Posts by Tempest8008

Bloke cuffed for blowing low-flying camera drone to bits with shotgun

Re: Danger danger

It was #8 birdshot!

The pellets were tiny and when falling would never get to a speed where they could injure someone or damage property. You'd be in more danger of a bird flying over and crapping in your eye.

As a father with kids I would take great exception to someone flying a drone over my house without my permission.

As a father with kids I would take great exception to someone using a gun to shoot down that drone, were I their neighbour.

I make no pronouncements either way in this case. Both parties were in the wrong as far as I'm concerned (and as you pointed out) and I, for one, will be watching to see how the Courts deal with the issue. As others have noted, this will be an interesting test case.

INTERNET of BOOBS: Scorching French lass reveals networked bikini

IoT? Or just human interaction...

"Excuse me mademoiselle, you appear to be getting a sunburn. You might want to put on some sunscreen or step inside for a while."

Wow. That would have done the same thing!

And it didn't require anyone to wire up their bikini or create an app for it.

Yes. Talking. It works!

Wearable fitness tech: Exercising your self-motivation skills

I wear one...

I have a Misfit Shine I got (subsidized) through my work.

I wear it on my wrist.

It also acts as a watch.

I'm out of shape and I know it, and like most of you I sit at a desk all day with occasional forays to the vending machine.

I have to say that I'm walking more because of it. Instead of sitting all lunch catching up on the latest TV show I missed I go for a walk instead. The goal is 10,000 steps per day. If I get half of those in before I head home I'm going to hit that target, so I AM walking more. Which is good.

Since the start of May I've dropped 7-8lbs, and while I could have done that on my own, the Shine, I think, has been a motivation. I've been wearing it for a month now, and it's not going anywhere but back on my wrist.

WIN a RockBLOCK Mk2 Iridium sat comms unit

UPWEGO

Ultimate Practical Whole Electronic Gear Ordeal

FAPFAPFAP

Final Airborne Procedures For Approval Passing Fuckedup FAA Policies

PRAT

Penultimate RockBLOCK Altitude Test

LOHAN unleashes 'waiting for the FAA' collector mug

Is that an embroidered patch I spy?

Is that an embroidered patch I spy, gracing the breast of that fine flight suit flatteringly fashioned by Fenke?

I'm supposed to get one of those.

HOLY SEA SNAILS! Their TEETH are strong enough to build a plane

Re: Back to nature

I'm betting the rest of the internet probably has it somewhere for download.

I'll take the World when it comes to "iPlayer vs The World."

Ex-NASA boffin dreams of PREDATOR-ish tech in humble microwaves

Modernize the whole damned thing

Instead of the spray and pray method of microwaving food why not add the ability to direct the waves? Gimbal the emitters and link the camera so it directs the microwaves where they need to go to heat the food in the desired manner.

The first truly "smart" microwave.

The screen, linking it to my phone...that's just faffing about. Make the device work better and I'm interested.

Twin Adam Sandlers shake El Reg's movie unwatchablathon team

NO DRUGS!

Nonononono.

There can be no mitigation of the unwatchableness.

No drugs, no alcohol DURING the screenings.

Afterwards, sure.

I only say this because enough alcohol can make even severe limb trauma amusing. You must be wide awake, cogent, and coherent if this is to be a true test.

And may God have mercy on your souls...

Purple glistening plasma, you say? Orion plummets back to Earth

So when do we hear about the SCIENCE?

The video was nice, but I would like to know the results of all the tests they performed.

Radiation, shielded sufficiently or not?

Did the craft perform within specs?

Any issues that have been discovered that need to be addressed?

Cats, shielded sufficiently or not?

(one can assume so on that last point...otherwise you know one of those little buggers would have curled up right on the camera lens)

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

BOFH yourselves...

Honestly, "modern and fresher"?

AND you're going to have a consultant firm in to give you advice on further changes?

In both of these cases the BOFH would have to have multiple situations where inconvenient falls clear the way for common sense. And there's always the server room halon system...

Add another vote to the "Don't like it" column. I find it harder to read, and you're forcing me to relearn a bloody website.

I found The Register easy to navigate, clean and simple before. It got me to the MEAT of the site, which were the articles. Now I'm having to work harder to get to the information I want.

