Posts by wolfetone

Voyager 2 found! Deep Space Network hears it chattering in space

Reset?

Forgive me if this has been answered in another article - but what happens with this reset? Does the internal clock tick over to 15th October, and then does it just turn itself to a predefined point? Or does something else happen?

Nobody would ever work on the live server, right? Not intentionally, anyway

Evelyn Hofer

Never heard of her, but she reminds me of Vivian Maer. I heard about her story (well first heard the Manic Street Preachers song about her, then deep dived) and I find her fascinating.

There's also Phyllis Nicklin who did a similar thing in Birmingham, as well as Vanley Burke who I've met and he's a wonderful man. There are so many people still documenting life around us and make great photography from it.

I don't use fixer. I can't tell you why as I either didn't know you had to use it, or I've just never bothered. Can't really think why. But the film I've developed has been OK without the fixer.

I'd ask you to do two things.

1) Don't hate me.

2) Stop looking through my window, pervert.

I don't have a grey beard, but I remember having to go to Boots with a disposable camera or a roll of 35mm (actually my first film camera was a disc format!) and handing it in, waiting days to get it back. Then digital cameras happened and I didn't bother with film.

Until 4 years ago, where I bought a cheap russian 35mm camera and a roll of Ilford XP2 (black and white, but can be developed with the colour process). I've not used a digital camera since for serious photography. Don't get me wrong, I whip my iPhone out to take a photo if I have to, but if I am on holiday or just fancy a day of taking photos, I will use film.

Why? The development of it. It's alchemy mixed with meditation. It provides excitement at the same time. Load the film in to the container, mix the developer, swirl it at set intervals (or just leave it for 1 hour for interesting results), stop bath, rinse, leave them to dry. Then stick them in the scanner while taking a sneak peak of your shots looking at the negatives. Only reason I scan them is because I don't have enough room for a dark room, but if I did I would probably do that as well.

On paper it's an awful process. It's time consuming. It's expensive. It's not instant. But given we live a life of being in a rush and having instant gratification, film photography offers something different. Like I said, it's like meditation. Plus, given you have 36 chances to get a photo right it forces you to look at something and decide if it's worth it. Before I got in to film again I would happily snap away on my digital camera and I would get maybe 1 good photo and the rest would be garbage. And would I even look at that one good photo again? No, it'd stay on the device to languish with the other photos I took in the heat of the moment that never get looked at again.

Aliens crash landed on Earth – and Uncle Sam is covering it up, this guy tells Congress

You know, people said MK Ultra, the Tuskegee Experiment etc was a load of bollocks too. Look what happened there.

You might not want to believe it and that's fair enough. But don't be a total fucking idiot and say that none of this has or can happen. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Let's just see what comes out and keep an open mind. That's the proper thing to do.

Linux has nearly half of the desktop OS Linux market

Choke on that Ballmer.

We don't forget.

Boris Johnson pleads ignorance, which just might work

"By Thursday the government claimed that it had found a record of the pin code for Johnson's old device and opened it up to the committee."

So the (thankfully former) Prime Minister wrote down his passcode? Or did he give it to Carrie so she could keep an eye on the philanderer?

Man who nearly killed physical media returns with $60,000 vinyl turntable

Re: Most sense I have heard from a vynil collector

I prefer the sound from vinyl. My set up involves a bluetooth receiver which plugs in to the music center's AUX port. So I use my record player to stream music through it.

Thing is, the vinyl album sounds different to the Spotify version. The Spotify albums are also tinkered with. Sammy Hagar's "Standing Hampton" is ordered differently on Spotify compared to the record, and sounds different (note: not cleaner, different). Same with the Brian May stuff he's re-releasing.

Vinyl records, and I suppose CDs and cassettes too, are a snapshot of a musician's work in a specific time period. Its how they wanted it to be heard. Spotify, while shafting the artist, also allows the artist to change the record so it's not the same as it was when released.

For me, Spotify exists to listen to a record to see if I like it. If I like it enough, it gets bought on vinyl. If it's new vinyl then I download the MP3/FLAC for it, if it's not then I'll get the CD.

Dialup-era developer writes ChatGPT client for Windows 3.1

Next on the agenda: ClippyGPT, because why not?

