Posts by jake

Reg man inhales the smooth, non-cancerous, taste of USB nicotine

@flearider (was: Re: One point that is often conveniently forgotten ...)

Uh ... no.

Solanine is not nicotine.

@dogged (was: Re: One point that is often conveniently forgotten ...)

Uh ... dogged, nicotine has an overall negative affect on the human system.

Do you really think sharing your addiction with all and sundry is a good idea?

Re: One point that is often conveniently forgotten ...

"That pesky steam!"

Yeah. Pesky. And containing nicotine. In my airspace.

No matter how you you look at it, these narcotic drug delivery systems are evil.

One point that is often conveniently forgotten ...

... the exhaled fumes pollute the atmosphere of the un-addicted.

Boffins baffled after Sun fails to fry satellites

Maunder minimum, anyone?

Just asking.

Global warming confuzleologists, start babbling promptly ...

Richard Stallman decides Emacs should go WYSIWYG

@AC08:19 (was: Re: @ Rampant Spaniel (was: I use VI! ;-)))

No offense, but not groking grok implies that you have absolutely zero clue about the culture of TehIntraWebTubes.

Probably why you are a self-confessed coward.

@ Rampant Spaniel (was: Re: I use VI! ;-))

It's vi, not VI ... If you don't grok CaSe, you don't grok *nix.

vi is the de facto *nix text editor. Has been for decades. If you want to become a real *nix admin, learn vi ... kitchensinkware linux distributions not withstanding.

@Denarius (was: Re: What goes around...)

Might want to check your echo-canceler settings :-)

Normally, I use vi ...

... but after reading the article, I typ(o)ed a dead-tree letter to my Great Uncle Lincoln (who is computer illiterate) in EMACS, and printed it out on a Daisy Wheel. It'll be stuffed into an envelope and sent via USPS tomorrow, he'll get it Monday or Tuesday. It pretty much looks WYSIWYG from here.

Horses for courses & all that.

From the Dept of You are Old: 'Selfie' officially 'Word of the Year'

@ChrisBedford (was: Re: selfies are frickin OLD.)

As I posted elsewhere:

"Whatever. Oxford is wrong. We were using the word "selfie" for self portraits taken with Polaroid's "Land" cameras, especially the SX-70, in the early 1970s. (San Francisco Bay Area.) I suspect searching the Usenet archives could turn up many cites for this term being in use on TehIntraWebTubes in the very early 1980s, but I can't be arsed to look. A late 1970s or earl 1980s CompuServe or TheSource photography forum archive would probably also turn up cites, if such an archive exists.

"Kids these days think they invented everything ..."

World's first selfie found on Wayback Machine

Re: the word not the deed

Whatever. Oxford is wrong. We were using the word "selfie" for self portraits taken with Polaroid's "Land" cameras, especially the SX-70, in the early 1970s. (San Francisco Bay Area.) I suspect searching the Usenet archives could turn up many cites for this term being in use on TehIntraWebTubes in the very early 1980s, but I can't be arsed to look. A late 1970s CompuServe or TheSource photography forum archive would probably also turn up cites, if such an archive exists.

Kids these days think they invented everything ...

Badges for Commentards

@ Hungry Sean (was: Re: opposable thumbs)

I have no grudge against thumbs. It's a logical thing, when you think about it. Consider that I can easily write a script to either "thumbs up" myself for all the posts in my posting history, using any number of open proxies ... or likewise, "thumbs down" all of the posts in your posting history.

In the case of me personally clicking (running a script to) "thumbs up" my own posts, only I would know that it happened. I'm not narcissistic. So that will never happen.

In the case of me down voting all your posts, I see no real reason for that ... I did do that as an example a while back. I down voted all of a user's posts on the current first page of their posting history. Manually. I regret it.

My point stands. Thumbs are pointless as currently implemented.

As for "badges" ... surely we're long past serf to crown?

No badge = the rabble.

Bronze = valued foot soldiers.

Silver = Been here long enough to make the kingdom money.

Gold = Self-appointed Nobility (or by the Nobility).

Seriously, grow up ElReg. Allow humans to interact without artificial, meaningless pigeonholes.

Re: Ugh

My opinion?

Stick with your handle. The idiots following you around after some perceived sleight don't deserve the "victory" of your name going away.

Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. They are an ugly artifact of marketing.

