Posts by David 132

Two Arkansas dipsticks nicked after allegedly taking turns to shoot each other while wearing bulletproof vests

Re: Bah!

That’s the local name. “Bala” to the tourists.

Re: bullet-resistant vest

And even the booze has "no proof, only circumstantial evidence"

(h/t Terry Pratchett)

Re: Old Hat, done on UK TV years ago.

Now I have an unshakeable mental image of a drunk Raymond Baxter playing the banjo.

Very, very strange.

Re: Sounds like the muppets who tried to test a book's bullet-stopping capabilities...

Ah but was it Bullet-tooth Tony's Desert Eagle .50, or one with Replica written down the side?

No Widevine DRM for you! Developer left with two years of work stymied by Google snub

Re: DRM and excessive copyright strike again!

Hey @Whitepines, to paraphrase (supposedly) Churchill: don't wrestle with AC pigs. You'll both end up muddy, and the pig will enjoy it.

Watch out, Bali! Big Bluers set to realign their chakras at Best of IBM event in May

Yes, but they only get one-way tickets

...on a 737-Max.

Too soon?

Re: The Airport Marriott Principle

I read that as “twelve engineers in half a bathroom” and was very, very confused.

Cops use bread and riot shields in desperate bid to contain crazed swan running amok in streets

Re: Tabloid maths

£200K if...

-the vans were bought specially for this incident, and were destroyed immediately afterwards

-the 2-3 coppers were paid their annual salary to do just this one call-out, and haven’t done anything else before or since.

Bad mathematics indeed, but not so much Daily Mail, more Diane Abbott.

DXC: Slashing costs affects ability to attract, develop and retain staff? Who'd have thunk it!

5000?

when hosting a conference call with his 5,000-or-so-strong workforce

At this, I couldn't stop myself visualising a small counter in the corner of the WebEx-or-whatever screen: 5000... 4999... 4995... 4900...

"Attract, develop and retain (ARD) activities.."

Well there's your problem right there, you muppet. You can't even spell your acronyms in the correct order.

'It's full of beer!' Miracle fridge reveals itself to pals tuckered out from cleaning flooded cabin

Editing isn't as easy you think.

I see what you did there.

Apple's revamped iPad beams a workhorse in from Planet Ludicrous

Re: "pholdables"

Let’s play “Would You Rather”...

A) “pholdables” enters into popular usage, or

B) there’s never any end to the “Super Cali” increasingly-tortured headline “puns”.

Or bonus option:

C) All stories on this site from now on are written by the substandard Markov-chain generator known as amanfrommars1.

Choose wisely, mortal, your torment for the rest of eternity.... muhahahahaha...

Re: The Pencil needs charging?

Good, factual comment - so it’ll probably get downvoted.

I take mild issue with your conclusion, though. I’ve never heard the NASA Space Pen being used as an example of government waste and inefficiency; rather, whenever it’s referred to, it’s as an example of the (supposed) NASA/US/Western tendency to overthink and overcomplicate things.

Brings to mind Boris-the-Blade* selling Tommy a gun in Snatch... “Heavy is good, heavy is reliable... if it doesn’t work you can always hit people with it.”

*”You mean Boris-the-Sneaky-F*cking-Russian?”

So about that Atari reboot console... you might want to sit down. It's going to be late, OK?

Re: WTF

What, no AI or Kubernetes in the mix?

Pffft, not interested.

How many Reg columnists does it take to turn off a lightbulb?

Re: Corel Draw Clip Art

"Dear Private Eye,

I don't think there's enough coverage given to older men who have younger girlfriends. Do you by any chance have a picture that would illustrate this?"

Re: Fiat Lux

Fiat Lux

Friends of my parents had one of those when I was a kid, it had a stereo and electric windows and alloy wheels to distinguish it.

I believe they paid for it with Fiat currency.

Re: Lucky you, Dabbsy

No, don't go there Zog. Go to the pub instead.

You have pubs? Kids today don't know they're born. When I were a lad, we had to drink our beer in a ditch.... etc, etc

(uh-oh, from here it's Yorkshiremen all the way down...)

Re: Long way around the barn!

Some years before that I'd found myself in a hotel in Stockport during some strange season referred to as summer

Ah, see, it was at this point that I realized you were making the whole thing up.

I’ve been to Stockport. There is no “summer” there.

There is the season where the blood falls from the sky, the season where the tortured dead rise from the ground and stagger around, the season where incoherent berserker wrath comes upon the inhabitants, and Winter.

We'll help you get your next fix... maybe, we'll think about it, says FTC: 'Right to repair' mulled

I hear ya. I've been bitten several times by the dreaded Thinkpad Error 1802 - Unauthorized Network Card.

The good news is that the various hacked BIOSes out there work pretty well, in my experience. Unfortunately, they're utterly unsuitable for anyone other than hobbyists tinkering around; most corporate IT departments would sooner gnaw off their own fingers than install some third-party hacked BIOS.

It's very poor behavior by the Thinkpad team - can't even blame Lenovo, since I first encountered this back in the days of IBM.

