Posts by Nights_are_Long

Virgin Media broadband goes titsup for 3 hours

Wasn't just the BB.

My Phone was acting up last night from about 6 - 10pm, The broadband was fine but call's in would not connect and calls out didn't get a dial tone.

At least 10 days till hot Phobos-Grunt chunks rain down

God I hope it it!

I would love to be standing outside watching it with my mate, time it to the last second point my finger to the sky an say BANG! as the fireball ensues and as it's burning away in the sky turn to him and say "Yea I am just that good" then walk off.

Brits got Kindles for Christmas

I gave one to my Mum and one to my Dad, Mum loves hers Dad's a technological dinosaur and used it for about 5 min then it's sat in the draw next to his bed since then.

Will TWO next-gen iPads be unveiled at January's iWorld?

Yea not exactly what apple would do, they have a winning formula tablet big enough to be useful without be small enough to go walkies, and they have found the idea size off the bat not as samll as a mobile not as bit or as clunky as a netbook or note book.

UK cops disciplined, sacked, quit over Facebook misdeeds

Right I am sorry but why are we holding the police officers to a higher standard? They are people too, I don't have a social media profile at all because I am not that way inclined but honestly why are we doing this?

Seriously I am shocked we still think the police are unfeeling automatons, a very close relative of mine is a Police officer in one of the most dangerous parts of the City I live in and they do a fucking hard job with little thanks, a job that that can make a person cold inside at the end of a day.

Let's not be so fucking quick to condemn a whole public service because of some people's comments of duty on a social network. Condemn them if they let a personal limitation or view effect there job.

The Police do a damned good job, I support them because 99.9% of them do help people, because in any profession there is always the 0.1% who are dicks.

O2 denies Nokia WinPho handset cull

MS mobile fail.

Why is this a surprise to anyone? win mobile has never really been a success before why would the new one be any better?

From what I understand the phone it's self is piss poor.

It's the ALL NEW FUTURISTIC WEAPONS Black Friday Roundup!

The Russian 9X39 SP-5 round is a heavy sub sonic round that happens to do the same job, it avoids the sonic boom and when used with the VSS Vintorez rifle it's prity much near totally silent from the reports I have read.

However the De Lisle carbine was supposed to have the same claim to fame, but it took a .45 ACP round married to a Enfield action and a near full barrel length silencer to achieve this claim, but I have my doubts about it being that quiet, the .22LR version could have been that quiet but not the .45 ACP version.

Cisco to HP: 'Stop suing former staffers'

I have to agree that this is stupid, and to be honest the you can't work for our compition clause in contracts is a joke and should not be allowed, the same goes for outside of work IP ownership what you do on your time is yours and as long as it use's no resource or IP of your employer it should remain yours.

Fake doc cuffed in concrete arse shocker

That's not a arse...

... Thats a shelf.

Russian diplomat caught driving while 15 TIMES over booze limit

Proposition for the measurement of alcohol for the El Reg community.

I propose that each unit of alcohol (A unit being 1 shot of vodka) be named a Yeltsin, and that various units multiplied are combined thusly -

10 Yeltsin's = 1 Borris

20 Yeltsin's = A Johnson.

30 Yeltsin's = Beer goggles.

40 Yeltsin's = Handcuffed.

50 Yeltsin's 1 Supper Borris.

Clooney fingered for Steve Jobs role in Hollywood biopic

Noha Wyle.

I think Wyle stands a better chance, he has played jobs before and the guy did a walk on pretending to be jobs at his request.

And he looks more like him.

Hong Kongers fight for right to stand in line for iPhone 4S

I think it's possible that it's a direct translation of Argument, a fight with words chines can be very literal when translated*.

* = I am going of what I have been told by a chines friend.

Mars, Moon, solar system could be littered with alien artifacts

We already have them...

We already have bit's of old space ships, NASA recovered loads of the Armour plate that fell of the Galactica when it broke apart after it's last FTL jump, that's why they where able to recreate it so well in the documentary series a few years back....

Upcoming EU data law will make Europe tricky for Facebook

Will this also apply to...

3rd parties, i.e. say a american or canadian friend upload my contact details (it's already happened) do I have the right to demand that FB remove it? I hope so I really hope so because I hate social networking because it invaids my privacy. I tell the world what I want when I want I don't like it working the other way round.

Mozilla updates to Firefox 8, disables add-ons

Hello Twitter bye bye FF.

Yea the Twitter thing just killed FF for me.

NASA tells Voyager 2 to save its strength

Just how power efficient is that thing? Seriously that's some epic achievement right there.

