memory of intercom type door locks was that they could be opened with a hefty kick to the door. The weak part was the attachment to the door frame.

Caption this: CERN needs pic tags. Serious answers only, kids

Sept 65

<german accent>

Only this titanium stein can contain the awesome power of Helium-3 beer!

</german accent>

Son of Hudl: Tesco flogs new Atom-powered 8.3-inch Android tablet

Re: Granny friendly?

Dear Mrs. Elderly Relative, you have won a cruise in the Caribbean! Just send us your bank details so that we can sort out the administration fee.

Yours truly, Bertrum Shoppingcart

Philip Morris seeks pay-per-puff patent to help you STOP smoking

Re: SCUM

>>NO ONE close to me no smokes,

You shot all your friends?

Remember that tale of a fired accountant who blamed Comcast? It's kinda true, says telco

Record how?

Where can I buy a decent answering machine that records to SD card?

That would be the easiest way to transfer the recording for editing.

Most devices seem to just have a memo function that stops after three minutes.

New Scottish Apple Store appears, then VANISHES off map app

Bad mapspace reception?

They're building it wrong!

4chan outraged by Emma Watson nudie photo leak SCAM

"You're next"

That last person who said that to me got pulled to the floor and hammered. Blood was spilled. but it was not mine. Emma, go sue those sad bastards!

iOS 8 Healthkit gets a bug SO Apple KILLS it. That's real healthcare!

Magic mirror?

Is this going to be a fair and honest appraisal of a user's health or just flattery?

User: Siri, is my ass fat?

Siri: (does quick calculation....Height = 5ft, Width = 4 ft.) Oh no, you have the fairest ass in the land.

Mines the one with no candy in the pocket.

BBC Trust candidate defends licence fee, says evaders are CRIMINALS

Re: I'd gladly pay for the BBC...

When they recently repeated the "I Claudius" series I missed quite a few of them, When I tried to buy a box set of DVDs from the BBC they were not available.

Do I have to search for a torrent?

YES, I have ridden the Unicorn: The Ubuntu Utopic unicorn

Re: why?

> and no sensible replacement for Outlook

You must be joking! When I last had the misfortune to use Outlook I regularly clicked the "Archive" button but when I needed to restore some emails found that it had archived nothing. POS

Intelligence blunder: You wanna be Australia's spyboss? No problem, just walk right in

Re: What's the point?

How to speak australians. A course for Indian citizens wishing to migrate. Very much NSFW!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHQRZXM-4xI

Vampires and Ninjas versus the Alien Jedi Robot Pirates: It's ON

Re: Robots hive mind for the win.

>IE alien robots

They won't last long if they're running Windows, even the aliens in Independence Day got a virus and they ran Zghortsnix 9000

US Copyright Office rules that monkeys CAN'T claim copyright over their selfies

Snap judgement

If I set up a camera and a dove flew down, pressing the shutter at the exact moment that Tony Blair was struck by lightning, I would gladly forsake the copyright.

TRANSMUTATION claims US LENR company

Whoopie!

Now I can has solar powered jetpack.

Boffins build CYBORG-MOTHRA but not for evil: For search & rescue

Disaster in Essex, many dead.

The only person saved was the one wearing a woolly jumper, all the lycra and shell suited people were left to die.

The Register to boldly go where no Vulture has gone before: The Weekend

weekend options

How about a BT parody portal?

I might be able to get revenge for all these "A special BT offer just for you" letters that the bastards keep sending me.

BTW. Dear BT, I don't watch sport, I don't have a TV and I do remember Phorm.

Cops baffled by riddle of CHICKEN who crossed ROAD

Dogs

My father taught me to never swerve for dogs because doing so you are likely to kill yourself or someone else in another vehicle.

A tourist here recently swerved for a rabbit and put his whole family in hospital.

P.S. The only dog that I've hit survived the impact.

Paris wouldn't swerve for a dog ----------->

Google straps on Jetpac: An app to find hipsters, women in foreign cities

D'oh!

So I can go to a foreign city, walk into a bar and find all the characters, loonies folk from my local bar are already there.

Maybe I'm missing something :(

Rupert Murdoch says Google is worse than the NSA

I've been forgotten

He should hire Max Mosely as his internet spokesman.

Oh wait! No one can find his email address* anymore.

*apart from the NSA obviously :)

Revealed ... GCHQ's incredible hacking tool to sweep net for vulnerabilities: Nmap

Re: So GCHQ is breaking the law

>is one to assume that be condonation

It be the nation of condos

Top money men face up to 2 YEARS in slammer for neglecting to spot crim-cash activity

Co-op, I'm looking at you.

I wanted to open a co-op account for my elderly mother but she did not appear on any database as she had been a housewife since her marriage. All the utility bills had been in my father's name. They wanted all sorts of original documents before proceeding. Later I asked for the documents back and was told "We don't know where they are". Most likely they are in a landfill somewhere just waiting for an identity thief to find them.

Detroit losing millions because it buys cheap batteries – report

sell by?

Why is it that the big name brands put a "Sell by" date of ten years into the future?

I don't know the internal resistance of these batteries but that does seem a bit optimistic.

Any battery boffins out there?

Seven Apple Store staff cuffed in alleged $500k stolen iPhone scam bust

@Lars G

A pal just bought a second hand iphone for £100, saying lamely "because they were £300 new". It was three years old.

The truth is that the phone is obsolete, a brand new £100 Android does more and has a bigger screen.

I don't care if my Moto G has no re-sale value because was not expensive to start with. I'll just go and spend another £100 in a couple of years time and give the old one away.

NASA's rock'n'roll shock: ROLLING STONE FOUND ON MARS

Stone me to my soul...

It's just like a jelly roll....

Or something like that!

What's the nature of your emergency, Vodafone?

Re: Don't do it like that @Tiny iota

It was more to do with the owner of the Iphone who is a bit of a knob-head. Plus that fact that he's on Vodaphone.

Don't do it like that

Both my local pubs have zero phone signal. I've been winding-up the Voda users by making calls over wifi with O2's TuGo app. I especially like it when someone’s expensive iThing is out-done by my cheapo Moto G.

The TuGo app is buggy but hopefully will improve.

P.S. Yes I know that I'm an ********

GCHQ recruits spotty teens – for upcoming Hack Idol

Re: VM

>It is Windows XP,

is it any version of Windows?

FIFY