There's style and then there's simple function.

I'd prefer El Reg to be about the latter.

I'll be back (and forward): Hollywood's time travel tribulations

Multiple timelines

I'm surprised I haven't seen more mention of the multiverse model.

There's a simple way of approaching this.

What happens to you, happens to YOU.

There is no paradox, ever.

If I go back in time and kill myself, that happened to THAT person, obviously not to me. It's a separate timeline and remains separate, and that existence goes merrily along its way, though deprived of my glorious self.

I return to my time none the worse for wear...because that didn't happen to me, it couldn't have because it didn't. Not in my timeline.

There's no changing your past. There's no changing the past you remember, the history of the world you live in. It happened. It cannot be changed. But, were time travel possible, you'd be perfectly free to go back and make as many tweaks and changes as you'd like and see what would happen.

Just for fun.

BOFH: Everyone deserves a little DOWNTIME

All I know...

All I know is that if he was doing all this stuff from his Smartphone in the US or Canada he'd have built up such a huge data bill that he'd probably be into the tens of thousands of dollars by the time he was done.

Oh, for a sensible European style system of cellular roaming...

When androids dream of baseball fields

With respect...

I want to see how the batting robot reacts to a 100mph fastball.

I want the catching robot to catch a bouncing ground ball.

It can run, but can it slide?

And finally, that tracking robot...I'd want to see what it does in variable lighting, in the rain, in the snow, and in all the other conditions baseball players face.

Heck, that last point is valid for all of the above.

Trips to Mars may be OFF: The SUN has changed in a way we've NEVER SEEN

None of that matters

The one thing the human race seems to have a lot of these days, is humans.

You put the call out, even being 100% transparent as to the risks associated, heck bump it up to 10% REID or even 20% and you'd STILL have hundreds if not thousands of qualified applicants.

People WANT to get out there. The risks are secondary.

LOHAN crash lands on CNN

I'm not "backronyming" (that's now a verb) anything until I know the mission scope.

Video: Dyson unveils robotic tank that hoovers while you're out

I hereby name this...

The Dyson Bentusi.

'cause, you know....it looks like one.

(Google Homeworld and Bentusi if you don't know what I'm talking about...and shame on you if that's the case)

Exclusive SPB t-shirt flies into Kickstarter

No worries, Lester

Thanks mate!

And congrats on the Kickstarter. It seems to be going great guns!

Wow! Am I famous now?

That was my entry!

I'm already supposed to get a patch for my efforts, but I'm honoured that my entry is also going to grace the breasts of numerous El Reg officiandos.

No pics, please. :P

LOHAN packs bags for SPACEPORT AMERICA!

At least I'll be able to follow the action at a sensible hour this time around...

I'll be in the same time zone as Lester! I'm all giddy!

And yes, beware of US Customs.

Make no jokes, don't wear a belt, and use loafers. Putting yourself back together after being searched never does much for the ego.

Premier League wants to PURGE ALL FOOTIE GIFs from social media

Re: Say WHAT?!?

Thanks.

And don't call me Shirley.

Cave pits, ideal for human bases, FOUND ON MOON

Land probe on the top of the crater, or close enough that a rover could climb up it.

Once at the top the rover stops and releases a ball probe on a cable that rolls down and into the hole, and dangles by the cable.

Inside that clear plastic ball is your imaging/laser range finding/light source/camera equipment, powered via the tether back to the rover on the crater rim. The golf ball down in the hole sends it's data back to the rover which beams it up.

That way you're not stuck depending on a satellite EXACTLY overflying the hole to get your data back.

Anyone else have any daft ideas?

LOHAN seeks stirring motto for spaceplane mission patch

Crap, I went and made a whole patch, not just a motto:

http://i57.tinypic.com/20uqpp1.png

But my motto suggestion would be "The shed knows no bounds"

Latinized (according to the Chocolate Factory): Tugurio terminum nescit

Is there too much sex and violence on TV?

Nanny State Extreme

How about people take some personal responsibility?

Back at the watershed, meanwhile, Ofcom admits it has to address the issue of on-demand television. The watchdog's Claudio Pollack said: "Ofcom recognises that the growth of on-demand TV is posing new challenges for parents and regulators."

