Posts by collinsl

Linky revisited: How the evil French smart meter escaped Hell to taunt me

Metadioxin was the Yes Minister chemical - not that it exists in real life of course...

That time Windows got blindsided by a ball of plasma, 150 million kilometres away

Re: isopropyl alcohol?????

I just ordered 2 massive bottles of it off of amazon when I needed to clean up some cockroach killing spray

The time a Commodore CDTV disc proved its worth as something other than a coaster

Re: hmm

You should have reported them to the Information Commissioner's Office for a Data Protection Act breach by giving you personal details of someone else - that would have sped them up!

Re: hmm

C for Crushed probably

Mine's the one with the dad jokes in the pocket

Re: BAUD

No, I thought that was Derek /*drops lighter*/, AKA Derek Nippl-e

Re: BAUD

A Geordie? On the BBC? Whatever next!

/*drops monocle into soup*/

Re: Optional

Apropos of nothing at all, back in the days of music hall a performer called Marie Lloyd was taking the boards by storm with risque songs and suggestive comedy etc. She was one of the most famous performers of her time really and was known as the "Queen of Music Hall".

She was called before some sort of censorship board to investigate whether or not she was violating public decency laws (or some such other guff) and in response she sang a couple of her most suggestive songs in a totally straight-laced manner and the censors thought "if this is her act then there's no problem with it". Then she proceeded to sing "Come into the garden, Maud" in the most suggestive way possible - a song that the censors' daughters would have known and sung.

She wasn't censored, but she was considered too risque to take place in the first Royal Command performance.

Can you download it to me – in an envelope with a stamp?

Re: Not so many years ago...

They could grip it by the husk!

London's Gatwick airport suspends all flights after 'multiple' reports of drones

African or European?

And hawks which attack drones:

https://www.businessinsider.com/dutch-cops-train-eagles-to-snatch-drones-2016-2?r=US&IR=T

Ducks aren't made of metal and plastic which can melt and block up an engine.

Plus those engines cost millions of pounds each so it's not worth pushing the risk.

Ecuador's Prez talking to UK about Assange's six-year London Embassy stay – reports

Re: Preferred Option

> Benny Hill tune

It's called Yakety Sax:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcq_xLi2NGo

Re: Just Saying ...... Are they men or mice?

And yet we're happy with the American media getting their hands on whatever intelligence we share about them with terrorists after attacks are we?

Which? calls for compensation for users hit by Windows 10 woes

Re: If it was only security patches

I'm currently having a BlueTooth issue with the latest 2 kernels of CentOS 7.

But there's a bugfix open for it...

Send printer ink, please. More again please, and fast. Now send it faster

Here you are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXwb_7DdZeQ

Lawyers for Marcus Hutchins: His 'I made malware' jail phone call isn't proper evidence

Re: Reading the call transcript...Is missing phrase - CV?

That sounds like Security Clearance to me, which is a common process for these kinds of roles.

Info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_vetting_in_the_United_Kingdom#Security_Check_(SC)

Airbus windscreen fell out at 32,000 feet

Re: Last time this happened...

Most planes still have them attaching from the outside because that's the cheaper way of fitting them - getting them into the aircraft and rotating them around to fit the hole is rather difficult without disassembling large sections of the "dashboard" to make room for the maintainers to get in to do the work etc.

Tech bribes: What's the WORST one you've ever been offered?

I once got a chocolate bar from Microsoft at a uni recruiting event - sadly it was full of bugs.

Mine's the one with the redhat logo on the pocket...

You must be yolking: English pub to launch eggstravagent Yorkshire pudding

Is that the same way that London Oxford Airport is in London?

Suspected drug dealer who refused to poo for 46 DAYS released... on bail

Depends on the custody suite, but most of the time they disable the toilet in the cell (or put them in a cell which has no toilet) and provide the prisoner with a commode, which an officer then has to sort through with gloves and a spoon or similar.

Re: Why not X-ray?

Legally not allowed to force him to be inspected as it counts as a medical procedure.

Re: Lamarr, Lucky to be alive

Then he could have pooed in custody and been released weeks ago.

Re: London gang nominal?

We have KTP too...

Re: Ah well...

The sentencing guidelines for the offence he's been rearrested for are exactly the same as the possession with intent to supply but are slightly harder to prove without the evidence.

Of course, the jury (if he's ever brought to trial) could infer from his refusal to defecate that he was concealing drugs and thus prove that he was concerned in the supply, but that is a decision for them to make.

Crypto-gurus: Which idiots told the FBI that Feds-only backdoors in encryption are possible?

Re: The Law of Unintended Consequences

Er, that is (was) Carillion and Capita. Serco too, and G4S

Except for the communist spy who worked there.

Re: People

Yes, but that one is actually possible - if you keep the ice cube constrained enough then it's theoretically possible for it to be heated to 100 degrees and remain in ice form.

The amount of potential energy you'd be housing there (and the energy used to heat it that far) would be tremendous, however, so it would have to be a pretty strong constraint.

Secret weekend office bonk came within inch of killing sysadmin

Re: Basement computer room

On similar lines, in BBC TV Centre in London the old VT (Video Tape) rooms were in the basement directly underneath the fountain in the courtyard.

After a few months of occupation the fountain was turned off because the sound of it echoing off the walls of the circular courtyard made some of the female staff members keep visiting the loo every 10 minutes.

This is not the point of the story, however. The point is that the fountain was also found to leak. When the Queen visited the site at some point in the 1970s the management decided to turn the fountain on to impress her, but in order to minimise the risk from the leak they decided to only turn it on whilst the Queen was outside. The Queen was seen to be approaching, so the fountain was turned on. She met the management, went inside and it was turned off. But then they had to turn it back on because the Duke of Edinburgh turned up in a land rover a few minutes later.

