Posts by Siberian Hamster

Tenfold electric vehicles on 2030 roads could be a shock to the system

Re: No shit

There's already companies looking into this problem and coming up with solutions. One such company called "Charge Gully" already has a product.

Chinese balloon that US shot down was 'crammed' with American hardware

Re: Notice how....

Bridgend actually, credit (card sized PC) where it's due.

BOFH: Ah. Company-branded merch. So much better than a bonus

Re: When do people understand that cash rules?

A real BOFH would already have a special drawer of self made 'O.MG cable' type cables with various payloads designated by cable colour. Linus of LTT has recently done a run through of what the cables can/could do, I'm never trusting an unknown cable again!

BOFH: You drive me crazy... and I can't help myself

I know, I've tried

Playmobil crosses the final frontier with enormous, metre-long Enterprise playset

Re: But, but but!...

Have a look on Thingiverse, some people have modelled Babylon 5's Star Furys in incredibly good detail for 3D printing.

Those and the Space 1999 Eagles are my most favourite space ships ever.

NSA warns that mobile device location services constantly compromise snoops and soldiers

This has parallels with government mandated backdoors to encryption but starting from the 'other side'.

What a good eye-dea: Battery-less, grain-of-sand-sized 2.4GHz transmitter to help save your eyesight

Re: Could someone translate that into English ?

Without seeing the actual circuit to understand if they've come up with a subtle improvement to existing designs, this is likely just the current gen of power circuit that adjusts operating frequency to optimise power efficiency. Effectively the same as in these power bank type devices that take a 3.7-4.2v Li ion cell and output a stable 5v. Older designs use a fixed frequency with varying duty cycle to provide the 5v where the efficiency decreases as the battery voltage drops. Newer designs also vary the frequency as the battery voltage drops which provides better efficiency.

Remember when Europe’s entire Galileo satellite system fell over last summer? No you don’t. The official stats reveal it never happened

Re: WTF?

Trygve Henriksen

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Coat

Re: WTF?

I'm leftanded, so ball-point pens have 75% or less reliability.

Which is why I prefer felt-tip pens...

Mine's the one with maps and a compass in the pocket...

Those who downvoted this please enlighten me, I have no idea why anyone would be so enraged by this post feel the need to downvote it.

I am genuinely interested.

Thanks

Fly me to the M(O₂)n: Euro scientists extract oxygen from 'lunar dust' by cooking it with molten salt electrolysis

Maybe a better option would be to use partially spent nuclear fuel, the energy density is still good enough to make it a viable source of energy.

That would finally lead us to be able to build the first ever moon base, the 'Alpha' if you will...

RuneScape bloke was wrongly sacked after reading veep's salary details on office printer

Re: Odd But

All sorts of reasons but ultimately it boils down to another way to manipulate employees.

I was the secretary of a local branch of a union in a previous employer and got to see the pay of the 80 odd union members. During professional reviews where a pay increase up to 3% could be rewarded for exceptional performance, a couple approached me afterwards confidentially to complain although their managers had recognised their exceptional contribution they had only been given a 1.5% increase, the managers citing the difficulties the company were going through at the time, and to not tell their co-workers.

Transpired that nearly everyone had been given the same 1.5% and told to keep quiet about it as he/she were one of the select few to get this lofty increase!

Halfords invents radio signals that don't travel at the speed of light

Re: Speed of light

In a similar vane also my answer too that age old questions of 'how long is a peace of string?'

Unit length.

(That was painful to type, never mind read!)

Boffins harnessed the brain power of mice to build AI models that can't be fooled

Why on earth would anyone down vote your post? I really am intrigued if this was just an error or someone really found your post offensive..

One man's mistake, missing backups and complete reboot: The tale of Europe's Galileo satellites going dark

Re: Doesn't inspire confidence....

Already been suggested...

Siberian Hamster

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Re: Time enough

I have the inkling that there's a new internet law occurring...

As the length of a comments section increases the probability that someone states that the problem/issue is due to or can be fixed by Brexit tends to 1.

In deference to my favourite author I propose it is termed the PTerry Law.

Help! I bought a domain and ended up with a stranger's PayPal! And I can't give it back

Re: Or

Unless it was on church grounds, then it would be an ecumenical matter..

Sudo? More like Su-doh: There's a fun bug that gives restricted sudoers root access (if your config is non-standard)

Re: I suspect that most didn't even know it was an option

I am -g root!

We, Wall, we, Wall, Raku: Perl creator blesses new name for version 6 of text-wrangling lingo

Re: Bad troll.

Can I have his cookie please?

Fairytale for 2019: GNOME to battle a patent troll in court

Re: Wirelessly?

Wirelessly?

I've been sending images wirelessly from one device to another for over 20 years now, and I typically filter and crop the images beforehand, so I claim prior art to your prior art!

I could throttle you right about now: US Navy to ditch touchscreens after kit blamed for collision

Split throttles for each screw is common to allow low speed manoeuvrability, at low speeds there is not enough water flowing past the rudder to afford as tight a turning circle as can be achieved with split throttles.