I raise my hat to the Old NASA and Voyager.

Google TV 2.0 is all bling and no kerching

If your employed by google you get the Luxury of being able to turn it off.

HP downgrades Slate Windows tab

Probably because they lack a strategy.

Miley Cyrus cracker: 'I'm too short for the slammer!'

Looking to avoid painful stretch inside - I am now reminded of the old Scouse saying "She is as lose as a sausage down a alleyway."

Great subtitle.

Inside WD's flooded Thai factory

Haha thankfully I am not that old, I am only 26.

*** DEGAUSS SCREEN FOR WAVE EFFECT***

Bean Counter "You know you guys wanted a new factory?"

Non bean counter "Yea"

Bean Counter "Well we are giving you one"

Non Bean counter "sweet, where is it?"

Bean Counter "Well not in the UK , Mainland Europe or the USA like you wanted. No we found a nice little plot of land in the Far East our field agent said the land is cheep and the women are very friendly there is a teeny tiny problem though."

Non Bean counter *through gritted teeth* "Go on..."

Bean Counter "There is a teeny tiny microscopic problem of massive flooding at some point, that could cause a massive spike in the global cost of hard drives but that shouldn't concern you".

At this point the non bean counter seeing how this was going, reach over to his phone an rang 3534 (The BOFH emergency service number), 30 seconds later 1 Taser induced "KZZERT" a heavy roll of carpet and a bag of quick lime later the world was saved from this mess.

*** DEGAUSS SCREEN FOR WAVE EFFECT***

We can but deam, we can but dream.

(At least) 4 web authentication authorities breached since June

Why am I not surprised? OK sure I can see why they might delay notification a day maybe two if the attacker still has access and they are trying to see just what they are upto and securing there systems at the same time but the way places just hold off on informing people of anything let alone a breach of the magnitude that diginotor was is a serious breach of trust.

I would be happy to deal with a company that is honest about security because atleast THEN I can take my own steps after the fact.

Nokia to flood emerging markets with budget blowers

ARGH MY EYE'S!!!!!!!

Seriously this is supposed to sell in developing countries? I can not for the life of me see a guy in India, Pakistan, sub Saharan Africa, South America or Manchester choosing one over the 3rd hand blackberry import or one of the cheepo Chinese android knock off's.

PC shortages 'inevitable' says Gartner

A lesson to hardware manufactures.

This is why they need to spread production AROUND the world and not just have it centred in the far east, a natural disaster takes out most of the supply chain.

US decommissions massive Cold War nuke

@ The first post - So your thinking is we are getting "The FatMan" from Fallout 3?

Either way I am mixed on this, Hopefully they have it kept in a Museum as a warning from the past that fearing the other is not always a smart thing to do AND as a Terrifiying historic relic.

But small nukes just make no sense to me, the whole point of a Tactical Nuclear weapon was to clear a area of the enemy not just to blow the living shit out of a bunker, that was the whole point of the higher payload ICBM's they are massive and designed not only to knock out the supporting infrastructure but to collapse the bunker in on it's self.

Cisco chief's package shrinks 65 per cent

Aww didums.

Google exec: 'Corporations ignore human rights'

"The internet is, yes, a political, powerful tool. But what happens online does not magically transfer itself into the offline, real world. Take a look at Libya. When I was looking at Libya I saw a lot more AK-47s being used than I did smartphones."

Can some one please tell the BBC this! I saw that series they did called "How Facebook changed the world" and it had little impact on the events that happened, it helped get the message out at first but after that it had little or no effect as the events unfolded.

Perhaps it helped bring it to the Western Media a little faster but it did not have the impact most people and the BBC think it did.

Jurassic Park Ultimate Trilogy Blu-ray disc set

God I loved this film as a kid, the kitchen scene and the Raptors in general have left me with a irrational fear of them to this day oddly the day after I saw the film we went on a school trip to Liverpool museum and they at the time had two raptor fossils in a display, I turned round and there right behind me by about a foot was a rubber head of a raptor that sent me flying back in terror and making a fool of myself.

Still love the film though :)

Stanford boffins create skinnier ‘skin’

I hope this guy and my Cousin can get together and see what they can come up with as his field would be very complimentary.

Apple updates MacBook Pro laptop line

Apple only sell it with 8GB it can support 16GB, Other world computing sell the memory.

LaCie LaPlug

One of my first IT jobs was working in a computer shop, The owner LOVED LaCie but we hated them, we got about 3 a week come back to us with blown PSU's or other fault's we only ever saw on other brands every few months.

