Posts by Tank boy

Foxconn denies it will ship Chinese factory serf, er, workers into America for new plant

Re: Wisconsin?

You know for fact that Trump will blame Obama when his idiot supporters get wind of this dumbassery.

Pastor la vista, baby! FCC enforcers shut down church pirate radio

Figures

Trump's administration is desperate for a win, any win, to tell all the Trumpaholics that they're actually doing something. The real situation is that there are much more important things that the FCC should be occupying it's time working on. Nothing is getting done because Trump and his dealings with the Russians. That and he's incompetent.

US Secretary of State: I will work with Russia on cyber security issues

Enough.

Tillerson, get your head out of your ass, stop taking Russian money and do your goddamn job. Shut them down. Don't pussyfoot around with the Russians, just shut them down. I give absolutely no fucks what it takes to knock the Russians off of the interwebs, just make it happen. That's how to deal with an enemy of the State. Did you forget they were the enemy? They are. No matter how much money they're giving you, they are the bad guys. We're not much better, but for the people, our hearts are in the right place, it's just that we're stuck with the Toddler in Chief's motley crew as our adult supervision. You are one of them TIllerson. Just do your fucking job and take care of the Russians, think of your country before your bank account.

I apologize to folks not from America, that was a tad ranty. I'm just sick of the bullshit. Every morning I just open up some news site to find out what Trump fucked up overnight. This is a sorry state of affairs. Again, my apologies.

Hotheaded Brussels civil servants issued with cool warning: Leak

Is it hot in Arizona?

Yeah, but it's a dry heat. It's all pretty relative. 84 degrees Farenheit (yes, we proudly use it, most Americans refuse Celsius because they believe the metric system is some European trick to make it one world. Then They'll be coming for their guns, can't have that. Yes, people actually believe that) is cool to someone in a desert environment where there is little humidity, but can be unbearable with it's addition. I always found that the temperature in Europe was alright in the Summer (being from Arizona, our Summer starts the day it's 100F), but could have been better if there had been some A/C. The barracks where I lived was built in the 1930's, so no A/C, just open the window and get a fan to move the air around. Still not unpleasant.

No hypersonic railguns on our ships this year, says US Navy

@ DougS Re: Optional explosive charge?

The word you are looking for re: "all that stuff and fragments" is spall. On American tanks they issue vests to protect us. I never was really sure I wanted to test it for real, but 'They' said it would work (I actually think 'They' said "It's better than nothing", but I wasn't at that meeting) in the event of a tank fight.

Pai guy not too privacy shy, says your caller ID can't block IP, so anons go bye

Blue alerts?

Now that's something absolutely useless. What am I supposed to do? Go and help? I give no fucks if some cop gets his/her ass in a crack because they're ill-trained or a poor police officer. I don't mind lending a hand, but step into an armed confrontation, oh hell no. That's their job. I don't get paid to put my ass into harms way anymore, those days are long gone. That's why we pay taxes, so cops can sit around yapping on their phones or sitting their fat asses in their car checking the internet. Blue alert. Fucking please, more important shit to concern myself with.

Trump signs executive order on cybersecurity, White House now runs the show

Fantastic

Trump, stay in your lane! You don't have a clue what all the things that these reports will actually say, you can't even figure out how the new EMALS works on the new aircraft carrier (it's witchcraft!), don't go fooling about here. Let the pros handle business without any of your fuckery Donnie. If we leave this up to your dumb ass we'll go back to telegrams and the pony fucking express to send emails (not to be confused with EMALS, no that's witchcraft. You have to be Einstein to figure out digital). Just leave shit alone, you've already fucked up my country bad enough.

FBI boss James Comey was probing Trump's team for Russia links. You're fired, says Donald

Too late, sadly...

Comey should have been shown the door after bungling the investigation into Clinton's email/private server. It wasn't rocket science, but him and all the other G-men strung that out and shook it until nothing came out. The right flew into an absolute tizzy that there was more smoke than fire (but, but, Benghazi!!!), and the left got sick of the whole thing and just wanted this fuckery in the rear window. Neither got their way, and why Obama didn't can him after it was all over is beyond me, because he clearly needed to go. So what we have is someone who is incompetent and blatantly taking money directly from the taxpayers. The other side of that would have been someone that had at least been the SECSSTATE and a US Senator who was used to sitting at the grown-ups table but for the email and other bullshit. I can overlook that, people with that paygrade get up to some shady shit, and I accept that. I draw the line at outright profiteering off the people he supposedly works for.