What do sexy selfies, search warrants, tax files have in common? They've all been found on resold USB sticks

Re: Huh! What ...wait a minute

I thought once they were full you threw them away.

Top Tip: if you put a piece of sellotape over the write-protect notch, you can re-write to the drive or delete stuff.

Just Android things: 150m phones, gadgets installed 'adware-ridden' mobe simulator games

Re: Snow Heavy Excavator Simulator

It was developed by Blizzard, and taps into the current craze for Drifting. There's been a flurry of interest in it. However, I've heard it's flakey and often freezes up, hence its frosty reception.

UK joins growing list of territories to ban Boeing 737 Max flights as firm says patch incoming

No, it’s OSX. Everyone knows that’s the operating system for Max.

Raiding party! UK's ICO drops in unannounced on couple of dodgy-dialling dirtbag outfits

Here in the states, the phone scammers have started spoofing "local" numbers - presumably on the principle that if my number is 503 123 4567, I'll be more likely to answer a call from 503 123 4568. Yeah, that might have worked about 30 years ago when everyone had landlines and numbers were (I'm told?) allocated sequentially by neighborhood. Now, not so much.

And as for the genius last month who decided to spoof my own number when calling me... in what world did he think that was going to work? "Herpderp... I am calling myself... must answer it..."

And btw, good luck with the job hunting. You'll find something, it just takes time and perseverance. Having to deal with cold-callers is a hassle you need less than most people at this time.

Buffer overflow flaw in British Airways in-flight entertainment systems will affect other airlines, but why try it in the air?

Re: Unwise

invoke ejector seat mechanism...

But there's no hatch above his seat, he'd just splat at high velocity into the overhead locker... ohhhhhh wait, I see what you did there, never mind

Re: Entertainment system pen testing

so I was offered a freeby from the Duty Free.

I had a transatlantic flight from Chicago to Amsterdam last month; the IFE for my entire seat row was stuck on the SkyMap the entire time, and multiple attempts to reset it made no difference (didn't even cause the screen to go blank, which makes me wonder what kind of "reset" they were doing).

I complained to the cabin crew - I may be British, but living in the States for years has rubbed off on me - and was given 7500 loyalty miles as recompense. Which, as you said, is probably a better deal than having the IFE would have been.

Re: Entertainment system pen testing

ahhh, ryanair. The in-flight entertainment system would be a steward leading a sing song..

And, being Ryanair:

• Purchase earplugs to block the sound: €4.99 (£4.99)

• Use your own earplugs/headphones: €9.99 (£9.99)

• Join along in the sing-song: €4.99 (£4.99)

• The in-flight song for March will be: "The Macarena".

Skype for Web arrives to bring the world together. As long as the world is on Chrome and... Edge?

Re: 2019.

Welcome to my Geocities Home Page!!!

< blink > This Page works best in Internet Explorer 3.0!!!! < /blink >

**UNDER CONSTRUCTION**

It's a hard drive ahead: Seagate hits the density problem with HAMR, WD infects MAMR with shingles

I'm not trying to be a jerk (generally, I achieve that without any effort at all) but I don't see how you can say "no problem with reliability" then in the very next sentence point out that you've had 2 of the drives die in short order already.

That kind of failure rate would not make me trust the 3rd drive - just because it hasn't died yet, doesn't mean much, surely?

UK Ministry of Justice: Surprise! We tested out biometric tech in prisons and 'visitors' with drugs up their bums ran away

Re: Deterrent effect?

"WARNING - BIOMETRIC SCREENING IN USE.

ALL VISITORS WILL BE SUBJECT TO PHRENOLOGY EVALUATIONS"

...should do the trick, and be just about as scientifically valid.

Silent Merc, holy e-car... What is that terrible sound?

Missing Option

The theme music from "Roobarb and Custard".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zedq1VhaS90

If every EV sounded like this, it would certainly brighten up town centres.

The first ZX Spectrum prototype laid bare... (What? It was acceptable in the '80s)

Re: Ah, memories.

Thank you (and @Dan 55 too) for reassuring me that I'm not going completely doolally!

Re: Ah, memories.

You sure? I distinctly remember writing a simple program to draw circles all over the screen on my friends' rubber-key 16KB Spectrum... no Beta Basic or similar language extensions in sight.

Maybe the amnesia of old age is creeping up on me... what's that in there? who are you? are those my feet?

Ah, memories.

I grew up with a ZX81 (with a dodgy tape interface that made saving my programs difficult).

I first encountered the Spectrum circa 1983 on a visit to friends of my parents', in Garstang, Lancashire. I spent hours in a state of gobsmacked wonder, using the CIRCLE, INK, PAPER and BORDER commands to explore the new world, feeling like Dorothy entering the technicolor Land of Oz for the first time.

I was lucky enough to be given a Spectrum+ for - I think - Christmas 1984, at a price of 179.99 (and kids, that was a lot of money back then). So many happy memories.

Sorry for the unfocused rambling, but this article's been kind of a madeleine moment for me.

Band banned, Tarka arrives on Windows 10 and Visual Studio hits RC status

Yes. Listen to what the man said. If you have one you should be Letting Go.

With A Little Luck, they’ll do the same to Windows 10.