That being said, to split the throttles across two screens is utter madness unless it is spelt out in bright flashing 144pt comic sans!

Side-splitting bulging batts, borked Wi-Fi... So, how's that Surface slab working out for you?

Re: Not a bad swap

If someone offered to take my old grumbling Supermodel in exchange for a new younger Supermodel, I'd take their hand off.

UK's planned Espionage Act will crack down on Snowden-style Brit whistleblowers, suspected backdoored gear (cough, Huawei)

Re: 1984 !

Please, for the love of [DEITY], learn to use full stops.

We regret to inform you the massive asteroid NASA's all excited about probably won't hit Earth

Re: Time enough

I have the inkling that there's a new internet law occurring...

As the length of a comments section increases the probability that someone states that the problem/issue is due to or can be fixed by Brexit tends to 1.

In deference to my favourite author I propose it is termed the PTerry Law.

Is Google's new cloud gaming service scalable? Yes but it may not be affordable, warns edge-computing CEO

Re: "Streaming games has never been about latency"

Whole heartedly agree, but there is one point that has not been raised and that is cheating. This model effectively makes current BOTs useless. With the CPU load not being visible/run on the local computer hooking a bot into game code becomes a completely different prospect.

BOFH: Tick tick BOOM. It's B-day! No we're not eating Brussels flouts...

Re: Office slide

Easy question to answer - None of them!

'It's full of beer!' Miracle fridge reveals itself to pals tuckered out from cleaning flooded cabin

<Evil Grin>

What a wonderful idea for an experiment...

As a non coffee/caffeine drinker I can tell when one or two of my colleagues who drink coffee caffeine levels drop dangerously low by the almost slurring of thought process. Swapping lids could be a good experiment in showing how much some of them depend on it on a daily basis.

Not so smart after all: A techie's tale of toilet noise horror

Re: Computer sound is on in an open space ?

Worms was the first thing that sprang to my mind!

Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019

I totally agree with you!

Just as an aside though, I assume that you mapped the cities yourself otherwise you, in a similar manner, as you said rather eloquently, is someone's bitch!

Mini computer flingers go after a slice of the high street retail Pi

Re: Not Just a Store

I cannot agree with you more wholeheartedly! There were two assistants in my local Maplin that actually took an interest in what they were selling and I asked them why they didn't do 'demonstration days' to get people in and involved and therefore buying.

They both said the same, manglement were not interested in the slightest, all they were interested in were sales, there was no opportunity or encouragement to help drive anything by the staff.

As has been already said, if they have regular coding clubs or sessions for various age groups in store I think they could achieve so much.

Almost £5k for a deskslab: Microsoft's Surface Studio 2 hits UK

Au contraire mon ami, machines like this are a direct response to seeing the likes of Apple (read Apple!) being able to sell machines at significant margins compared to their competitors and Microsoft wanting to jump on that bandwagon.

I completely agree with you the real world advantage of upgrading to the latest tech is fairly marginal nowadays with the likes of computers or phones, as we have got to the point where outside of 'power users' even three year old kit can easily do 99% of tasks.

As for the target market, I would say firmly planted in the 'large disposable income, keeping ahead of the Jones' group that Apple target. Working in an academic field, I hear on occasion of staff buying Apple computers from their budgets then complaining that a specialized bit of software only runs on Windows!

Big Red's big pay gap: $13,000 gulf between male and female Oracle staffers – reports

5) Willingness to bargain hard for pay, a trait that is significantly greater in men, or so the psychologists tell us.

This I think is the over riding factor in all of this.

I'm willing to bet beer tokens that the moment a study is done to relate the level of 'risk taking' behaviour in regards to negotiating for a higher salary against not getting a job there will be a direct correlation.

I joined a new company where they took on three of us each covering a different sector, two guys and a girl. Talking together a few months later, I was the only one to ask to discuss starting salary. I started almost 10% higher than both the others, even though being honest we were all at about the same level of experience and knowledge.

Full frontal vulnerability: Photos can still trick, unlock Android mobes via facial recognition

Re: Fingerprint sensors are useless

Actually TouchID is definitely not secure against this attack, as I demonstrated (a few years ago now) to a friend less than a week after he got his new iPhone!

He was proudly willy waving his iPhone around when we were over his place so I sent his son off to the local shop for some sweets. It took a few tries but I got his phone unlocked after warming up a gummy bear and kneading it thinner.

He shut up about his phone for a quite a while after that!

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/24/iphone_touchid_hack/

Happy new year, readers. Yes, we have threaded comments, an image-lite mode, and more...

Re: I had noticed

I think he meant PTerry..

Found yet another plastic nostalgia knock-off under the tree? You, sir, need an emulator

And IK+.

A case study of how to achieve multiple manoeuvres with a single button joystick!