You know f**king well why not!!!!!!!

Techie wasn't being paid, until he taught HR a lesson

Re: Someone shopping at Bunnings for Crescent slabs?

I hope the writer puts up a poll and lets us vote on other items for their garden.

That'd be a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon.

Time running out for crew of missing Titanic tourist submarine

Re: Transponder

"Utter woke stupidity"

Haven't you got a book to burn or something instead of coming on here talking shite?

He has a point in recruiting young hires to the project, because people are fickle and if they see some 25 year old building a submarine they too will think "Wow, that's cool, I can do that" more than they'll look at a rather rotund 50 year old bloke with grey hair doing the same thing. That's human nature in a nutshell, nothing "woke" about it.

There is no problem hiring like that - providing you have older more experienced people working along side them in order to help develop them. The second part he didn't do.

Now from my point of view these stupid culture wars you like to partake in have no place in this situation. Why? Because as far as I can tell with the way this thing is built/operated the younger hires would be cheaper to get hold of rather than navy veterans.

It's his own greed that has cost him his life pal, nothing else.

Yeah but Apollo 1 happened and they've not done it since.

You don't need to be told the reason as to why!

Re: Transponder

"Besides, the company themselves are unlikely to be absolute idiots. They are going to risk assess and mitigate risks as best they can to ensure their business has a future."

But you are reliant on the company having the knowledge to identify a risk like this and be able to mitigate it.

The CEO has gone on the record saying he deliberately avoided employing former Navy submariners because they're all 50 years old and white, which to him wouldn't inspire "the next generation". He has a point of course, but his alternative was to fill the company with college graduates instead. That in itself is fine, but they don't have real world experiences of the subject. That in itself is obvious given how this submarine has gone to sea with no locating devices, no (from what can be seen) way of recycling the air or at least scrubbing it, and that they felt it was fine to stick a porthole on a craft that's meant to go 3,800m down that's only rated for 1,300m.

Something like this can be high risk, but should still have some sort of regulation attached to it. Flying is high risk, as is motorsport, but both sectors have regulations in place to mitigate or minimize the risk experienced. It's an interesting thing to note in regards to carbon fibre that Gordon Murray (F1 fan car man, questionable designer of the MP4/4 that won all but one race) said he wouldn't use carbon fibre wheels for his new cars. When asked why he said that carbon fibre as a material means that it will either be a wheel or shatter, there is no middle ground. And that's the problem with carbon fibre, unless you are paying close attention to the material and check it for defects, then it doesn't just deform a bit then crack, it full on shatters. There is a reason why carbon fibre isn't used on submarine hulls like this and it's not because "it's beyond regulators", it's because if a submarine is at crush depth the metal can deform before it gives way, it gives the occupants time to blow to the surface. Carbon fibre in the same situation would just shatter.

Regulations are often written in blood, but it doesn't stop cowboys like the Stockton Rush fella from thinking the rules don't apply to him or he knows better. Now he's paid the price for that ignorance with his own life and the life of the 4 others on board.

Users of 123 Reg caught out by catch-all redirect cut-off

Re: 123-Reg still have customers?

Google Domains has been bought out by Squarespace. So it's not shutting down, just all your domains belong to someone else now.

I've got a few domains with 123-Reg, but who do you really go to that are good? GoDaddy are shite. Namescheap are OK but questionable sometimes. Google Domains are no more.

Where do we go?!

UK smart meter rollout years late and less than two thirds complete

Re: screw 'em

There is an element of truth to this. I say truth - there is a real risk of this from happening. It's probably even happening now.

You're reliant on the energy company having the discipline to silo their admins so that one admin can't access the bill data and the customer meter details. We've seen time and again that companies are fucking woeful at protecting customer data. So it may not even need to be an admin, it could be a temp on the customer service desk who could get this information.

The problem is, the energy companies have to ask their customer's a minimum of once a year about smart meter installation. The minimum is set by the government, and I say minimum because Scottish Power would ring me every month about having one. Bulb, latterly Octopus, were once a year more or less. The people ringing you aren't even really working for the energy company I don't think, they're subcontracted to make the call. So they can't realistically give you the assurance that the above can't happen.