And the RMA procedure was a joke, fill in form X with the shipping invoice your drive was included in, send to them, get another form back saying Please provide the serial number from the defective drive send that form off, then finally get a RMA number send it back to them.

Only have it returned to us for insufficaiant packing, it was packed in the SAME BOX IT CAME IN WITH THE SAME SODDING PACKING MATERIALS!!!!!

Still winds me up to this day!

Leo DiCaprio slated to play Turing in biopic

I have been listing to Hut 33 for the last week or so and I must say as a film it would work with that cast.

I now have a urge to listen to Millia Jovocih do the "Ring Ring Wacky Wack" bit.

David Mitchell would be a great Gordon, given his angry logic he would do the Luck sceen very well.

I don't see Chris Eclestone as Archie though, the guy who played him on the radio would be a good choice.

Three questions that could put out Amazon's Fire

Ah so this is why the UK launch was delayed, to be honest I am not a tablet person but I liked the idea of a semi kindle with video playback functionality.

Back to the Future DeLorean to go under the hammer

Is it complete? I mean I don't want to drive a car with a iffy clutch AND missing it's Flux capacitor that would just be unsafe...

Mines the one with the chrono-sphere in the pocket.

Virgin Media broadband in two-day wobble

Last week my service was off for 7 day's and last night was spotty at best. I have had 5+ years great service from Virgin and Telewest but I am noticing more downtime and serious issues of late. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come because I don't want to go to ADSL anytime soon.

Spotify 'sold soul' to boy king Zuckerberg

That last line earns you a pint Sir, I totally agree and would like to see zuck harmed in a very intimate fashion.

AOL demos the human-free datacenter

I think it's more likely that the DC runs without staff say 98% of the time and then a weekly maintinace crew goes to site and swaps disk's et'al for 12 - 24 hours then theoretically moves on to the next DC in the rotation, and a serious amount of remote monitoring of the site.

With possibly a emergency crew to attend the site should the excrement hit the air con.

Either way I would be watching this with interest.

Win 8 haters are just scared of change, say MS bosses

Will I be getting windows 8? No... Will I learn how to support it? Possibly depends if I need to... What I will continue to use at home and when I can professionally? OSX and FreeBSD and the odd Linux distro.

Do I think it's a massive mistake for MS to go down this road? YES.

Google loses battle for goggle.com

It's hosted by The Planet, so the quiet word option might not work.

Scottish rats scoff optic fibre, take down broadband

Don't explain my my Cable has been down since 8am Friday morning a engineer not visiting and having to rebook one for tomorrow... and no I am not in Scotland I am in Liverpool.

Microsoft flags Firefox and Chrome for security failings

Fail, MS really do seem to have a problem with a little thing called reality, although sadly I think a few more gulable people will be taken in by this.

Belgian telcos ordered to blockade Pirate Bay

Unless it is accompanied by Beer or Waffles*.

*= The only exception to that is the ones sold by Morrison's, they prity much blow nut chunks.

Go Daddy flogs 50 MILLION domains

Good on him for building a profitable business, sure there are negatives that can be said about him or the company but to build a business that size and that successful it has to be worthy of some serious recognition.

Firms are RUBBISH at payment security

Compliance is not the same as secure, PCI-DSS is a good starting point BUT should only be used as a building block and then work your way up from there.

David Caminer, creator of the first business computer

blodyn, Thank you for that I will add it to my collection when I get home. It's nice to know some of the old timers are still around. A Beer for you sir.

blodwyn

blodwyn, can you post up the old commands one of my hobbies is computer history and I would seriously like to document them for reference.

Thanks El Reg, you have posted up a quality article here, it's a shame as a nation we have let our crown slip here we could have been the dominant force in the IT industry if we kept going, now most school kids only a few years behind me don't know what basic things like HTML are or basic troubleshooting.

Apple to execute touch-less iPods

Humm I am in two minds about this I love my 160GB Classic, and I am not really a fan of touch everything so I might wait till this is official and go out and buy a spare in case this one goes tits up or rush out and get one in the morning just incase.

I hope they don't kill it off, it's a nice device.

Amazon revamps E Ink Kindle line

Prices just got confirmed starting £89

Facebook's complexity will be its doom

My personal dislike of Mark Zuckberg and Facebook is taken to the level of day dreams involving a rabbid hamster tied to a stick, a bacon slicer and the song agado on a iPod just for Mark.

You want to know what my Facebook is? It's a pub I go to with people I know and have know for years enjoying a chat.

NASA to trial laser-powered space broadband

Sty, thanks for reminding me babylon 5 is on when I get home from work 8 am sci-fi gota love it.