The upshot of the story is a large part of the expensive VT equipment underneath the fountain was ruined!

Dodgy parking firms to be denied access to Brit driver database

> Greg Knight

He's the Conservative MP who had the odd election video, isn't he?

To Whit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl6NnfiYrwQ

Death notice: Moore's Law. 19 April 1965 – 2 January 2018

And Puppet and Cognos and Jira and loads of other web tools and HP iLOs and Dell iDracs and IBM iDross (whatever) and most implementations of IPMI etc etc etc

'WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON?' Linus Torvalds explodes at Intel spinning Spectre fix as a security feature

Re: The bug is better than the buggy fix !!!

00000000

^ US Launch codes inside the USA.

'The capacitors exploded, showering the lab in flaming confetti'

Re: "Who Me?" should be the RSS feed title as well.

I hope those frog pills are appropriately dryed...

How many Routemaster bus seats would it take to fill Wembley Stadium?

That's a matter of opinion.

UK's Just Eat faces probe after woman tweets chat-up texts from 'delivery guy'

Re: I'm failing to see how this is Just Eat's fault

But it is worth retraining the employee in the proper use of protected data, at the very least.

Heathrow's air traffic radio set for shiny digital upgrade from Northrop

Re: handheld in a drawer

There are 2 completely separate radio systems in an active-passive configuration. If one dies, you switch to the other.

Just as there are 2 different LANs for the critical infrastructure, and 2 different control rooms (one offsite).

Everything in ATC is tested and tested and tested and retested and then tested some more, and then tested again for good measure, and is duplicated and then tested.

Well it would be something like "would you be willing to climb to 42000 feet in 10 minutes?"

It allows controllers to see what pilots can do so they can plan out their workload in advance whilst keeping the radio frequencies clear. ACARS can also be used for the aeroplane to talk to their own airline controllers etc without them having to use a radio frequency.

Plus in the future, as coverage expands, it may be possible to perform all control via ACARS so the voice frequencies can be freed up. This will also allow improved automation.

Butcher breaks out of own freezer using black pudding

Re: Gluten sensitivity

If you think modern (or Chorleywood) process produces bad bread, look at some of the adulterants the mid-Victorians put into the bread:

Chalk (for whitening)

Alum (again for whitening) - some said this caused ricketts as it could prevent the digestive system from pulling nutrients from other foods consumed

Arsenic - by accident made it's way into some loaves. The baker claims he was adding Alum but mixed up the containers

Millers routinely put "rotten" or sour flour into the mix to sell off gone-off stocks with no one noticing

Bone meal (whitening again)

Whatever the brewers had adulterated the yeast with - beer brewing created yeast, which the bakers purchased as there was no such thing as dried yeast at that time. Brewers adulterated beer too, and that made it's way into the yeast.

Potatoes

Plaster of Paris

Sawdust

Ecuador tried to make Julian Assange a diplomat

Re: under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations . . .?

In which case we* are perfectly free to revoke the status of the diplomat-in-chief who made Assange a diplomat. I don't think that's a route Ecuador want to go down at this point.

*The UK

WikiLeave? Assange tipped for Ecuadorian eviction

Re: "A third country might offer a new couch"

Air Traffic control doesn't like helicopters flying anywhere in London except along the Thames (as it's something safe to put the helicopter into if required) and they sure as heck will notice a helicopter coming in disregarding ATC instructions - it'll get shot down by the RAF or otherwise forced to land before it gets on a roof.

US border cops told to stop copying people's files just for the hell of it

Re: What's the hit rate?

3 letters: V P and N

SuperFish cram scandal: Lenovo must now ask nicely before stuffing new PCs with crapware

Re: Removing all crapware

More likely "By purchasing this system you are giving your express consent to have various software programs installed including Microsoft Windows and user experience enhancement software. If you wish to purchase a system without this software, please go to this web address: http://shop.lenovo.com/systems/laptops/blank"

Then just don't offer any systems

Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Re: Xeon

We don't know yet. Wait for the announcement.

Just get a T420 and be glad, or an X220 if you want smaller.

Come over to /r/thinkpad and check out your options!

Re: @ lsatenstein

The i5 soldered into the motherboard of my Lenovo x220 begs to differ

The i7 models are the same too. And the x230 if memory serves.

Brazil says it has bagged Royal Navy flagship HMS Ocean for £84m

Re: Whats in a name

"IIRC, Ocean was quite unusual, as there had only been one previous HMS Ocean,"

There have been 5 previous Oceans, the Colossus class was the last previous one (if that makes sense).

The first was launched in 1761

More info here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ocean

Re: Whats in a name

We'd have to have loads of identical ships named Badger though...

UK security chief: How 'bout a tax for tech firms that are 'uncooperative' on terror content?

Re: Tax Laws

Bristol to Southend is coast to coast isn't it?

How about Glasgow to Edinburgh? ;-)

Or Exeter to Grimsby?

Once again, UK doesn't rule out buying F-35A fighter jets

Re: Why go totally F-35?

Doesn't work like that - the back bit is for landing at the same time as the front bit is for taking off, at least on conventional carriers.

On the old Invincible class the harriers needed a decent run up for VSTOL

Boss made dirt list of minions' mistakes, kept his own rampage off it

Re: Not IT-related

OK - the vast majority of diesel "Multiple Unit" trains on the UK network are direct drive, where they have lorry-style propshafts and automatic gearboxes.

Older electric trains on the other hand are of course powered by electic motors, which step like this. Newer trains with AC motors and digital power controls are more likely to increase power gradually by cutting power off and reapplying it at high frequencies.