Posts by Pedigree-Pete

Telecoms shack in the middle of Scotland put up for auction at £7,500

"Consult a Norwegian"?

Just ask Slartybartfast!

Looking for the perfect Valentine's gift? How about a week of retro gaming BBC Microlympics?

Winning Elite...

I played it as a team of two, usually Pilot & co-pilot. Approaching Elite Status we found a hack which allowed us to "mess around under the hood".

Result, we never made Elite, we became a Fuel Scoop. Lesson learnt. PP

Habitable-zone exoplanet potentially spotted just around the corner in Alpha Centauri using latest telescope technique

Re: Adaptive Optics. @Eclectic Man

If you live in Reading, you know how unusually cold it is out after sundown. Normally, I'm up for a bit of "science", but I'm hunkering down until normal the Berkshire weather service is resumed. :) PP

Dutch boyband hopes to reverse Brexit through the power of music

No one else has so...

I'll defend the British Music Industry.

"voice of Take That, or a boyband – the best thing Britain ever gave to us"

I'm not going to cite a long list of great British songwriters, singers, artists but compared to EuroTrash, we're

miles ahead and even compete pretty well with countries 5x our population.

Keep bringing in the foreign $. One of our more successful exports. PP

The Palm Palm: The Derringer of smartphones

Re: "useless coin pocket" ?

All my trousers with "coin pockets" seem a perfect fit for a standard Zippo lighter. I thought that was what they are for. Coins, put coins in there, I can never get them out. :) PP

Suunto settles scary scuba screwup for $50m: 'Faulty' dive computer hardware and software put explorers in peril

Diving with dodgy kit..

@diver_dave. Diving, relatively safe if properly trained and diving within your abilities.

Diving with dodgy kit (and believing it) quite dangerous.

Cave diving with dodgy kit, probably fatal.

I'm sure you know what you're doing Dave, I was only trained for leisure diving and never anywhere you can't see the surface. PP

>>Icon for Suunto.

Oh Deer! Poacher sentenced to 12 months of regular Bambi screenings in the cooler

Re: Shoot 'em all

IANAL but I understood, at least in England and Wales, that such action may be construed as poaching. The driver behind however, would not be guilty. PP

>> Flame grilled venison.

Waymo presents ChauffeurNet, a neural net designed to copy human driving

Re: long tail

@jmch I agree, Self-Driving on motorways is probably very doable now. Unfortunately, the money behind this is trying to develop a vehicle that can do many tasks people are currently paid to do on all road types, Taxis etc. PP

Re: Pedestrians on country roads...

..agreed no hi-viz so it doesn't surprise me that those numpties don't know they should be walking on the side of oncoming traffic. You should never have to creep up behind them and overtake. In an electric car they may never hear you and step out right in front to avoid the horse dung recently dropped by the animal being escorted by the little girl from the stables up the road. Not from personal experience much....PP

Re: skilled as the journeys we most regularly make.

I was always told that statistically, you're more likely to have an accident closer to home or somewhere you are familiar with. Certainly works for the 2 accidents I've had and most of the near misses in 40 odd years driving UK and Europe. Definitely works if you've been a long way from home and drive tired. Familiarity breeds carelessness. PP

Astroboffins spy a rare exoplanet evaporating before their eyes

Re: That's no moon...

Hi Peter. I thought that. The large black disk looks awfully like a big communications dish. Run and hide. :)PP

>I'm no astro boffin but I do know a moon/planet in transit when I see one.

The eulogising of The Mother Of All Demos at 50 is Silicon Valley going goo-goo for gurus again

Inappropriate calls across the office....

At one time we had an internal sales team where only 1 spoke only English. The others were French, Russian and Spanish.

We had a customer who's since become a great friend. He liked to call the new Russian Internal sales lady to contact his sales account manager and announce himself as Ivor Biggin or Chris Peacock. Caused great hoots from the native English speakers when she announced him across the office and accelerated her English language education. PP :) Win, win.

Dine crime: Chippy sells deep fried Xmas dinner

@Kernal, under the shade of a nice tree.....

You're not from around these parts (.co.uk). Around Christmas here, there are no shady trees. Firstly, if there are any trees, they are horizontal, secondly, there's no sun to cast a shade so you'd luck out up here.

