* Posts by KBeee

489 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Feb 2010

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This maglev turntable costs more than an average luxury electric car

KBeee

Re: analogue is just a hotchpotch of compromises

Fair enough. And drink it from a gold cup.

But the drinking de-ionised water was a genuine tip recommended in some HiFi mags back in the 70's.

KBeee

Re: analogue is just a hotchpotch of compromises

Drink a pint of de-ionised water before listening to improve your ears.

'Baby Al Capone' to pay $22m to SIM-swap crypto-heist victim

KBeee

Re: minus a $2m credit for paying us back a small portion

The kid had already paid back $2M, so $22M was the balance owed.

Lucky he was robbed really. If Terpin still had the 3,000,000 TRIG coins they'd only be worth $600k now instead of the $24M in real money he's now due to getting.

Confirmed: Asteroid shoved by Earth crash probe DART

KBeee

DARTs and Pool?

I recall an episode of Red Dwarf where Lister had to simulate the angles needed to deflect an object from a collision by getting drunk and playing pool.

Are all earth saving tactics going to be based on Pub games?

People are coming out of retirement due to cost-of-living crisis

KBeee

Re: Unretiring

Yes, it all depends on your personal situation.

I was lucky in that I'd been paying into a private pension for many years, even when it was a struggle and it was hard to imagine ever being old enough to actually claim it. The folly of youth is to imagine you're not old enough to worry about retirement.

Claiming the state pension (deferring by 1 year increased the value of the monthly payment by 5%), will be a nice little "pay rise" and should give access to the Cost of Living bonuses announced for this year.

KBeee

Unretiring

They'd have to drag me kicking and screaming to get me back to work. Or offer me an unreasonable amount of money - £1000 a day might do it.

As a small help with inflation, I'll start claiming the state pension this winter, which I'd been deferring.

Rivian recalls nearly every vehicle it has sold

KBeee

Re: Ford

I guess even this is better than the Good Old Days when a major US car manufacturer figured out it was cheaper to pay compensation to families of people killed due to a fault, than to fix the fault.

BOFH: It's Friday, it's time to RTFM

KBeee

Re: Pedantic description alert!

My favourite one is from the financial/banking area. LOMBARD.

(Loads Of Money But A Real Dickhead)

Man wins competition with AI-generated artwork – and some people aren't happy

KBeee

Re: Read this elsewhere and said

Tate Modern bought the bricks for a fair amount of dosh. Wasn't even the original bricks.

In the same exhibition, there was a Native American headress cut out from the side of a fridge displyed as Art, and the old fridge it'd been cut from was also displyed as Art.

Cloudflare stops services to 'revolting' hate site

KBeee

Why "Kiwi Farms"?

Can someone explain why it is called "Kiwi Farms"?

I'd never heard of them, so when I read that Kiwi Farms were being cut off, I had an image in my head of some kind of NZ butter conglomorate getting up to no good.

Xcel smart thermostat users lose their cool after power company locks them out

KBeee

Re: Control issues

The only advantage of a smart meter is they can finally get rid of most meter readers, and if needed can cut you off without sending a man round to pull your fuse. Advantage for the consumer... Ermmmm..

Anyone know if they use 3G for coms? Cos I thought that was going the way of the Dodo fairly soon.

KBeee

Re: Wait, what?

I just remember 28C = 82F.

So if I see 80F quoted I just think "Ah, a bit cooler than 28C" or if 90F is mentioned then "Probably around 32C". Good enough for a rough idea.

Braking news: Cops slammed for spamming Waze to slow drivers down

KBeee

Re: Devaluing notifications to increase revenue stream?

In some countries merely relabelling from "Speed cameras" to "Safety cameras" can get around this restriction.

KBeee

Re: I have no problem with this.

Depends which country you live in of course.

KBeee

Re: I have no problem with this.

That's because by law your speedo cannot show you doing less than your actual speed. I think it's up to 10% less than your real speed, so showing 30mph could well be 27mph in reality.

KBeee

Re: I have no problem with this.

Yup. Had to attend a Speed Awareness Course for 35 in a 30mph zone. A lady also attending got done for 31 in a 30mph zone.

KBeee

Re: I have no problem with this.

I noticed that too. I was once driving south on the M1, and got passed by a Porche doing well over 100mph. Getting to the London end of the motorway I saw the Porche was 2 cars in front of me.

Tesla faces Autopilot lawsuit alleging phantom braking

KBeee

Not just Testla

Pretty much all modern cars have AEB fitted. I think it's becoming mandatory for Europe in 2023. If memory serves, you can't get an NCAP 5* rating without it.

So unless it's Teslas implementation of AEB that's at fault, can we expect to see other class actions for all car makers?

Germany orders Sept 1 shutdown of digital ad displays to save gas

KBeee

Re: Pointless laws are pointless

Conversely, if you was to ask the general public "What disaster in Japan in 2011 killed about 20,000 people?" around half of them would now say "That nuclear thing..." because of the constant anti-nuclear narrative.

