Posts by kryptonaut

New boss was bad, his attitude was ugly, so the tech team pranked him good

TSR

Way back in the days of MS-DOS, I had a good friend in the office who was of Mexican descent.

I wrote a little TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) program which I installed in her autoexec.bat - it hooked the keyboard interrupt and monitored the keys being pressed. Whenever she typed her name at the end of a document, the computer would cheerily play the 'Mexican Hat Dance' song through the PC speaker :-)

Eventually she discovered that pressing backspace part way through typing her name would avoid triggering the tune.

Ah, happy days!

[Beer because there's no tequila icon]

Does terrible code drive you mad? Wait until you see what it does to OpenAI's GPT-4o

Evil

Of course it's easy to tell when an AI has been programmed for evil, as its eyes will glow red.

Cosmoboffins think grav waves hold the key to sorting out the disputed Hubble Constant

There is no centre, and it's not expanding into anything. A reasonable 2D analogy is the skin of an inflating balloon, in which points on its surface are all getting further apart but there is no centre of expansion, and no 'empty skin' that the points are expanding into.

In the case of the universe it's as if the skin is somehow powering its own expansion - the question is what that expansion rate is, and how has it varied over time?

Now that's a dodgy Giza: Eggheads claim Great Pyramid can focus electromagnetic waves

Electric Ka

This new electro-magnetic resonance information, combined with the frustum shape of the pyramid, clearly indicates that they are in fact enormous EM-drives. Almost certainly they are designed to propel the occupant's ka to paradise, probably somewhere near Sirius.

Those ancient Egyptians knew so much more than we give them credit for.

Fermi famously asked: 'Where is everybody?' Probably dead, says renewed Drake equation

Re: Obligatory DNA

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, ... However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds.

False logic. ∞ - x is still ∞

Well, for finite x, yes. But if x is infinite then the result could be finite or infinite.

If we accept that there are an infinite number of worlds then from current observations all we can deduce is that there are between 1 and infinity inhabited worlds, and between some positive number and infinity uninhabited worlds. Which rather spoils the fun.

Vatican sets up dedicated exorcism training course

Exorcism Lesson 1

Benigno Palilla: Don't cross the streams.

Novice Exorcist: Why?

Benigno Palilla: It would be bad.

Novice Exorcist: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?

Benigno Palilla: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously, and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Cardinal Fang: [shocked gasp] Total protonic reversal.

Novice Exorcist: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Benigno.

Bright idea: Make H when the Sun shines, and H when it doesn't

Re: Molten salt ?

But it would have to be positioned well out of reach of the chip monks.

A print button? Mmkay. Let's explore WHY you need me to add that

That photo...

... is the reason why photographers were never again allowed at Yes after-parties.

Remember the Yorkie pizza horror? Here's who won our exclusive Reg merch...

Yay!

Thank you very much!

Home taping revisited: A mic in each hand, pointing at speakers

Conditioning

What about the home-made compilations when the tape ran out part-way through the last track, and 35 years later whenever you hear that song you *still* expect it to finish there?

Morrisons launches bizarre Yorkshire Pudding pizza thing

Inspirational

The pizza they put on my platter

Was like a deep-pan only fatter.

I muttered "Lord save me,

They've served it with gravy

And in place of the base they've put batter".

I started - with some trepidation -

To tackle this hybrid creation,

But to my delight

The thing tasted all right

So I finished with no hesitation.

I washed it all down with some bitter,

Let nobody say I'm a quitter.

And after, I reckoned

I fancied a second -

Then I spent the whole night on the sh**ter.

Butcher breaks out of own freezer using black pudding

The blackest black pudding...

Even t'white bits were black.

Two drones, two crashes in two months: MoD still won't say why

Strange goings on...

Two drones downed over Cardigan Bay, and then this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-41790482

Coincidence? I think not.

I, for one, welcome our betentacled cephalopodic overlords.

NASA reveals Curiosity 2020's 23-camera payload

Noodliness

“Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals”

This must be checking for evidence of the FSM?