Italian F-35 facility rolls out its first STOVL stealth fighter

There's so much here...

I wasn't sure if I should impugn the Italians reputation for producing products that require a lot of maintenance, or their lightning fast ability to switch sides in times of war. The option to point out that they are one of the weakest of NATO's members remains on the table as well. Good luck with all that.

Spend your paper £5 notes NOW: No longer legal tender after today

I had no idea

Who knew you folks were having such problems with your actual cash? That's not saying that the US Dollar is indestructible, it needs to be replaced every so often,, but since it's not actually paper, seems to last for quite a while. There would be mass confusion here in the States if they came out with some new-fangled money, probably a bit (a shitload) of outrage from the lunatic fringe. I fear the day when the Treasury does away with the penny. There will be riots in the streets. At least out in the hinterlands where Trump reigns supreme.

Windows 10 S forces Bing, Edge on your kids. If you don't like it, get Win10 Pro – Microsoft

What's all this then?

Is anyone really surprised MS would get up to these shenanigans? If you are, where have you been all these years? The only thing I'm truly surprised by this is why MS hadn't done something similar before. Whoever came up with making people pay for something they should already have is brilliant.Oh wait a minute, they have done this before and it's practically their business model. Make crap, force people to pay for shit that works. Why do people stay with it? Some people (such as myself) simply cannot afford to purchase the best new Apple thingy every year or two. Why not use linux? Because I don't know what flavor I want, and I don't have the time to search hither and yon to find what works best for me, not to mention the people that already use linux lording over me how smart they are and how stupid I must be because I had the temerity to ask a simple question. So screw it, I'll just use whatever ships with the computer (or my tablet) and use that, if it doesn't allow me to put what I want on it, I'll just google it and figure out how.

'I feel violated': Engineer who pointed out traffic signals flaw fined for 'unlicensed engineering'

This has only one simple explanation.

As an American that has lived in other parts of the world, every country has it's own amounts of bureaucratic fuckery. We know it's bad in the states, we live here, there's no need to remind us and air your superiority over us poor colonists. By and large unliked laws and regulations are ignored and we just do what we want, say sorry if we get caught and carry on.

This is all about one simple thing, and it applies everywhere: money. Whatever town/city that operates this camera (and others) prints it's own money by sticking it somewhere that it likely will generate cash, other than the initial cost outlay for the hardware, some costs for maintenance and postage to mail the tickets. After that, pure profit. They don't have to train a police officer, provide a paycheck, healthcare insurance, a vehicle to operate while on duty, nope. Stick a camera on a pole and let it do it's thing. If it gets destroyed, replace it with another exactly like it. It won't call out sick. It won't sprain it's ankle shooting hoops with his buddies. It doesn't need time off. 24/7 it's on duty, making money. By extension the state profits as well. It's in the best interests of the State to protect their little cash cows from well intentioned citizens that have improved on their ATM's by simply applying some math.That would level the playing field to the drivers advantage. That's akin to a casino changing the rules of Blackjack so the player wins more. Never going to happen.

The best thing to do is just not pay the fine. There's no officer that can contend in court that the diver broke any laws. A picture alone is not proof. The town/city/state won't bother fighting it in court, and it would cost money to hire a company to hassle you to pay. Somewhere in the puzzle palace they might send it over to someone to take it out of your state taxes. Trusting a civic servant to do the bare minimum of what might be considered actual work is usually a tall task at best, so nothing to worry about.

Grumpy Trump trumped, now he's got the hump: Muslim ban beaten back by appeals court

Poor Donnie

Sorry Donnie, you didn't get to ban the muslims after all. I'd point out that those judges just made my America slightly safer by shutting down your fuckery, but you're too dumb to understand causational relationships and how the muslim extremists would use that ban to bolster recruitment. Read that again, you're too dumb. You're not just rolling dice in a game of Risk here, your actions have real consequences. Honestly, keep doing what you're doing. You'll fail bigly, you'll be impeached, and it will be even easier to keep Pence on a leash than your dumb ass.

USMC: We want more F-35s per year than you Limeys will get in half a decade

It's lonely at the top...