Zuckerberg: Yes, Facebook kept Hunter Biden's laptop under wraps

KBeee

Re: 'Take that, you evil Trump fan'

The guy that was sacked was supposed to be investigating corruption, but turned out to be one of the most corrupt himself. Various entities (including the US and EU) had pledged financial help to the Ukraine, but only if the endemic corruption was tackled, so no financial help untill this guy was replaced.

Trump, with Barr and Giuliani's collaboration privately refused to send $400M worth of US Congress approved military aid unless Ukraine dug up some dirt on the Bidens, untill a whistleblower let the cat out of the bag.

KBeee

Re: Why do people ignore facts?

Trump thinking that Germany owed the US money because they weren't spending 2% of their GDP on defence? Germany started to ramp up its defence spending when Russia invaded Ukraine, rather than just rises to cover inflation.

Trumps attitude to China? You mean slapping tariffs on imports and thinking the US is squeezing money out of China, when in reality the US was getting extra revenue from US citizens who had to pay the tariffs?

God save us from such a financial "genius".

UK's largest water company investigates datacenters' use as drought hits

KBeee

Re: Condensing tumble driers (a) exist and (b) work fine.

Long drying times were a loophole in the testing regulations to get an A+ energy efficiency rating (it might have been tightened up since I last checked).

Got the A+ rating, but on the Economy Setting could take 24 hours to dry a sock.

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange Voyager to pay $1.6m bonus to key staff

KBeee

Re: SOP

Yes. Deeply

In a time before calculators, going the extra mile at work sometimes didn't add up

KBeee

Re: The GCE O level

Wait a few more years.

It'll be "Don't try to give us an answer, just tell us how you FEEL about these numbers"

KBeee

Re: From Mssrs Pratchett & Gaimain

Yes, and when your coinage is actually worth something it is very relevant.

240 silver pennies to one £, when you're earning one penny a day, or even one shilling a day, one penny is important to you. The £ can be evenly divided between 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 etc.

KBeee

Re: Of course, Britain went decimal shortly afterwards!

I believe the guinea came about when banks started issuing paper banknotes, and they were becoming more common (for the Well Off) around 1800. Banks could issue their own banknotes back then.

If you bought something for £100 and paid in gold you paid £100. If you paid by banknote there was a 5% surcharge (£1 1/-, a guinea). At that time you could go to the issuing bank and exchange those notes for £100 in gold, which is more trouble to the seller and also a little riskier.

KBeee

Re: Of course, Britain went decimal shortly afterwards!

If you had 1/- and 2/- coins with very old dates on, there's a good chance they were made with a high percentage of silver and worth much more that the equivalent 5p and 10p.

Big Tech is building the metaverse of its own dreams. You don't want to go there

KBeee

This is only Part One

Mega Corp Strategy. A Cunning Plan devised by Baldrick

Part One - Create a crappy VR world.

Part Two - Make Real World so shitty everyone will migrate to VR world.

Janet Jackson music video declared a cybersecurity exploit

KBeee

Re: Resonant Feedback

Or the instrumental version of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" as shown in that great documentary The Wrong Trousers.

NASA builds for keeps: Voyager mission still going after 45 years

KBeee

Re: Multiples of less

Not just the comics.

Even serious newspapers/online have gone down the "Outrage At Whatever" route which often means if you read the article that 3 people on the "Journalists" echo chamber twitter feed said they didn't like something.

KBeee

45 years? At least they don't need an MOT or pay VED now

NASA selects 'full force' for probe into UFOs

KBeee

Re: New plane testing going on?

There were many UFO sightings in the Netherlands/Belgium in the early 1980's.

They were generally described as triangular in shape.

Turned out to be USAF testing their new F117 stealth aircraft before it was unveiled in 1988.

Nuclear power is the climate superhero too nervous to wear its cape

KBeee

Re: "Nuclear can only be varied through a narrow range once it is going,"

There wasn't a power workers strike in the 70's. There was a miners strike which deprived the coal fired power stations of their fuel.

KBeee

One of the problems is, that to the Twitterati and Press (quite often the same thing now) there are certain words that trigger them to outrage. Nuclear and Chemicals are 2 of those words.

General Motors charges mandatory $1,500 fee for three years of optional car features

KBeee

Re: For several years-

I wouldn't want my teenage daughter in a 50's, 60's or 70's car.

No side impact protection? No collapsible bulkheads? No airbags?

KBeee

Being a Tight Old Git, I'd never buy a new car anyway. I can't stand the thought of throwing away about £5000 in depreciation on the drive from the dealer to home.

I'd rather buy a car 1 or 2 years old with low milage. Of course this is for buying a car, not leasing or PCH etc.

The way the price of second hand cars has gone, the one I bought nearly 4 years ago has gone back up to nearly the same price as I paid for it!