It's ON DEMAND. MY demand. Ipso facto I want to watch it, when I want to watch it, so instead of the Nanny State sticking their nose in, just back the hell off!

I will make sure my kids don't watch what I don't want them to, regardless of the time of day.

I will make sure I don't use my TV as a babysitter. Regardless of income or social conditions you live in, that's NOT what TV is for.

It is MY choice to watch content when and where I want to. Welcome to the Internet if your PVR isn't cutting it for you.

How much hand holding do we need, honestly?

Zero-knowledge proof crypto scheme divines truths from nothing

Re: No E-Voting cannot be democratic

Make it a two part system.

You cast your vote on an electronic device, and it prints out a paper ballot appropriately marked, PROPERLY marked, and YOU take it and put it in a box after verifying it says what you want.

You then have two sets of data to compare.

Vote counting is instantaneous via the machine, but then a manual count is done of the paper ballots. As long as both numbers match, the electorate has still made a dumb-ass decision and voted in a bunch of wankers who will lie to us and not keep their promises.

Feds crack down harder on 'lasing'. Yep, aircraft laser zapping... Really

Even with the priors...

14 years still seems excessive.

Yes, he was on parole, yes he did something (else) stupid, yes he recklessly endangered lives.

But 14 years?

The statutory MAXIMUM sentence someone convicted of sexual assault of a minor in the USA is 10 years.

http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/news/congressional-testimony-and-reports/sex-offense-topics/199503_Federal_Rape_Cases.pdf

The average is 2-3 years. The crime just doesn't seem to fit the sentence in this case.

Don't mistake this for me condoning his actions, far from it.

I'm just saying someone can rape a little girl and be jailed for less time...that doesn't seem right.

Tech that we want (but they never seem to give us)

Subvocals

1. Decent speech-to-text

2. Subvocal technology that monitors the pops and sounds you make when you talk, but doesn't require the vocal cords. So you can give commands, write emails and otherwise communicate without making a sound. With practice you wouldn't even need to move your lips.

2a. Something like Google Glass would work well with this as the device is already worn on the head and appropriate sensors wouldn't be hard to embed in the arms of the device.

Robotics pioneer: Intelligent machines are 'scary for a lot of people'

Isn't it nice?

Isn't it nice when you are recognized at your local coffee shop or pub?

The server knows you, knows what you like, what you usually order and can have you liquored up or caffeinated in your preferred manner faster. You create a relationship with that person. YOU get to know THEM too.

That kind of interpersonal relationship is a good thing.

It builds communities.

You'll never get to the same level with an ATM, the banks wouldn't have it:

You: Hi B.O.B. (Bill Outlet 'Bot). Can I get £20 please.

BOB: Hello Greg. One moment.

....

You only have £16 in your account.

You: Oh. How embarrassing. You don't give £10 notes, do you?

BOB: No. I'm sorry...something going on at work? I notice you haven't received your pay.

You: Laid off. But I've got some prospects in the works.

BOB: Well...I've got plenty. Here, take £50. It will be between us. <blink>wink</blink>

You: Wow. Cheers Bob!

BOB: Tell Linda 'Hi' from me.

Next week BOB is replaced. There are interpersonal relationships, and then there's money.

Now a more likely scenario:

....

BOB: No. I'm sorry...something going on at work? I notice you haven't received your pay.

You: Laid off. But I've got some prospects in the works.

BOB: Laid off. I've updated your bank records to indicate that. A loan officer will be in touch and the mortgage team will be reviewing your outstanding debt and reassessing your interest rates.

You: Uh. This is temporary, another few days and I'll probably be back at work. There's no need to...

BOB: Policy Greg. You agreed to us gathering "personal and pertinent" information on you when you signed up for the account. We're just protecting our interests. You understand.

You: Who else are you going to tell about this?

BOB: I just emailed Linda with the changes in your employment status. You had told her, right?

You: Uh...

BOB: Linda just texted me. She says "WTF".

El Reg posse prepares for quid-a-day nosh challenge

Re: It always surprises me

Last time this was on some foraging was done.

There as a fascinating tour of the local woods and examples of edible fungi were found.