I guess the Commandant of the air wing of the USMC didn't get the memo from commanders of ground forces and Harrier pilots themselves that they actually want to keep them, in fact have more of them. Is it as fancy as the F-35, no. It may/may not dogfight well against it, of course it won't ever have to, because they have different missions. The Harrier is for Close Air Support (CAS). That's it. That's what it does, and does very well. Just like the A-10 the Air Force has tried to put to pasture. The Warthog isn't going to dogfight anything (although I suspect if given the chance the pilots would be game), but it can crush anything on the ground, take a significant amount of damage and hang out (or loiter if you prefer) for a lot longer than a zoomy F-35. Even the venerable F-16 flies too high and too fast to really be effective against ground forces (although still an excellent aircraft). Now I know from my experience in the Army that Marines are dumb, I can only surmise that the condition gets worsened commensurately with rank.

Smartwatches: I hate to say ‘I told you so’. But I told you so.

The jury is still out.

I bought a smart watch for my wife (Fossil) which she uses at work as she isn't able to carry her cell phone around. It's a bit annoying when she get's a phone call while she's sleeping (it vibrates) and it's charging, but it's a neat feature. In addition, she can send texts just by talking into the watch. Downside(s), the charge doesn't last for more that about 12 hours depending on useage, the charging device is a pain to fit the micro USB and it doesn't come with an instruction manual. So basically you have to fiddle with it to optimize it's use. For less that $500 USD, it was a pretty good deal.

Snowden 'more helpful than dangerous' says ex-Colin Powell aide

Now I've come close to reading everything

"Wilkerson, who played a key role in gathering intelligence to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq,"

How'd that work out for ya? Pretty good huh, Mission Accomplished!!! Shithead, should of listened to Powell when he said it would be a shit show, but please, he was only a retired four star, what could he possibly know?

Oh that's right, it would be a shit show. Wilkerson, shut up, Snowden hasn't helped the United States, don't make it more than it is. He's a traitor, he knows he fucked up that's why he's hiding in the Soviet... errr Russia. You got it dead dick wrong in 2003 (I know, some knucklehead didn't lower my security clearance or delete my email account) so you want to sell this sack of turds? For shame. Sure, I believe you pal, just sell your turds somewhere else.

Dodgy software will bork America's F-35 fighters until at least 2019

What a disaster

So let me see... The Pentagon in it's wisdom thought that after decades of inter-service rivalry they'd all get the same plane, just customized to the specific needs of the branch of service. The last time that happened was with the F4 Phantom.

Troops on the ground are buying their own body armor because what we're fielding sucks to high heaven? Fuck 'em, we have to build this aircraft so we can maintain air superiority.

Rifles/Carbines that were designed in the 50's? No way Jose, keep what you got, we need the newest and best, you ground pounders can make do with what you have.

A pistol that is undergunned when the old one still had some life left in it, and is still being employed by special operations forces? Pish posh, we need to spend at least a Trillion dollars for the shiny shiny that will have no impact whatsoever on any ground conflict.

Scrap the A10? Those days are long gone, drones can carry out those missions, the newest plane that won't be ready for another couple years will fill in the gaps.

This should be a movie: Pentagon Gone Wild.

Flying blind: F-35's radar software fails in the air

Re: Lockheed-Martin...

The A-10 was Fairchild Republic.

Jack, that's not a failure, it's a feature.

Re: What a waste

The the three versions are one for the Air Force (super sonic/stealth capabilities), one for the Navy (they have to be able to perform carrier landings, enforced landing gear and airframe), one for the Marines (to give it S/VTOL capabilities, they are mightily angry about being forced to give up their Harriers).. All in all, the plane is a dud. It's already cost a trillion and change just to get to where they are now, with more good money to be chased after bad. Time to scrap the project, sue the company that sold the US this bill of goods, look into better more inexpensive and more agile airframe that could be brought up to production in a year. From drawboard to production in a year. Add the bells and whistles when it's in the air.

Dead Steve Jobs owed $174 by San Francisco parking ticket wardens

Well then

Who pays parking tickets anyway? Beggars the imagination.

Pentagon to Dept of Defense: Give us $580bn for cyberwar and spacewar

Mmmm... Rail guns

Tankers (or as you Brits call them Tankies) have been craving this for years. Just the thought of firing a projectile at hypersonic speed... Oh the possibilities. The Air Force can stuff it, they already have pissed enough money away on the F35 that no one wants. However I was under the impression that the Navy was looking into rail guns already.