I found a security hole in Steam that gave me every game's license keys and all I got was this... oh nice: $20,000

The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies

So just for this one guy's input Valve have paid out on two bounties totalling £45k, I can't help but wonder a few things...

Why aren't they just employing a couple of staff to be full time pen testers, surely it's the cheaper option?

While this bounty program is in place I would be worried that any internal staff of questionable morals coming across a bug would, rather than fixing said bug would look to strike a deal with an external pen tester to share a bounty.

Sorry for calling you Shirley.

iPhone XR guts reveal sizzle of the XS without the excessive price tag

Re: So basically....

Must. not... bite...

<nasally voice> Ah but the STe blah blah blah...

Graphically yes I will now concede the Amiga was the superior machine but the Atari being clocked at 8MHz to the Amiga's 7.14MHz meant for 3D games like Elite it was the better machine.

At least the rivalry wasn't as intense as it was between C64 and Spectrum owners previously.

Trainer regrets giving straight answer to staffer's odd question

Another good one is ( or so I've heard...) is to slip a Desktop's power supply voltage input selector slider between 110v and 240v. Said power supply makes a resounding 'Zap!/Fizzle' as it goes. Once you've heard it once you'll remember to check what the site voltage supply if you're expect to have a 'mobile desktop'.

Need a facial recognition auto-doxxx tool? Social Mapper has you covered

Re: Go for it

Well for a start we can find out the approximate area you live, Australia/New Zealand is our starting point...

UK 'fake news' inquiry calls for end to tech middleman excuses, election law overhaul

Re: Yup.

Actually more akin to if they have a noticeboard for people to pin business cards and the like to.

You wouldn't expect them to check that every type of 'Joe Bloggs roofing contractors, we're the best in the business' is backed up with actual facts but you would expect them to remove something such as 'The guy just moved into no.56 Somesuch Street is a just released paedo' .

Seagate's Barracuda SSD bares its teeth at PC, laptop upgraders

...using 4 x 365 and 1 x 366 days/year...

So what planet does your journo live on I wonder?

Ticketmaster gatecrash: Gig revelers' personal, payment info glimpsed by support site malware

Re: Clear as mud

There is only one reason any company is ever cagey about something and that's when they think they've screwed up, if they had even the faintest idea it was customers they would have blamed them first.

Cryptography is the Bombe: Britain's Enigma-cracker on display in new home

Do you know what kind of a Bombe it was?

Clouseau Operator: Yes, the non-exploding kind.

NASA finds more stuff suggesting Mars could have hosted life, maybe

Perhaps a long lost relative of aManFRomMaRs?

Escape from the Zuckerborg: WhatsApp founder legs it

Re: Time To Be Afraid Be Very Afraid

You're Donald Trump and I claim my five pounds!

Amazon, LG Electronics turned my vape into an exploding bomb, says burned bloke in lawsuit

Oh come on guys, why hasn't anyone thought of the pun...

Guy gets caught short with a short in his short shorts!

Slap visibility beacons on bikes so they can chat to auto autos, says trade body

If we cyclists agree to beacons how about...

making vehicles unable to turn until they put on their indicators! With a sensible 3 seconds wait time to ensure cyclists are given enough time to react.

I guarantee that'll reduce the number of RTCs between cars and bicycles.

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, off you go: Snout of UK space forcibly removed from EU satellite trough

'... we have a better relationship with US anyway, and GPS is already embedded in our military'

you do understand that a big part of our relationship with the US was that we were effectively their voice* in the EU?

* read 'ventriloquist's dummy'

Patent quality has fallen, confirm Euro examiners

Re: How the EU will deal with this...

An addition to Godwin's Law:

As an online discussion on the EPO grows longer, the probability of a complaint about it being indicative of a broken EU (and a subsequent pointing out of it not being part of the EU) approaches 1.

It's Pi day: Care to stuff a brand new Raspberry one in your wallet?

Re: Dates

Anything, and by that I mean everything that has a date field in it when I'm writing a text import function for Excel is imported as text then converted afterwards as Microsoft refuse to fix their inbuilt function, it's been the same since at least Office '97 that I know of.

Also shows that Office has ever been a complete re-write as there's big chunks of code they're obviously re-using.

Administrator PwC chops Maplin staff

+1 vote for the Forrest Mims reference, those little notebooks were my first steps into electronics when I were a lad.

Also you've summed up exactly why even though I'm prepared to pay a little bit more for something from a bricks and mortar store I'm purchasing more and more often online. That 'knowledgeable PFY' Maplin* or PC World or whoever that you could have a little discussion with is gone, replaced with droids that either follow you around asking 'can I help with anything' multiple times or ones that do their best to ignore you.

*my Maplin still has a guy that genuinely knows about stuff - YMMV.

Fender's 'smart' guitar amp has no Bluetooth pairing controls

RE: Fender's 'smart' guitar amp has no Bluetooth pairing controls

"I thought that was due to how you play it and fret the strings. (I've tried but I have two left hands.)"

Go see your local Igor about that, I'm sure he could 'hook' you up with something different.