Meta's AI internet chatbot demo quickly starts spewing fake news and racist remarks

KBeee

Sounds Great!

Get a few chatbots talking to each other, ban all humans.

Must be a net plus for Humanity.

California accuses Tesla of false advertising over Autopilot

KBeee

Re: Man, this was predicted day one

Ahhhh the Suffolk Gazette.

With other headlines like "Undercover squirrel breaks into B&Q", and "Aircraft carrier converted to Lowestoft International airport"

Amazon to buy Roomba maker iRobot for $1.7b

KBeee

Re: How are they worth $1.7Bn

I often get similar thoughts when I see XYZ company has been bought by ABC company for God-knows how many billions.

I remember Go Pro being bought for an outrageous amount once, and it seemed that going by sales figures, each camera would have to sell for about $5000 for the next 10 years to recoup the investment.

KBeee

Re: They need to make a window cleaning robot

Old Artex (up to 1980's?) contained asbestos, so take care if trying to remove it.

Remember the humanoid Tesla robot? It's ready for September reveal, says Musk

KBeee

Re: Pointless robot

When I was a child, all the heating in our flat was done by coal fires. Cooking and hot water was gas, but heating each room was by open coal fires.

Every couple of weeks the coal lorry would stop by, and if you needed coal you'd shout out the window something like "One sack to flat 20"..

These flats were 4 floors high with no lifts.

The coalmen would RUN up the stairs with a 1cwt (112 lb.) sack over their shoulder!

I suspect they never needed to go to the gym...

Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols closes hailing frequencies

KBeee

Re: UK Born in 1966

The JJ Abrams Star Trek world is much less of a united world.

Instead of having Russians, Americans, Scots, Africans etc. all working together as crew of the starship, we now have Russian/Americans, African/Americans etc. i.e. all Americans with American attitudes.

Except Scotty, who is English...

Toyota's truck brand Hino admits faking and fudging emissions data for 20 years

KBeee

Re: Just follow your nose...

I'm dredging this from my memory, so I may have misremembered a few details.

In modern diesel vehicles soot is reduced by a DPF (diesel particulate filter), and NOX is reduced by either SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) or SNCR (Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction) using urea or ammonia.

Many non-cheating car manufacturers were amazed that VAG managed to meet the new lower NOX regulations without either SCR or SNCR. Of course we now know the VAG cars had software to detect when the car was being tested and would tailor the engine management to reduce NOX production while testing.

Newer petrol cars are also now fitted with particulate filters, even though this wasn't really anywhere near as big a problem as diesel particulates.

Nancy Pelosi ties Chinese cyber-attacks to need for Taiwan visit

KBeee

Re: Call China’s bluff without quarter

"Tell that to Jesus College Cambridge"

I phone them up every Christmas morning.

"Is that Jesus?"

"Yes"

"Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to Youuuuu..."

Charter told to pay $7.3b in damages after cable installer murders grandmother

KBeee

Whatever happened to the "Corrections" button?

I keep seeing typos etc. in El Reg articles.

In this story a superfluous "in" as in "behind in bars", spending the rest of your life behind bars is pretty bad, but spending the rest of your life in bars sounds pretty good. In another article "Service" instead of "Surface"...

Where did the corrections button go? Did I miss something?

Former CIA engineer Joshua Schulte convicted of spying over WikiLeaks dump

KBeee

It can be mentioned to jurors in the UK after the verdict has been reached.

I was once on a jury for a charge of assault on a minicab driver by a van driver. After we found him guilty we were told the guy had about a dozen other convictions for assault on his record.

First-ever James Webb Space Telescope image revealed

KBeee

Re: Can someone smarter than me...

Someone must have moved while they were taking the photo

KBeee

OLD Joke

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have had a hard time sleuthing in London all spring, so they decide to take a nice summer break camping in Cornwall.

In the middle of their first night Holmes wakes Watson and ask him "Watson, look up and tell me what you see, and what you think it means."

Watson replies "I see a myriad of stars Holmes. If only one in a thousand stars has a planet, and if only one in a thousand planets has life, and if only one in a thousand of those planets has intelligent life, then there must be thousand of intelligent beings in the universe."

Holmes says "No you fool! It means some bastard has stolen our fucking tent!"

Everyone back to the office! Why? Because the decision has been made

KBeee

Re: Long before covid...

"clear desk policy"

There was an office where it was strickly enforced that you could have either one photo on your desk, or one small houseplant.

One bloke put a photo of a houseplant on his desk.

KBeee

We had a lady that looked after conference rooms etc. After a year or so she became very protective of them, they were "her turf".

It got to the stage where if she wasn't there you couldn't use any of the rooms, including if she was away for 2 weeks holiday she'd take the keys with her, or would hide them somewhere in the office without telling anyone.

The manager ended up telling us to drill the locks out to gain access. She wasn't pleased when she got back from her holiday.

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