Yahoo! is! up! for! sale! – so! how! much! will! you! bid!?

That's just great

Now I have to fiddle with all of my wife's ties to her Yahoo! account, of which there are a lot. I've been telling her for years to ditch Yahoo!, but what do I know? I'm going to sound the alert now, so my wife will get around to changing her crap before the whole thing goes under. Wish me luck.

Comcast celebrates Presidents Day with Gerald Ford impression

No title, just an observation.

My cable and internet hasn't dropped out and I live in one of the outages zones. My guess is that somebody decided to upgrade on Presidents Day and it went sideways. Overall Comcast sucks, sadly they are the only game in town.

CES tech show adds new security checks after fears of violence

Won't do dick.

Slam that barn door shut long after the horses got out! They do realize that most attendees have to fly to Las Vegas, right? If you have brownish skin you get the full body cavity search, there's all manner of checks and even if you could build a bomb on-site, probably wouldn't do much more than scare people. For fucks sake.

US Navy's newest ship sets sail with Captain James Kirk at the bridge

Boondoggle.

Of all the things the US military needs is a stealth ship. How about invisibility cloaks for the guys on the ground? Perhaps a +15 Vorpal Blade and a +30 buckler to go with it? Truly beggars the imagination how this got past the Phase Of Ridiculous Ideas that hampers the military budget. I'm actually surprised that they didn't try to make it a combination submersible/airborne platform that can fire fucking Daisy Cutter bombs from the deck cannon while travelling at Mach 2.

Reckon YOU can write better headlines than us? Great – apply within

Pooh

I guess I'm out of the running. Despite the fact that I have absolutely no credentials, I have to work from home which is closer to Boston than SF. I don't think you could afford me anyway, thanks for asking.

Norton Internet Security antivirus update 'borked Internet Explorer'

Amazing

People still use IE? Other than for downloading ANY other web browser that is.

RadioShack lists 1,800 stores facing the axe across America

Wheeeeeee!!!

They're closing a store near me, I'll be attending the fire sale. Sorry about your jobs and all, but I really want to get another HDMI cable on the cheap. Might even do a little impulse shopping while I'm at it. Thank you Radio Shack.

Plane crash blamed on in-flight SELFIES

No further proof needed.

Gravity does in fact have a hold of us all.

The Register editorial job ad

I'm completely unqualified

I only speak American, I have no documentable IT skills. I do have a wi-fi set up in the house, managed to get that up all by myself. Oh yeah, I built a personal cloud as well. All with just a high school diploma. Who'd of thunk it? I don't know everything, but I know how to make shit just work. How about someone that is a home user? Most of the stuff I just glean on the Reg, some goes over my head, but I get smarter every time I read this site.

New leaked 'Windows 8 screenshot': The Start Menu strikes back

Re: One...Two...Done.

The times they are a changin'. I remember those days, what happy times I had, the UI was so much easier. The kingdom has fallen on dark times. I'm an American, so to me it's as if MS just did it to fuck with everybody. Here in the States it's a pain in the ass to downgrade (7 is better), so here I am shackled to this useless OS that I can't really understand, nor do I want to relearn PC 101, already did it when I was in the Army. This old dog can learn some new tricks, but don't make me jump through flaming hoops.

Re: Oh, you mean you put out another crap product?

@ tempemeaty, I had to spend the day trying to figure out how to get to the menu which makes the screen resolution actually readable, and disable the little useless touchpad. Can't wait until I have to re-activate that useless piece of shit. I'm culpable, I turned on automatic updates... I'll just sit here and shake my head in shame.

Re: So I think it's safe to say that...

That idiot is going to buy the Clippers, possibly the worst team in the NBA for 2 Beeeeeelion dollars. What could go wrong?

Oh, you mean you put out another crap product?

MS Should have made 2 versions of 8.x, one for toys(slabs) and another for productivity (real computers). I'm running a 7 emulator so I have my start button, I do not like having to click through 4-5 menus to fix things. I know, I could set up shortcuts and such, no time. Guess I'll just wait for 9 or opt out and go back to Linux.

Windows 7, XP and even Vista GAIN market share again

Re: Windows 8.1

Concur. 8.1 is decent, just not really productivity friendly, especially for just regular users. My major complaint is that I have to tweak it to make the thing work the way I want it. Classic Shell has made my life a lot easier.