God. If I had to live off mushrooms I might prefer to starve.

I hate mushrooms...

Re: I live on a farm

Bah, I only feed them chicken food in the winter.

In the spring/summer it's "Get yer arses outside and forage!"

That's why I need to shoot the fox.

I live on a farm

Would eating my own stuff be cheating?

I get a dozen eggs a day, plus duck eggs.

And there's a fox I need to shoot...

LOHAN spaceplane's budget minicam punches well above its weight

A soldering gun, a couple of feet of wire and 5 minutes

This is garden shed boffinry, and the most basic stuff I can imagine...

A couple of feet of twisted pair wire, a soldering iron, some solder, and simply MOVE the battery packs to the already warmed/insulated interior of the payload box.

Perhaps a dab or two of epoxy to seal up any holes poked in the camera boxes to feed the wires through.

Now your batteries are protected from the worst of the cold...heck, set it up right and you could have one battery pack supplying power to multiple cameras. Might even save on weight that way, though that's a single point of failure that could scupper them all at an inopportune moment. Probably best to stay with the one-battery-per-camera model...

Commonwealth Bank in comedy Heartbleed blog FAIL

This was tweeted about 5hrs ago:

CommBank ‏@CommBank 5h

NetBank does not (and did not) use OpenSSL. All customer data is safe. More detail here: https://www.commbank.com.au/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-heartbleed.html?ei=r1_ta_c1_al …

Coca Cola slurps millions of MAC addresses

Re: Probably for the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines

Aspartame is one of the most studied artificial sweeteners.

Over 200 studies have concluded it's not dangerous, again, in reasonable quantities.

Any fizzy drink, juice, or even (braces for abuse) alcoholic beverage should not, nor should ever be considered, a replacement for drinking water regularly.

If you sit there and drink ANYTHING (even water) in too much quantity you'll do more than just f*ck up your liver. You'll kill yourself.

I like a Coke from time to time. I like a good craft beer from time to time. I like my cup of tea in the morning. If we assume we take all things in moderation, when I'm at the movie theatre and I see a Freestyle machine I might take a stab at a Vanilla Cherry Coke Zero, just to mix things up.

There's no harm in it.

Re: Probably for the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines

Yep.

http://www.coca-colafreestyle.com/

Basically it's a machine that combines your choice of beverage on the spot. You want a Diet Caffeine Free Cherry Coke? This thing will mix one up for you. Same for a Lime Barqs, or a Cherry Sprite...

And for all those people going on and on and on about sugars and obesity etc, Coca-Cola's plethora of drink options means that one third of Coke products these days are low or zero calorie. One third. Basically the choice is yours. If you WANT a Coke Classic, go ahead, but as is true with everything, all things in moderation.

BlackBerry rejected Justin Bieber as brand ambassador

No, no, no...and...no

Wrong direction entirely. Bieber for Blackberry? No...just no.

Blackberry should have ignored the hype and hyperbole and marketed itself solely and wholly as a business communication tool...and continued to upgrade and improve its infrastructure, security and management tools.

End of story.

They should NOT have tried to compete in the popular handheld market where CRapps and games and being able to watch movies on your phone were of paramount importance.

If they'd stuck with their core brands and message they would have been fine, and I'd still be using one at work.

Right royal rumpus over remote-control 'RoboRoach'

It's a bloody cockroach.

I've probably sprayed, squished, squashed, crunched, crumbled, trod on, trod over, trod through, rolled over, burned, blasted, frozen, electrocuted, pinched, cut, sliced, diced, made Julienne Fries out of, and otherwise KILLED thousands of the little bastards.

IT'S

JUST

A

COCKROACH!

I will not anthropomorphose them to any degree.

Would I be okay with this if it were a cat or a mouse? Probably not. Hypocrisy? Not really.

Fish? Go nuts.

Other insects? Absolutely.

Crabs? Sure, why not?

Octopus'? Probably not...they have decent sized brains.

I hear cries of "Slippery slope! Slippery slope!"

But that's okay, I've learned to ignore those voices in my head...

LOHAN's mighty thruster poised for hot coupling

Bit of a re-post

Okay, how about this?