The case of the disappearing insect. Boffin tells Reg: We don't know why... but we must act

Re: I'd like to see more

"Professional entymologists"

Are they really good at spelling bees?

Sniffing substations will solve 'leccy car charging woes, reckons upstart

Re: Access to the Open LV dataset...

Wire you even asking? The course will be run in three phases. It'll transform your life.

Re: Access to the Open LV dataset...

"Shine, tiny Sun in a bottle, shine!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cgIHS7am9g

UK Prime Minister calls on internet big beasts to 'auto-takedown' terror pages within 2 HOURS

The trouble with technology

The trouble with technology that looks like magic to those who don't understand it, is that these people then go on to imagine that any other problem can be solved by simply doing some more of the same magic.

Unquestioning belief in magic is fine for children who don't know any better, but for supposedly well-informed politicians and people in authority, it's rather pathetic.

Get some advice from experts, and try actually listening to it for once.

UK.gov to treat online abuse as seriously as IRL hate crime

Re: Indie

Welsh leading consonants may undergo mutations depending on what precedes them:

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Welsh/Mutations

Jesus walks away after 7,000lb pipe van incident

Re: Ooooh!

Some of these comments are holy inappropriate

Juno beams back first closeups of Jupiter's unsightly red acne

Voices

“For hundreds of years scientists have been observing, wondering and theorizing about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

But did he say it in the Carl Sagan voice that I heard in my head when I read that paragraph?

Boffins' five eyes surprise: Bees correct colour for ambient light

Spidey-senses

Ok, not the same as bee-vision but worth a look if these things pique your interest...

Jumping spiders have pretty acute vision, but their lenses are fixed to their exoskeletons so if they want to look around they can't just swivel their eyes. Instead they move their retinas behind the lens. If you look a jumping spider in the eye, and the lens turns dark, you know it's looking back at you.

The video on this site shows a jumping spider with a largely transparent exoskeleton, so you can see the retinas moving around - it's amazing. And the page contains a link to another video which uses the spider's lens itself to focus on the retina, showing incredible detail.

http://webvision.med.utah.edu/2014/07/moving-jumping-spider-retinas/

Constant work makes the kilo walk the Planck

Re: Isn't there a risk ...

Or what if there's some Heisenberg-ish principle at work, so that the more precisely you know Planck's constant, the more vague and fuzzy everything else becomes?

Actually come to think of it, maybe that explains quite a lot...

Researchers solve screen glare nightmare with 'moth-eye' antireflective film

Re: Fairly obvious solutions to the dirt clogging issue

"Fill holes with a clear plastic of suitable refractive index that it fills the holes but leaves the optical properties intact. Plastic hardens in holes to leave smooth flat surface."

That thought struck me too, but then I realised that you'd end up with a smooth shiny surface facing the viewer, and you'd be back where you started. Only way it'd work would be if the filler plastic had the same refractive index as air, in which case you could just use that to make the screen and it would be reflection-free (and effectively invisible).

Samsung releases 49-inch desktop monitor with 32:9 aspect ratio

The box is bigger on the inside

UK PM May's response to London terror attack: Time to 'regulate' internet companies

Re: Book stores.

"People like to remember "1984" - but also, remember "Animal Farm" - and remember it was forbidden in those paradise that was the communist block...."

And speaking of 1984, this gif is worth at least 1000 words:

https://media.giphy.com/media/3oKIP7cccWiJOq6DRu/giphy.gif

UK ministers to push anti-encryption laws after election

She is watching you

https://media.giphy.com/media/3oKIP7cccWiJOq6DRu/giphy.gif

'The internet is slow'... How to keep users happy, get more work done

"...an organisation that has niche rolls to fill..."

Subway?

Vegemite tries to hijack Qantas name-our-planes competition

Australian tradition

Following in the tradition of the "Great Sandy Desert" and the "Snowy Mountains", I suggest naming these eight large aircraft "Large Aircraft 1-8"

Manchester pulls £750 public crucifixion offer

Young Ones

Neil: "Crucifixion's like, a really negative way to kill yourself, man. I've tried it hundreds of times, there's just no way you can hammer in the last nail."