I understand

What MS should have done is make different versions of 8/8.1, one for touchscreen the other for laptops/desktops. I did what a lot of other people have said and downloaded the classic shell, but I shouldn't have to jump through those hoops, and it's still a pain in the ass to go through all the menus. MS failed with 8.1. I said I'd give it 6 months before I made a change to something else, whether that be 7 or jumping ship and head back to Linux.

Lindsay Lohan sues Grand Theft Auto V makers for 'using her image'

Re: "Rockstar and Take-Two’s use of her likeness was done solely to make money"

Dammit you beat me to it.

Remaining Snowden docs will be released to avert 'unspecified US war' – ‪Cryptome‬

Just trying to stay relevant or keep himself out of the gulag. Whatever dude, intel on the battlefield changes within seconds, you've been on the run longer than that. Release the documents, we all could use a good laugh at things you stole from forever ago.

Occupy Google: Protesters attack ad giant as I/O gets underway

Give me a break

Google is a business, plain and simple. If an employee wants to get into real estate because he/she has the cash, that's up to them. Tired of the cost of living in the greater San Fransisco area is going up? Sorry, Google is providing jobs right here in the USA. Stuff it.

Han Solo headed for lengthy stay in bacta tank after Bay Door Control cockup

I felt a great disturbance in the Force

As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Oh wait, that's when I heard Disney bought out Lucas. Carry on.

US Army loses 16,000 personnel records in South Korea

Business as usual

This has happened before, it will happen again. The US Army is infatuated with being connected with the internet, but sadly uses some of the worst security software, Don't get me started on the protocols they have in place, you'd just laugh.

I am NOT a PC repair man. I will NOT get your iPad working

Re: Took ages to convince my parents...

Nice. Are we related? I don't even have an engineering degree and my stepfather wanted me to climb up on a ladder to help him fix his outdoor Christmas lights. I may have been a power generation guy, but no, your power cord is in water, fuck that shit.

Nicely played

That was funny. I tell people that I know fuck all about computers and they leave me alone. Except the Mother-in-law, she's got a tin can on a string for interwebs, has every anti-virus software ever invented booting up with XP, wondering why her 'all in one' computer takes a day and a half to boot.

Myspace: Where are you going? We still have all your HUMILIATING PICS

Myspace isn't dead after all.

They could breathe new life into the site if they went the Spotify route and let people stream music from their site, build playlists, let people exchange. I don't have much hope for that. Toward the end, it was the wild west, not much better than 4chan. There's a fix, they should probably wipe everyone's account and welcome the people back rather than use blackmail.

Bing's the thing in Microsoft's push for cheap Windows devices

Balls

"Windows 8.1 with Bing provides all the same great experiences that Windows 8.1 offers with the Windows 8.1 Update, and comes with Bing as the default search engine within Internet Explorer,"

I got a good hearty laugh with that. Just what great experience does he speak of? That I had to uninstall the shit that came with my laptop and download Chrome/Firefox? That was really great. Then download a windows 7 emulator. Fan-fucking-tastic experience.

Latest Snowden leak claims NSA bugged ALL mobile calls in the Bahamas

Not quite sure if Snowden the traitor should get the coveted "No Shit Sherlock" award or get promoted to Captain Fucking Obvious. When Putin tires of him, he has no more secrets to sell the Soviets, and as all he's pedaling is so unactionable intelligence-wise because it's past it's sell by date, he'll be either on a diplomatic flight back to the states, or, a fast train for his tour of Siberia.

Nintendo says sorry, but there will be NO gay marriage in Tomodachi Life ... EVER

This is unfortunate

I'm so sorry I let the wife convince me into buying a Wii. Until I bought Mortal Kombat and Pirates! but I guess same sex/transgender is out of bounds for the Nintendo folks. Sure you can get a fatality or rob and pillage, but we can't have anything that racy.

Beached whale Symantec watches revenues recede 7%

So basically they're treading water. The free market will dictate whether or not they have anything worthwhile to buy. As for me, no.

Norwegians trial Oculus Rift in tanks: The ultimate battlefield simulator

Re: Bad, just bad

Yeah, I've been a tank commander, this is bad. Please tell me how many gunneries you've shot.