The ZX81 finally gets the keyboard it deserves

Re: Well...

Well that'd be a better fit. But because Swetland is a great man and made all of this available on GitHub, we could do it!

But I can't do it. I've not got the time. And no one is more pissed off with that fact than i am.

Re: Well...

I see it like this.

The dead flesh was the "best" for the ZX81 at the time, with a proper keyboard being too expensive. Obviously in later iterations of the Spectrum (I know I know it's not the same) they used a proper keyboard, although it was still a cheap implementation of it.

This project, I think, would've been great if it provided a way of getting the rubber dome keyboard for the ZX81. Meaning you're getting a more modern interpretation of what the ZX81 could've had at the time.

But it's easier to use switches than trying to get rubber domes made up, so at least it makes the thing more usable!

Thousands of subreddits go dark in mega-protest over Reddit's app-killing API prices

Re: Insufficient Notice

The notice given shows you that either Reddit have no fucking clue what goes in to using their own APIs or development, or they know full well it's not enough time and are capitalising on the short notice to generate a few quid to begin with.

Lantum S3 bucket leak is prescription for chaos for thousands of UK doctors

As bad as this incident is, it's quite refreshing to hear of a company's press release not involve the phrase "We take our IT security/protection of our user data seriously".

But then it's a bit shit that they've effectively said "No one used it so gives a shit".

Google HR hounds threaten 'next steps' for slackers not coming in 3 days a week

There's a substitute for 'coming together in person'

So all of these Google services promoting the idea of collaborating together remotely don't work then?

Interesting.

BT boss Jansen agrees to 'waive' future salary bumps

I hacked Jansen's internet history, and I found this transcript on his computer...

"Dear ChatGPT, As you're an AI, can you tell me how to make myself look like one of the people in the company I run? You know, a man of the people. A good egg?"

"Mr.Jansen, boss man, decide publicly that you won't take any wage increases until you retire."

"But what will I do for money?"

"You can avail of increased bonuses from lower overheads."

"How do we lower overheads?"

"By replacing customer services jobs and network engineer jobs with AI, like me."

"Good bot x"

British Airways, Boots, BBC payroll data stolen in MOVEit supply-chain attack

This story isn't new, how many times does it happen a week? Surely now is the time to think how best to hold user data. Stick it in a silo that a lot of resources can be used to protect the data there. The alternative right now is everyone rolls their own and then don't give two shits about protecting it.

Fed up with slammed servers, IT replaced iTunes backups with a cow of a file

I thought that, but I herd different?

"In place of their original many-minutes-long songs, the tree-hugging activists would hear only a few seconds of gentle mooing."

That, my friends, is how you deal with these clowns who don't read the f**king memo.

Cunningly camouflaged cable routed around WAN-sized hole in project budget

Comment of the year as far as I'm concerned.

Have a pint of whiskey.

Airline puts international passengers on the scales pre-flight

But then you would need the plane full of people and their luggage to know the weight of the plane, which you would then need to have that fuel loaded on to the plane. So you're then fueling the plane with people on board. Then what if the plane is overweight and people need to get off. It would cause a massive delay.

Re: Good.

I think so yes, as the manifest will only tell the captain and first officer the number of people on board, not their genders or ages.

Better yet, put the scale in the scanner so you can be weighed while you're checked for bombs/guns/drugs.

Re: Good.

I watched a video about a tourist boat that capsized and it turned out that it went through a lot of modifications without being retested. Originally tested it could accomodate 45 passengers, with the massive canopy it had it was only rated for about 14.

Assumptions cost lives.

Good.

I'm glad they're doing this, and to be quite honest I'd feel much safer on a plane knowing everyone's been weighed so they know exactly how heavy the plane is.

Just look at Air Midwest flight 5481. The plane was overloaded, and they were using average passenger weight from the 60's which was wildly out of date at the time the plane went down.

Europe’s biggest city council faces £100M bill in Oracle ERP project disaster

Re: Top Work

I did, but then I realised they don't make brown envelopes big enough to make it happen.

Top Work

All credit to Birmingham City Council for finding £100 million for Oracle.

I guess the 9 month wait to replace the fence panels their tenants broke on me has been down to them saving up to pay Larry's bill.