Boffins crowdsource hunt for 'Planet 9'

You better wise up...

I vote for Planet Schmanet Janet

Our Sun's been using facial scrub: No spots for two weeks

Klytus, I'm bored.

When the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions start, and hot hail falls from the sky, there's only one person who can save us.

https://youtu.be/U51Pl0KMI3M?t=45s

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

Re: Not video, but...

Incredible images - and mind-boggling to think that in 10 nanoseconds light travels just 3 metres, so the more distant parts of the fireball images must be significantly earlier in time than the nearer parts. Wow.

The best of Reg readers' David Hockney-style logo redesigns

Re: V for Vulture

I'll double the currant bid

Trump signs 'no privacy for non-Americans' order – what does that mean for rest of us?

Re: Trump has become more deranged

Protect and Survive

http://www.atomica.co.uk/main.htm

Blockchain: A digital 'golden section' that's the 'gestalt of its pieces'

the logo is a gestalt of its pieces

What a load of old blocks.

2016 just got a tiny bit longer. Gee, thanks, time lords

Manipulating time

"I'll just slip in an extra second. What could possibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrpossibly go wrong?

ong?

possibly go wr

ERR: 31 Dec 2016 23:59:60 - Temporal buffer underflow - Rebooting Universe...

Cargo capsule goes AWOL, explodes on its way to Space Station

Omnomnom

"The Russian space agency Roscosmos has just confirmed the container and its cargo are toast."

Just add marmite.

Jeremy Hunt: Telcos must block teens from sexting each other

This country

This country is being run by a bunch of self-serving arrogant fuckwits. The alternative lot are no better. The Lib-dems seem to speak sense but nobody votes for them.

If I didn't have family here I'd consider jumping ship at this point.

Three certainties in life: Death, taxes and the speed of light – wait no, maybe not that last one

In a vacuum?

The Speed of Light in a vacuum is generally held to be constant - but what if the early universe was sufficiently dense that the SoL was reduced enough that matter could move faster than the SoL in that medium without violating our current theories?

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

Facebook 'fesses up to WhatsApp privacy blunder in UK

Stored data

"It’s a particular concern when company mergers mean that vast amounts of customers’ personal data become an asset to be bought and sold."

Or when an even less savoury government than our current one takes possession of all that juicy info stored up as a result of the snoopers' charter.

It's ALIVE: Juno back online after reboot

It's full of stars

It was rebooted when it got too near to the monolith.

A year living with the Nexus 5X – the good, the bad, and the Nougat

Re: Nexii?

And in the context of the article (Nexus owners), it should be singular anyway.

Re: Hmmm...

Well, I have a Lumia 640XL running WP10, and I've just put it on charge after it dropped to 20% battery - 8 days after its last charge.

It wasn't always like that though - it used to need charging daily until I disabled as much of Cortana as I could, told it to only sync emails every 2 hrs, and use WiFi only (I'm nearly always either at work or at home when I want to use anything internetty).

Does all I need it to do - texts, calls, maps, browsing, email, calculator, alarms, and the odd app or two.

2,000 year old man found dead near 2,000 year old computer

Physics 101 BCE

The ship was sunk by a massive explosion caused when the Antikythera Device was brought too close to the (as yet unrecovered) Kythera Device.

MoD confirms award of giant frikkin' laser cannon contract

Photon Energy Weapon (PEW), surely?

Elon Musk says SpaceX Falcon 9 fireball investigation is 'biggest challenge yet'

Re: Really?

A Fire Balrog?

Radicalisation? UK.gov gets itself in cluster-muddle over 'terrorism'

So-called

The name 'So-called Islamic State' has been deprecated.

The organisation formerly known as 'So-called Islamic State' should henceforth be referred to either as TOFKASCIS, or as 'So-called 'So-called Islamic State''.

.

Microsoft’s Continuum: Game changer or novelty?

16x

Is an octocre chip sixteen times better than a mediocre one?

Italian MP threatens parents forcing veggie diets on kids with jail

Ah yes, the inevitable scooby-doo unmasking at the end of each episode, where the villain says "And I'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you pescetarians"