Merry Christmas. :)PP

Re: battered?

@ Chivo243, ALWAYS ADD BACON..even Sprouts are palatable if you add BACON. :)PP

Re: festive fried food

@ BeerToken and Chris King. Pray tell, where?? I'm guessing Scotland. :) PP

Peak tech! Bacon vending machine signals apex of human invention

@BradA ref Britannia rules the waves when it comes to pork products.

Simple rule here, Welsh lamb, Scotch Beef and English Pig. Bring on the Gloucester Old Spot sausages. :)PP

>>To wash it all down.

Shall we have AI judging UK court cases? Top beak ponders the future

Re: Turing test ?

Vonya. Intelligence. Don't forget the Octopi. I always feel guilty when eating Calamari. You wouldn't eat Dolphin. PP

Clunk, bang, rattle: Is that a ghost inside your machine?

Re: Library of Doom

OOOk. PP

What the #!/%* is that rogue Raspberry Pi doing plugged into my company's server room, sysadmin despairs

Re: Who gives their brooms names?

@Sabot. I'll repeat a recent post of mine.

I have a wood planer called Nigel. :) PP

Big data at sea: How the Royal Navy charts the world's oceans

Re: Its always been this way!

@TheSirFin. Some credit should go to our Portuguese friends tho', perhaps the Dutch too. PP

>> Glass of Port would be more appropriate but this'll have to do.

Busy week for ISS as Russia resumes flights and vies for parking spaces with NASA

Re: On the subject of spacecraft

Depressingly slow progress, accepting the challenges are rather different. PP

Holy moley! The amp, kelvin and kilogram will never be the same again

Re: Winter GMT....

@ Def Norway, also try Northern Scotland.

Microsoft slips ads into Windows 10 Mail client – then U-turns so hard, it warps fabric of reality

Re One way or another they'll get their money..

Though M'Lud, not from many in these hallowed forums who will get their money by helping the rest of us work around or avoid M$.

Someone will win somewhere. PP

Oz lad 'fell in love with' baby meerkat, nicked it from zoo, took it out for a romantic Big Mac

Favorite Squirrel clip.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL-NNWoblxI

@ about 1'20". PP

>>It's Friday, at least here.

Six critical systems, four months to Brexit – and no completed testing

Re: Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3

Puts me in mind of "'Allo London, 'allo London zees is Nighthawk calling" PP

Douglas Adams was right, ish... Super-Earth world clocked orbiting 'nearby' Barnard's Star

Velve re “We apologise for the inconvenience”

OR

"Make no landings here". PP

Re: Frontier Elite 2

Thanks for the link Andy. Have an upvote . PP

Townsfolk left deeply unsatisfied by Bury St Edmunds' 'twig' of a Christmas tree

Re: In full respect to the article wording...

At the risk of being racist... abbastanza eccellente Giovani

Stairway to edam: Swiss bloke blasts roquefort his cheese, thinks Led Zep might make it tastier

Re: Gong's Camembert Electrique album....

Thanks Captain... have an upvote. I haven't thought about that album since I was at school. If I recall it was very cheap which is why many of my mates bought it. :)

Erm... what did you say again, dear reader?

Re: I think Norman's problem is with padding words

Loyal Commenter. If you don't like "like" stay away from Liverpool and its environs, like. PP

Cops called after pair enter Canadian home and give it a good clean

Re: Milkman neighbours...@ Rich11.

Consider yourself lucky. Visiting my gran in N.Yorkshire the dairy nearby not only had lots of clanking bottles but pretty loud hoses hooves and cartwheels on cobbles.

Similar at my other Grans with the rag and bone man in Ireland. PP

NASA's Chandra probe suddenly becomes an EX-ray space telescope (for now, anyway)

3hr 50min tea break....

Boris. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh. PP

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave me tea... pigs-in-blankets-flavoured tea

Re: Pigs in Blankets....????

WTF... they were and still are called Kilted Sausages. PP

Don't make us pay compensation for employee data breach, Morrisons begs UK court

The perp got 8 years...good...

but we know who'll end up paying the fine and compensation, the customers and employees. PP

On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me: A file-munching run of DELTREE

My Documents, My Downloads, My Pictures etc.