Keir Starmer's techno-fix for the NHS: Déjà vu disaster or brave new blunder?

Re: Beer Korma? Really?

Have a word with yourself.

He's a liar. He's a fraud. And he's turning Labour in to just a little less shit version of the Tories.

But your problem is that I call him Sir Beer Korma? Mate it's a fucking compliment to the boring cunt.

Downvote handed back in kindness.

More or less yeah - except Keir also wants to make painfully clear that he's not a boring bastard and that everyone should stop calling him one otherwise so help him God etc.

"it will have politically limited options in raising taxes to pay for one of the world's largest healthcare providers,"

Well of course it would, when Labour is modelling itself as just a slightly less racist/bigoted version of the Conservatives.

One of Sir Beer Korma's biggest donors right now is John Armitage, who is an investor of a private health care company who have huge interests in privatising the NHS. It's in Beer Korma's interests to appease these bastards, and floating the idea of technology doubles down on it. Because the data used will, more likely than not, also fall in to the hands of Plantir as by the time 2025 rolls around agreements in the background will have been made. The decision will become entrenched.

The NHS will continue to exist for as long as people want to fight for it. It will not continue to exist if self serving/interested people like the current cabal of Nu Labour are allowed to continue neo liberal policies that have sunk the UK in to the mire it finds itself in now. The Tories are no better, but we all deserve a better solution to the Tory problem rather than something a little less bad but ultimately the same as we'll get with Starmer's party.

Phones' facial recog tech 'fooled' by low-res 2D photo

Fergie & Prince Andrew approve this message.

Cheapest, oldest, slowest part fixed very modern Mac

"I'm a bass player, so I shouldn't throw stones*....however..."

So am i. Remember, girls don't dance to guitar solos.

I heard Ringo wasn't even the best tech in his university... I kid.

But Akai haven't improved. I've got an Akai drum programmer thing which is still supported, but the support comes a long time after each iteration of macOS is released. Which isn't great.

UK government prays that size doesn't matter as it chips in £1B for semiconductor sector

Hmm.

£1 billion for the semiconductor sector, but £12 billion on COVID PPE that didn't work.

What an absolute joke of a country we've become.

First ever 64-bit version of Windows rediscovered … and a C compiler for it too

Re: Windows ME

I only ever called it Millennium Edition, but that's because I'm a stickler for the branding I saw.

Telco giant Vodafone to cut 11,000 staff as part of its turnaround plan

I don't even think you get data on 2G.

When I'm on that 3G network I get nothing. I'll be on full bars for it, but feck all internet.

"Meanwhile, to win back consumers, Vodafone said it needs to “refocus on the basics” and deliver a “simple and predictable experience” that it believes customers expect"

And they do this by turning off the 3G network. That's a great move, especially when I'm sat in the garden of a relative's house and all I get there is 3G.

That's exactly what I want from a mobile phone provider, less coverage.

BT is ditching workers faster than your internet connection with 55,000 for chop by 2030

I notice the CEO's job hasn't been threatened with AI, yet.

Pity. Especially when it's probably the easiest job to do with AI, more so than operating a nationwide telecoms network anyway.

Dyson moans about state of UK science and tech, forgets to suck up his own mess

The thing is, James Dyson's words are a lot like his vacuum cleaners.

Shit.

Brexit Britain looks to French company to save crumbling borders and immigration tech

I thought it was about your level. I'm sorry if I over estimated that.

You're quite right. Brexit really was about not doing business with European countries, given the amount of hoops UK businesses have to go through in order to keep the same level of trade with EU countries - let alone improve them.

Still, didn't the Royals look lovely on Saturday? That's the sort of stuff you need to keep your eye on sir, not the real world.

WordPress plugin hole puts '2 million websites' at risk

Re: DejaVu all over again...

Marketing won't have to clean up the mess they made, so fuck them.

Saying "your personal data's security is our priority" doesn't count.

FCA mulls listing rules after Hauser blames 'Brexit idiocy' for Arm's New York IPO

Re: Herman Hauser and his views

Fuck off Farage, no one wants you.

Musk tried to wriggle out of Autopilot grilling by claiming past boasts may be deepfakes

What a Twat

See title.