Posts by Phil O'Sophical

Google chap reverse engineers Sinclair Scientific Calculator

Re: Still got mine

Didn't use a PP3, it took 4 AAA cells.

Re: The perfect calculator!

My Mum bought me the kit, it still works today although I have had to resolder both the battery contacts and repair the sliding switch. The transfer with Pi/e/etc. on it has worn off, but the rest of the case is in good shape.

A little later one of my friends got the upgraded Cambridge Scientific (faster, and not RPN) and his came in a hard plastic case instead of a purple cloth bag. I wrote to Sinclair asking if it was possible to buy a case, and they sent me one for free :) Nice service.

Scots council cops £100K fine for spaffing vulnerable kids' data ONLINE

Re: Policies?

And having found such an incorrect policy, did you just laught at the stupidity of it, or also drop an email to the IT director? If you only did the former then you're part of the problem (and possibly legally liable as such).

Boffins follow TOR breadcrumbs to identify users

News?

So people who regularly use the same networks wiith the same patterns aren't as anonymous as they think? Well, what a surprise. Isn't this why the professionals in the physical spying trade randomise their routes when they travel, use dummies and cut-outs, never stick to a schedule or the same roads, etc?

Let's face it, most of the people who want to be anonymous on the internet are amateurs who just don't want to be caught downloading pirate moves or extreme porn. They don't understand how the network actually works, and have no clue what being anonymous really means, so they just rely on third parties with a "tick this box and you're hidden" approach. Is anyone surprised that it doesn't work very well?

Are you for reel? How the Compact Cassette struck a chord for millions

Re: TDK SA90...

I stil have some SA and SA-X tapes in their original plastic, never opened.

I remember my dad winning an in-car cassette player, which I had to fit. Then he joined the local cassette library (remember them?) to get music. That led to us getting a music centre, and I was really chuffed when I was able to buy a combined radio/casette for my car some years later!

I also remember some of the creative ideas cassette recorder companies adopted to save costs. Permanent magnet erase heads, what a nightmare! The hiss got louder with every recording.

Behind the candelabra: Power cut sends Britain’s boxes back to the '70s

To make maters worse, the oven & microwave in our kitchen don't keep time at the same rate, so the occasional power cut is actually a help, it reminds me to get them back into sync, at least for a few weeks.

Re: Not so much

UPSs are mostly great, I have them on my IT cupboard, and the TV/Sat setup.

The last power cut (lightning strike) was when I discovered that the UPS batteries had died. OK, they were 5 years old, but a little warning would have been nice. Even a beep...

Women in IT: ‘If you want to be taken seriously, dress like a man’

Re: Boys club

Exactly. The jeans/polo isn't so much "male attitre" as 'job uniform". Anyone not in uniform stands out. I'd get as many weird looks if I turned up for work in evening dress as my female colleagues would if they showed up in a miniskirt & Jimmy Choos.

Try showing up for work in a city lawyers office in jeans and a T-shirt, and no matter what sex you are you'll not get much further than making the coffee.

Kiwis (finally) confirm software ban under new patent law

With a compiled program(I am in no way a "coder") I understand you cant see the exact code.

On the contrary, the exact code is precisely what you can see. You can't see the original high-level description which the compiler turned into the code, but you can copy that code exactly and have the same end result.

Of course, then you hit copyright law issues...

It's the ongoing argument, what exactly is the "invention"? Is it an object itself, or the instructions for making the object, or a description of an object that may never have been made, or the idea behind the description of the objects. Which, if any, of those applies to a piece of code, before or after compilation?

NASA's nuclear Mars tank REBELS against human control

next update

"Canyon? But I was just following the satnav..."

iPad classes for DOGS offered in New York

Re: Result?

So what does she train the dogs to do with the iPad?

I think the "New Yorker" explained that one a while back, I have this cartoon on my office wall. (Perfectly SFW, for those who worry).

Three axes data-roaming fees in SEVEN countries

10p per megabyte ?

They have got to be kidding. It must cost them, what, about 0.00000001p per MB to carry?

Boffins force Skype to look you in the eye

Easier solution?

Most people using a laptop during a videoconf are probably reading their mail, and probably aren't touch typists so are likely looking at the keyboard as well.

Why don't laptop manufacturers just put the camera in the bezel at the bottom of the screen, angled up slightly?

Samsung to bring 55-inch MONSTER curvy-telly to the UK

Re: People with a lot of money don't need a 55' window on the world.

55' telly? Now that I would like to see.

From a long way off. 55' at 1920 x 1080 would give you pixels almost 8mm square!

I'll bet that when you step out into the world, it's with a glass of champaign[sic] in your hand and a beautiful creature at your arm, that you can lead to your expensive car for a (very) nice ride.

Or you're a sad geek who still lives with his Mum, and spends his money on pointless gadgets instead of a mortgage?