I was taught back in DOS days that my data should be at least 2-3 folders below root and ideally not the dumbed down My??? stuff MS introduced.

So now my stuff is in C:\MyStuff\various logical folder names below, like a filing cabinet.

I think I had a couple of machines that were partioned, OS and Apps on C: default data storage folders on D:

Not perfect in a disk crash situation but that's rare IMHO and not an issue if you do that other thing that was drilled in, back in the day. BACKUP. PP

UK.gov asks biz for ideas on how to 'overcome' data privacy concerns in NHS

Ref: Firehose

@ quxinot

Have an upvote for balance from the Dog community. :) PP

Bombing raids during WWII sent out shockwaves powerful enough to alter the Earth's ionosphere

...no one should ever have left the oceans.

@Stoneshop. TBH the Dolphins look pretty happy to me. I'm coming back as one of those. PP :)

Russia: The hole in the ISS Soyuz lifeboat – was it the crew wot dunnit?

Stonehenge...

TBH the Russian tourist statement might have held a little more water if they'd said they were visiting Stonehenge, World Heritage site. Nothing against the Cathedral tho'. PP

Martian weather has cleared at last: Now NASA's wondering, will Opportunity knock?

Re: Candle in the Martian Wind.

Given that Eltons last revisit of that song brought him his 1st (and only?) SOLO UK #1 Single I'd recommend he gives it a go.

I'm a big EJ fan and can't understand why so many great songs missed the UK #1 singles slot for so long. PP

>>Icon for the guys at JPL and NASA.

A flash of inspiration sees techie get dirty to fix hospital's woes

Re: Do the simple checks first

@AC. Ah.... the days before search engines, we had to use our brains and a decent library. PP

Wanders off sobbing for lost youth.>>'coz. Friday.

NASA's Kepler probe rouses from its slumber, up and running again

JPL

Mark 85, I think that pint belongs to JPL. For examples of what awesome engineering they do see "The Martian". For examples of what happens when you rush them, see same. PP

Benchmark smartphone drama: We wouldn't call it cheating, says Huawei, but look, everyone's at it

Ref: Windows 3.1 graphics drivers in 1993

Yep ccc13481. I remember it well. Hercules, S3, Datapath they were all "at it". Cheers for the memories. PP

Southport: Come for a round of golf, stay for the flesh-eating STIs

Re: Hey, it's Southport ...Merseyside.

and as a former local, I can tell you they were not best pleased with not being Lancashire anymore. Birkdale and Ainsdale are rather nicer if you like Golf but the Snotty Dog in S'Port could always be relied upon to be "lively".

Space station springs a leak while astronauts are asleep (but don't panic)

Re: Duct tape

Well, it worked for Mark Watney. :) PP

Russian volcanoes fingered for Earth's largest mass extinction

Re: St. Augustine had told the Catholic Church, [...] that anything in the Bible which was contrary

I only got the Urban joke due to some of the stuff in these hallowed pages. Ignorance is the failure of an individual to take the opportunities offered to be educated. Thank you commentariat. :) PP

Abracadabra! Tales of unexpected sysadmagic and dabbling in dark arts

@Oddbodd.. ref: Timmy.

I have a wood planer called Nigel if that qualifies. :) PP

IBM slaps patent on coffee-delivering drones that can read your MIND

Re: Vacant expression and Tea....

or this YouTube clip here. PP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYRz7tsHYfo

> Only Beverage icon.

Connected car data handover headache: There's no quick fix... and it's NOT just Land Rovers

Re: More electric...

@Moog42 I'm cheap like that.

Oblig. Dolly quote. "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap". PP

Internet overseer continues wall-punching legal campaign

Anglo-Saxon....

When some of the more colourful insults are used in UK English it's often referred to as Anglo-Saxon... Hmmm. I wonder where that came from? Did the Norman French just not swear much? PP

Upvote to the OPs on German translation of mug, idiot etc. Have a virtual pint.

Lo and behold, Earth's special chemical cocktail for life seems to be pretty common

@ Ken 16, One Million Years BC.

Sorry, had to Google that. in 1966 it was Raquel Welch or Carole Landis in 1940. Which film are you thinking of with Sophia Loren? PP

>>ICON Close enough.