So-called "thumbs" are worse ... random, faceless idiots trying to do a binary "I approve" vs. "I disagree", without actual explanation, is pretty much next to useless.

ElReg really needs to reconsider the entire "badge" and "thumbs" concept. It scares people, and keeps them from posting. It's not censorship, but it is stifling over the long-haul.

Goodbye cruel world: Robot 'commits suicide' in KITCHEN FIREBALL

Humans don't want to understand instructions.

'nuff said.

Who's hogging Amazon's cloud CPUs? I'll kill 'em ... oh, look, it was me

@Oliver (was: Re: Frankly ...)

Did you not see where I wrote "As a corporate IT recruiter"?

If your prospective employer is asking for it, shun them. It's for your own good.

Frankly ...

As a corporate IT recruiter, I routinely shred resumes/c.v.s that list Amazon or cloud (google, et alia) as part of the "skill set". Those sheep aren't worth employing.

APPLE EATS ITSELF: iPad Mini set to wolf Air's market share

During the meanwhile ...

... record company sponsored boy bands & girl bands will continue to siphon money from teenagers and their parents.

No matter how you look at it, graft is graft.

Amazon seeds cloud with apps that flow to streams

"big day it ats re:Invent cloud"

Pretty much as incoherent as the rest of the cloud twaddle.

Huge Antarctic iceberg: 1 Singapore? 8 Manhattans? This is CHAOS

"Singapore-sized iceberg menaces Berlin"

Uh ... logistics suggest this is just plain silly.

How do spooks build surveillance rigs? In Oz they TENDER for it

@Matt (was: Re: jake "The appliance"? WTF is AFP babbling about? It's not an espresso maker ...)

The Aussies don't have to ask. They already have the sigintel ... Do you not know what "United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement" is?

"The appliance"? WTF is AFP babbling about? It's not an espresso maker ...

Morons clueless about technology are clueless morons.

Earth to AFP: Eyeball "United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement". It already exists, if you have the clearance. If you don't have the clearance ... well, you probably shouldn't go there.

Ask the Sysadmins: What has the cloud ever done for me?

"geeks who are hard to work with"

No, geeks are NOT hard to work with.

Management IS hard to work with when it comes to technical stuff, because they have absolutely zero clue how the system works, and refuse to even try to understand reality.

Define "cloud". Then define "cloud computing". Face it, folks, in the bottom-line "the cloud" is simply a marketing gimmick that computer illiterate MBAs have bought into.

Typing as a geek who is called in to fix management disasters on a regular basis ...

Unbelievably RARE, two-horned 'UNICORN' SPOTTED in woods

Re: Enquiring minds want to know...

Gut feeling, it tastes basically like any other bovid.

To err is human. To moo, bovine.

Astroboffins solve birth of the Man in the Moon face

Re: @Vic (was: @DAM (was: @Chris Miller))

Are you really incapable of reading for content, Vic?

I'm not arguing, I'm discussing. Professionals are not infallible.

Re: @Vic (was: @DAM (was: @Chris Miller))

Try to educate yourself, Vic. Here's a starting point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_maria

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Wiki sucks. But it's got some good links.

Again, see my reply to Chris Miller, above.

Not a professional, just an amateur. See these two posts:

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/1432149

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/1433296

The 20 inch is a work in progress ... and again, the Wife is fascinated :-)

@Vic (was: Re: @DAM (was: @Chris Miller))

There is only one problem with your argument. Your "impact craters" on the nearside aren't a result of impact. Rather, they are a result of the moon's internal vulcanism.

I rather suspect the farside had similar features soon after tidal-lock set in.

The phrase "are said to be" doth not scientific proof make.

@DAM (was: Re: @Chris Miller)

Re-read mine. Nearside & farside refers to the moon, not the earth.

Once the moon was tidally locked, the nearside had a measure of protection. Only stands to reason. See my reply to Chris Miller.

Re: @Chris Miller

Spin a bucket around at the end of a rope.

Allow several hundred people to randomly throw dyed water balloons at said bucket from any and all angles. Observe how much dye actually lands in said bucket, compared to what splatters onto the outside of the bucket and yourself, in the center of the system.

For fun, and charity purposes, fill the balloons with ketchup instead of water+dye.

@Chris Miller

The Moon is in synchronous rotation with the Earth, thus protecting the near side from most bombardment, and thus most changes. Likewise, the farside isn't quite as protected. Over 4 billion years, the surface texture difference becomes obvious to the thinking man ...