Meet the world's one-of-a-kind ENORMO barge-bowling bridge of Falkirk

Re: It *looks* like the Victorians *should* have been capable of doing this

generate enough surplus to drive the docking mechanism and perhaps a wee bit over to light the visitor centre

You'd have to mount the gondolas a smidge offset from the centre line as well, so that it was self-starting, and I'm not sure the generator would apply enough drag to avoid an accelerating splashdown on each half-rotation. Perfect balance, with a tiny amount of power to start and stop, is probably easier to manage than the braking/damping assembly necessary to keep a smooth self-powered descent. That was one of the problems with the Anderton lift, corrosion of the piston arms gradually eroded the seal around the hydraulics, and it made fine control increasingly difficult.

Re: Impressive, but nothing on what the continentals do

This Cheshire example is smaller, but also entertaining, as much due to the the various evolutions in hoist equipment over the years as to it's current (orginal) condition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderton_Boat_Lift

Re: Your correspondent explains to some children how they ought to be doing it

"No no no. You're doing it all wrong. Give it here and I'll show you "

In my experience that message is more likely to be in the Child ->Adult direction, in a suitably exasperated 8-year-old voice.

UK gov call-centre serfs told: Fondle your button for HAPPINESS

Re: Muahahaha

The Cabinet Office [which runs GDS] is always interested in hearing what people think

Maybe they could try it for the next election. Instead of a box with an X in it, you could pick between "Like" or "Dislike" for all candidates. The w̶i̶n̶n̶e̶r̶s̶ successful candidates would be those with the best net score.

Holiday HELL: Pourquoi, monsieur, why is there no merdique Wi-Fi here?

Re: Sad

> I want my vacations to be a break from work, not a break from modern civilization.

The advantage of holidaying in France, at least the French know that WiFi and 3G are not prerequisites for civilization.

Rasp Pi skydive: Ballsy Baumgartner best beware Brit bionic Babbage Bear

Re: I am shocked - SHOCKED

Surely the only cruelty here is that the op was probably done without anaesthetic? The plucky chap has had an inoperative glass eye replaced by a high tech one that can see.

Good man that bear!

'Silent' staff stood by as £100m BBC IT project tanked – DG

Re: Management don't want to know ..

That's the real problem. When one of the lower-level staff sees a problem they can either tell their manager, who doesn't want to pass it up in case he gets blamed for the bad news, or they can bypass the hierarchy and contact someone nearer the top. That can be risky, I somehow don't think the BBC is the sort of organization that would tolerate it. The whistleblower would likely either be slapped down and told to go through channels, or be sidelined for being a "troublemaker".

The result is that everyone knows, officially or not, but it never rises above a certain level of middle-management.

Nasty BOFHses. It burns us! It burns...

And so very real...

Some years ago a colleague told me of a block of new flats near his home. 12 stories, all the same layout, and shortly after it opened the inhabitants began to complain about the terrible smell permeating the building.

Investigation showed a basement calf-deep in raw sewage. Seems that with all the flats the same, all the bathrooms were above each other. From convenience or laziness, all the toilets were connected to one vertical downpipe, which made a right-angle turn across the ceiling once it reached the basement. As my colleague put it "no-one had calculated the terminal velocity of a turd after falling 12 stories". After enough sustained impacts the downflow had punched the elbow off the pipe...

UK mulls ban on tiny mobiles to block prison smugglers

Re: Wouldn't it be easier...

Cell phone jammers are not exactly esoteric devices.

No, but getting the jamming signal to work perfectly up to the prison walls, and stop dead right there, requires some pretty esoteric physics.

Re: Jammin'

Why do prison staff need their mobile phone while on duty?

That's a valid point, and it certainly would be surprising if it were permitted to a warder on duty, but prisons have administration staff, break rooms, etc. It would seem harsh to require all staff to cut themselves off as soon as they go through the gate.

Re: Jammin'

Jamming would be a problem for all the legitimate phone users, like prison staff.

Better to install pico/femto cells in the prison so that all phones have to connect to them. Then just configure the authorized phones (and they could be tapped for good measure). Prisoners' phones will just sit permamently on "emergency calls only", they can enjoy the irony of only being able to call the police...

Even that could cause problems for passers-by, although prisons probably don't have too many of them.

Gambling addict IT boss gets 7 years' porridge for £19m swindle

Re: I agree...

GDF-Suez is huge, 250,000+ employees, €100bn/year revenue. Even so, I'm surprised that his boss isn't being shown the door as well, for not noticing this happening under his nose, delegated signing authority or not.

Japan's unwanted IT workers dumped in 'forcing-out rooms'

Why is this not obvious?

Obvious means something different to middle-managers and bean counters.

They apply the same logic to administrative work. Replace an office admin by a self-service web-based tool, and they think that they have 'saved" the admin's salary and reduced headcount. It completely escapes their notice that they are now paying engineers 3x the admin's salary to do their own admin work, and probably less efficiently. Then the managers feel they have to organize an 'offsite' meeting to discuss why productivity has fallen, wasting yet more time and money.

Re: browses the web and reads books all day...

> Where can I get this job?

It's taken:

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2013-08-09/

100 million self-driving cars will be sold globally in 2035 – report

Re: Flying cars?

rather than having a proper self-driving infrastructure which would require individual cars be far less smart.