Two sockets on either side of the motor UNDER the heat blanket, so they will be nice and toasty.

Two rods (pick your material) that slide up into these sockets, connected via wires to the battery and properly secured to the base plate

.

INSIDE those heated sockets, pack them with conductive grease, then insert your rods.

That's right, some double penetration action going on here...

The rods are your means of applying charge to the heating blanket.

That blanket heats those rods in their nice, snug sockets.

The conductive grease gives you a 100% rod-to-socket contact for your electrical connection.

Because the whole thing is inside LOHAN (the innuendos going on here are rather thick on the ground) you reduce the chance of anything icing up. Use some decently insulated wires and the heat from that blanket will propagate along the wire, ensuring where it goes into LOHAN won't ice up either.

And when the rocket fires the rods simply slip free of their nice, warm, and well lubed sockets.

Find some conductive grease which is non-flammable, btw.

I made a picture!

http://i.imgur.com/gHaW5DZ.png?1

Bucket? Check. Toilet plunger? Check. El Reg's 50 years of Doctor Who

No mention of the spin-offs?

There have been at least a couple that I am aware of.

Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures come immediately to mind.

Microsoft boffins test rival 'Google Glass' geek goggles, say insiders

Nothing in SciFi? Look again!

Read "A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge (and "A Fire Upon the Deep", just because it's a good book, based in the same 'universe').

His version of a HUD is central to the story, is used all over the place, and even has competing operating systems and security thrown in.

The Vulture 2: What paintjob should we put on our soaraway spaceplane?

LOHAN tattoo homage

Here's my entry:

http://i.imgur.com/r7BT10p.png

I figure if you're going to call the V2 LOHAN, you have to pay homage...

LOHAN test flight LIVE: All the launch action

For those not up on things they have recovered the payload.

Aside from a bent nose cone everything looks intact.

Hopefully that means a quick reset and they can send a new balloon up and hopefully reach the appropriate launch height this time.

Cold-blooded, INHUMAN visitor hitches ride on NASA moon rocket

I can see the Reddit posts already

My "meme-o-metre" is going crazy!

Microsoft's swipe'n'swirl pic passwords LESS secure than PINs, warn researchers

If Microsoft chooses not to be open about this new security method then they are basically depending on Security through Obscurity.

Ask the NSA how well that worked out for them.

Why is this necessary when facial recognition and other biometrics are becoming so commonplace?

Dyson takes Samsung to court in UK over vacuum cleaner

This whole thing sucks...

Vote NOW to name LOHAN doomsday box

Re: I want a list of the NSFW ones

I saw those, but there MUST be more.

I know because I submitted:

CUNT - Cut-down UNiT

:P

I want a list of the NSFW ones

You still must have a raftload of NSFW backronyms that were submitted.

Can we get a post of those for shits and giggles? Even if they aren't in the running to be the 'official' name...

How our shaken Reg Playmonaut survived a 113,000ft stratodangle

THIS is what you get...

This is what you get when you don't involve your beloved commentards in your construction process.

100 other sets of eyes could have seen that particular potential flaw in your plan and assisted in correcting it.

Your PRISM-like secrecy surrounding this project (I certainly saw nothing regarding it prior to launch in the SPB section) has caused science itself to suffer and deprived us all of an opportunity to ogle some CHAV-tastic footage of the glide and descent.

Shame on you! Shame on you ALL!

Elon Musk's Grasshopper tops 300m, lands safely

Chuck it out of a plane, have it parachute to a given height THEN fire up the rocket and land where you want it to.

Then I'll be REALLY impressed.

Right now I'm just somewhat impressed.

Rest your head against a train window, hear VOICES in your SKULL

There's an up side!

Now pesky spy agencies won't be able to bounce a laser off the window to listen to the vibrations in the car and pick out conversations of the passengers!

All they'll get is advertising spam instead.

(I'm a glass half-full kind of person...this whole idea is a raftload of shit)

So, who ought to be the next Doctor Who? It's up to YOU...

Don't know who 9/10 of these people are

At least put photos to the names!

I want to know if he/she LOOKS like what I expect Dr. Who to look like.

Then I can cull a shorter list and look up their acting creds, and whether they can do the requisite running...