@ JamesTQuirk 08:44 (was: Re: Its a history of the moon saving our butts ....)

Somewhat incoherent comment. Care to try again?

Personally ...

... I never could see the supposed "man in the moon". To me it's a random bunch of craters left by a random bunch of debris leftover from the formation of the Solar System.

Re: Its a history of the moon saving our butts ....

What part of "4 billion years ago" do you not understand? The earth was similarly pummeled in the same time-frame. Time, geology & weather has (mostly) hidden the evidence. The moon only has one of those processes.

World's first 3D-printed metal gun 'more accurate' than factory-built cousin

@Tom 7 (was: Re: @Zmodem @jake)

"wtf do they make cnc keyboards out of that reacts so violently with alcohol?"

Substance induced drain bramage would be my guess.

::shrugs::

Re: @Zmodem

My early 1980s Bridgeport can be either manually operated, or can take computer instructions. The computer involved started as an MS-DOS machine (ver. 2.1? 2.11?), the programming language was a bad port of K&R C (possibly via XENIX) and/or a nice variation of x86 assembler (the Intel/IBM fingerprints were all over it). Today, the computer is Slackware-current. The programming languages? Guess ;-)

Re: @Jake hmmm..

I have a 7'2" by 1.85" white oak staff that I occasionally use as a walking stick. I forged iron caps for each end of it, mainly because I don't want it to wear out before I'm done with it. It's a comfy piece of wood ... When I ran across it, I knew exactly what it was meant to be.

@AC: 08:48 (was: Re: @AC 0103 (was: Danger Will Robinson))

Minimizing your list of ingredients is contra-indicated if you want good results. The original AC suggested gun cotton was the only ingredient in modern small arms propellant.

The primary ingredient in bread is flour. The devil is in the details. Think about it.

@Zmodem

You know what you call an alcoholic CNC operator?

"Two fingers".

I make parts for my hardware (not just guns!) on a regular basis.

signed, owner/operator, Bridgeport CNC, all digits intact, ta you very much.

@AC 0103 (was: Re: Danger Will Robinson)

Gun Cotton? I don't think you fully understand the subject matter. Unless you're packing a battleship, of course. And their main guns don't use cartridges.

Re: hmmm..

Apparently, it should hold up quite nicely. Look up "Selective Laser Sintering". However, until this kind of thing has been around & "field tested" for a couple decades, I think I'll stick to my Kimber .45 ;-)

If your bosses tell you you're 'in it together', don't ever believe them

Uh ... duh?

Follow the money ... and see who is routinely left behind.

This wasn't rocket science before we had rocket science.

Anonymous threatens cyberwar with Anonymous

Funniest thing about idiots who try to identify as "anonytwats" ...

... is that they don't understand what the meaning of "coherence" is, and why that lack of understanding completely trashes the entire concept of their so-called movement.

Oooh! My NAUGHTY SKIRT keeps riding up! Hello, INTERNET EXPLORER

Oh. My. Fucking. Gawd/ess.

Microsoft's marketing department has finally lost it completely.

Hopefully it's the beginning of the end of Redmond ...

Microsoft, Facebook: We'll pay cash if you can poke a hole in the INTERNET

::shrugs::

Kernel mailing lists have existed for a reason, for decades.

And they are not driven by corporate marketing.

Truly secure clouds? Possible but not likely say Georgia Tech boffins

Gee. You think?

Honestly, the mind boggles at the current corporate management idiocy.

Cops: Bloke makes bet with wife. Wife loses - so hubby TASERS her

Before anybody suggests it is confined to the US ...

... trash is trash, the world 'round.

Facebook fans fuel faggots firestorm

Re: Do you remember ...

See: AOL and Scunthorp ...

Re: So what did he say when he addressed the Bassoonists?

The bloated necked idiot probably demanded Cake.

Re: Nope. Wednesday came and went

Not in those shoes.

<barbie>Cross-pond humo(u)r is hard!</barbie>.

Can't stand the heat? Harden up if you want COLD, DELICIOUS BEER

@David Dawson (was: Re: a simple thought experiment)

Your equipment also has delta-h ...

Again, try it for yourself. It ain't exactly rocket science.

@ Schultz (was: Re: Total, complete & utter bullshit.)

Again, try it. Report back.

Why are folks so recalcitrant when it comes to actual experimental observation?