Isn't that called a "train" ?

In case of LOHAN flight emergency, gobble THIS Iridium-Arduino sandwich

Safe ballooning

Cutdown Of Navigator Drifting Outside Mission Specifications

Never leave Earth without them.

Bitcoin blitzkreig as Germans prepare to tax virtual currency

Re: Since they are going to be trying to tax mostly drug income...

But why is laundry detergent being employed as money, and why Tide in particular?

Maybe the dealers misunderstood the concept of "money laundering" ?

Legal bible Groklaw pulls plug in wake of Lavabit shutdown, NSA firestorm

Re: Intimidation

We seem to be all too eager to self-censor in the wake of the revelations and pressures.

We? Americans, maybe, but not all of us.

It's one of those bizarre things about the US, people there are adamant that they are the most free and democratic nation on each, yet they are so terrified of their own elected government that they insist on the right to keep guns just in case. Just like they insist on separation of church and state, but put "In God we trust" on their money. Americans have to be the most fundamentally insecure people on earth. Comes of having no history, I suppose.

Re: Depressing.

Doesn't matter where she's living, as an American she's expected to comply with US law. Look at how US citizens living abroad still have to file US tax returns. There's no escape from the Land of the Fee.

Happy birthday MIDI 1.0: Getting pop stars wired for 30 years

> True, but asking ladies in the street for lessons doesn't seem to work :)

Not surprising, women never pay attention to TV connectors.

> Wasn't SCART a French invention?

Yes: Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs, although the French call it a Peritel, not a SCART.

Designed to allow easy connection of a Canal+ decoder with only one cable, used as a protectionist measure to prevent Japanese TVs being sold in France (no Peritel, no entry), and ultimately ending up on all TVs to get round the protectionist barriers. Probably the worst socket design, physically and electrically, ever developed.

Only undoing a bra catch is more difficult than that

Practice makes perfect

Does the RSPCA have your gun licence or car registration? NOBODY knows

ACPO claims that the RSPCA only gets access to police data when it intends to prosecute someone,

So does the ACPO/CPS keep records to show if the aforesaid individuals were prosecuted? In some cases the information might show that prosecutions were not warranted, but if the ration of prosecutions to requests is, say, 1:10 or so then alarm bells should be ringing.

Fear the JOBZILLA! 150ft STATUE of Steve planned 'lest fanbois forget'

anti-Apple bias?

It's just reflecting popular opinion. There are fanbois, and there are the rest of us. Guess which group has more members?

Superstar cluster-Zuck as Facebook tries out celeb-only edition

Re: Duh

the celeb can keep track of what the fans are saying about their post without having to friend random people

They'll be saying "stuck-up cow, to busy to even have friends".

Fans like it when their favourite sleb "friends" them, and apparently sends them personal comments. They seem blissfully unaware (as does Farcebook) that the slebs themselves are too busy stuffing white powder up their noses to go near a computer, and it's all done by an army of PR people.

This new Farcebook service is just an extension of 'I'll have my people call your people".

Boffins harvest TV, mobile signals for BATTERY-FREE comms

Re: Illegal in the UK

just to prove that it's not urban myth

Rural myth, surely?

Old news

Georgia tech were doing this two years ago, I read a story about it in some IT rag.

Oh yes, it was here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/19/energy_scavenger/

BRUCE WILLIS (ad) DIES HARD (in Sky broadband telly fib ban)

Re: I wondered why the ads had changed

> to an aging pensioner

You missed "rich" in that phrase...

Salesforce asks devs to cough 800% more for security review

Re: Not seeing the problem here

And does this $2700 get you a warranty from SalesForce that if a security problem does arise, they take responsibility for the consequences, since you've paid them a substantial fee to validate your app?

Most UK privacy cock-ups are 'careless' spaffing of personal data - watchdog

No, it's so that when some drunken EU commissioner leaves his briefcase on the train after one bottle too much at lunchtime he'll not have to own up.

PayPal's fizzog-based payments app rubbished over reliability worries

Too thick?

More like "too lazy". Shop assistants can't even be bothered to verify the name and signature on a credit card most of the time, what chance is there of getting them to verify a face?

And then just think of the Burka issue. Crooks will just wear a full veil and scream "persecution" when asked to remove it to verify their face. No junior saleskid in a shop is going to make a scene over that, they'll just wave the transaction through.

Feds arrest rogue trucker after GPS jamming borks New Jersey airport test

And how precisely would you redesign it? Do you have any clue how radio works?

Think about designing a system that would allow a couple of mice to have a conversation across a sports bar just after a last-minute score in the superbowl.

> stupidly designed system used for a critical task - landing an aircraft.

It's a very well-designed system that would never be used, alone, for landing an aircraft.

Re: The new battlefield...

Don't need a complex solution. Just tell the guy that if his truck doesn't show a valid position during working hours he will be assumed to be skiving, and will have his pay docked.

Re: Crumbs

How do you harden a radio receiver from a signal on a frequency that it is designed to receive, but hundreds of times stronger than the desired signal? Solve that problem and the Pentagon will be on your doorstep waving its checkbook.