YouTube's pedo problem is so bad, it just switched off comments on millions of vids of small kids to stem the tide of vileness

Is this real, or just the latest panic?

Is there any actual evidence that paedos are using YT comments as a clandestine communications channel, or is this just the latest

“Gang members drive around at night with no headlights...if you flash them to let them know, they will kill you as their initiation rite”,

“Playing heavy metal records backwards summons the devil”,

“There’s a creepy suicide meme embedded in online Peppa Pig videos”

...hysteria-of-the-day?

Nuisance call boss gets 8-year ban after trying to dodge firms' £700k fines

Re: Not bad, but...

A toothbrush?

No, that should be a perk for good behaviour, and only after the first half of his sentence. Fingernails only until then.

Yes, I'm afraid I'm very much of the hang-'em-and-flog-'em brigade when it comes to punishment for this sort of thing. Bite me.

IBM elects pirate-foiling Navy vet to board

Re: Navy vet?

One imagines her salary will be rather more than sick squid.

Insane homeowners association tries to fine resident for dick-shaped outline car left in snow

Mmm, I'm thinking more along the lines of Arkell v. Pressdram.

Re: "I guess I could write a song about mud?"

Or Flanders and Swann.

"Mud, mud, glorious mud / Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood..."

Fan boy 3: Huawei overhauls Air-a-like MateBooks

I wonder if it would run OSX, via the usual slightly-less-than-legit methods... now wouldn’t that be interesting, if it turned out to be a better MacBook than the MacBook...?

Not so smart after all: A techie's tale of toilet noise horror

Re: Musicians too

"My daughter's boyfriend is a runner and violinist in the local orchestra."

Can we agree that for the sake of clarity, a comma would be advisable in that sentence?

"My daughter's boyfriend is a runner, and violinist in the local orchestra."

Unless it's a very weird - mobile - kind of orchestra?

Samsung pulls sheets off costly phone-cum-fondleslab Galaxy Fold – and a hefty 5G monster

Re: Madness

You crease me up!

Re: re: The cheaper model has the fingerprint reader mounted on the side of the phone

You are truly a hero of science for pushing back the boundaries of human knowledge so!

Twilight of the sundials: Archaic timepiece dying out and millennials are to blame, reckons boffin

Re: I'll Bite.... Yes, I know he was trolling

I suggested "Here's looking at Euclid."

I'm not accusing either party of plagiarism - such things get conceived independently - but I remember this same joke/pun being used on a Radio 2 comedy show about 15 years ago, "The Ape That Got Lucky". It was part of a list of books supposedly written by the guest academic on the program...

"Here's Looking at Euclid", Geometry In The Films Of Humphrey Bogart

"Pop Goes The Weasel - A Treasury of Vivisection Anecdotes"

...being the only two I can remember.

Re: Dr King

He is the University Bellringer, Steeplekeeper of the University Church, Keeper of the university Clock. I'd be happy with any one of those titles but to have all three is awesome.

Unless he acquired them in a Ponder Stibbons sort of way... "this obscure post needs filling, who can we assign it to?"

Solder and Lego required: The Register builds glorious Project Alias gizmo to deafen Alexa

Re: Waste of a good pi.

Ah, you’re a waffle man!

Well Holby damned! We've caught a virus: Brit medical soap operas team up for 'cyber' episode

and spelt out 'Subscribe to Pewdiepie' with the patients intestines.

Ah, the old “your name in lights” joke.

Don’t forget the colon, although if the patient has a colostomy bag it’ll be a semi-colon.

(On a related note, if Casualty 1900s had a storyline about “that time of the month”, would that make it a Period Drama?)

Sussex rap fan wants statue of Easy-E from NWA in his hometown because he's a 'legend'

I did a double-take at the mural photo

I had to squint at the accompanying photo of the Easy-E mural - at first, I thought his hat read "Complan".

Which would be somewhat incongruous.

US counterintelligence agent helped Iran lob cyber-bombs at America, say Uncle Sam's lawyers

To quote Mrs Merton seems relevant here...

“What first attracted you to the multi-millionaire Paul Daniels?”

Oh Snapd! Gimme-root-now security bug lets miscreants sock it to your Ubuntu boxes

Re: snapd and systemd

I run Mint Linux on a few boxes, and realized the other day that their software repository only has version 2.2.1 of VLC, which is ancient. To get the latest 3.0.4, I had to download it as a Snap... I’d never heard of those so had to do some hasty research. When I read that Snaps come from the ever-prolific Lennart Poettering (the B.S. Johnson of the Linux world) my heart sank, but I downloaded the Snap anyway because I needed VLC and had no apparent choice.

Imagine my delight when it also downloaded ~2GB of support files - basically, a complete OS - just to run a f*cking media player.

That man is a menace.

(Copious upvotes and my eternal gratitude to anyone who can point me towards a way to get VLC 3.x on Mint without snaps...)

OK, Google. Music in 2019 isn't what it was, but Play nice, will ya?

Re: Thankfully, the bug won't play our (UK) Eurovision entry.

Ahem. ABBA. Waterloo.

Which either refutes or confirms your point, depending on personal taste.