Posts by Qarumba

Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home

Tonight's Headline

The end of Twitter? Where on earth will the BBC et al get there news from now?

Airbus flies new passenger airplane aimed at 'long, thin' routes

Long Range for a Proton

Is 4,700 nano-metres really that far?! Maybe if it were 4,700NM I'd see more clearly what its unique selling point is :-)

Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? Consult our cynic's guide to desktop Linux

Re: Control Your Own Upgrades

I wouldn't be happy if I *had to* upgrade but I choose to upgrade when it suits me...and OK that's usually every 18-30 months for me; it's a Fedora thing :-)

Control Your Own Upgrades

Interesting and not too far from what to expect when coming to Linux as a new user. I'm a Fedora user and like most distro users, you need to work out a system that suits your needs. In my case I use the latest release, skipping in-the-middle releases until I see a new feature or perhaps even a new look, that I like; I then upgrade from clean. The install is now so easy that there's no great difficulty in doing this. Once I have my apps installed, off we go again. What makes it easy is that I keep my working files synchronised on a separate disk which are then synchronised back into the new installation.

Any Linux distro can be used and upgraded at your own leisure rather than at the whim of the vendor, which is why I left the Windows world behind a long time ago.

RISC-V needs more than an open architecture to compete

Re: the other UK chip industry

I'm sure he's right, it's the chips industry. The number of fish/black pudding/sausage/haggis suppers added to the frozen chips market must make it nearly as big as the market for chips! No?

Half of bosses out of touch with reality, study shows

And the other half will follow...

"We're not the same people that went home to work in early 2020," the company intoned. "There's no erasing that experience,"

Yes you are and although no one company can erase that experience, if enough return to 2019 but you're not willing...you're new experience could well be the job centre.

Bitcoin 'inventor' will face forgery claims over his Satoshi Nakamoto proof, rules High Court

Re: He didn't invent it, I did!

I am Spartacus!

President Biden orders transformation of 'Federal Customer Experience'

Re: Customer survey email

Good to see a racist as the first to comment on this story because, let's face it, only innocent black people get shot by the police in America, all the white people who get shot are criminals!

US Surgeon General doubles down on Facebook-bashing amid vaccination information blame game

Re: Facebook, the dog turd dressed as a cream cake

You are the only person on this comment storm with a logical and coherent statement of fact. Everyone else is either a democrat voting nutter or a republican voting nutter! I despair for America in the way that it has become so polarised.

Activist millionaires protest outside Jeff Bezos' homes to support tax rises for the rich

Re: $1M a year — is that a lot?

And their point is...we don't like people being richer than us so increase tax for them but not us, as we are poor millionaires. I wonder if these are the ones who inherited their weatlh and didn't have to work for it.

Philanthropist and ex-Microsoft manager Melinda Gates and her husband Bill split after 27 years of marriage

Re: Jeeez....

I'll give you the football clubs but 'vanity space projects'? To me that really is helping the human race achieve our destiny which certainly shouldn't be, glued to planet earth for the rest of eternity.

Bitcoin is ‘disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization’ says famed investor Charlie Munger

Re: Insert meme here

What carbon footprint? Surely they are using all that 'free' green electricity like EVs use?!

Microsoft: After we said we'll try to promote more Black people, the US govt accused us of discrimination

Re: Just do what I do.

"Unconcious bias" training - developed in room 101 for those who may commit a thought crime.

At historic Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google CEOs hearing, congressmen ramble, congresswomen home in on tech market abuse

Only Jeff bothered to find an interesting room for the video-chat hearing ...

The quality of journalism here is appalling. All Republican men asked stupid questions and all Democrat women asked sensible questions. Sounds very much like an opinion piece rather than unbiased journalism. Clearly this journalist should take up interior design as a career as that's what he seems to have a real interest in.

Apple warns developers API tweaks will flow from style guide changes that remove non-inclusive language

Software As A Career SJW

I'm glad I never chose software as a career as it seems to be populated by twats that spend more time taking offence and virtue signalling then they do writing decent software. My sympathies to those of you who have to put up with the SJW brigade in your chosen career.

P.S. I don't give a shit if you're glad that I didn't choose software as a career.

Trump gloats, telcos weep, and China is furious: How things stand following UK's decision to rip out Huawei

China *is* a dictatorship and all we have been doing is lining their pockets while they publicly silence democracy. The sad part is that Britain no longer has the people & companies that could develop this technology (or nuclear technology) and have become dependent on the Chinese dictatorship to provide these.

I for one welcome this!

It's handbags at dawn: America to hit France with 25% tariffs on luxuries over digital tax on US tech titans

Just Your Average Iranian Guy

Oh well, at least that one Iranian guy won't be murdering as many as he did before his demise. But yes just forget to mention he was Major General Qasem Soleimani and not just some poor innocent Iranian guy doing his best to make the world a better place.

IBM quits facial recognition because Black Lives Matter

Or...

...our facial recognition software is crap and here's how we could use the death of a person to our advantage...by lobbying politicians to not use other companies' software until ours is better.

Laughing UK health secretary launches COVID-19 Test and Trace programme with glitchy website and no phone app

Re: Good and bad

If that really is the definition then it confirms what a waste of time and effort this is. Who goes around with a measuring tape and a stopwatch?!

Does 1.99m count as less than 2m? Does 901s count as more than 15 minutes?

Did the advice say approximately 2m and approximately 15 minutes?

Honestly, I have no confidence in any of the so-called scientific advice allegedly being given to us by these ministers.

Nine million logs of Brits' road journeys spill onto the internet from password-less number-plate camera dashboard

Re: Massive invasion of privacy

I find it hilarious that the authoritarians are Labour, Liberal and the Greens. Says something about the idiots who subscribe to right-wing = evil, left-wing = good.

Iran military manages to keep a straight face while waggling miracle widget that 'can detect coronavirus from 100m away'

Lirpa Loof

When is April the 1st in Iran? They do have a different calendar.

Is technology undermining democracy? It's complicated, says heavyweight thinktank

Eh?

So Chatham House think that social media is anti-democratic because they didn't get the result they wanted? Now they want to return control to the mainstream media and pick 100 people overseen by a select few as a way of bringing back democracy!? I'm not a fan of social media myself but I'm definitely not a fan of limiting democracy to a select few media outlets and some specially selected groups.

Where do you draw the line? Escobar Inc doubles down on cut-price gold phone buying demographic with second pholdable

Re: Made Me Laugh Out Loud

I probably wouldn't bother trying but thanks for taking offence on behalf of someone who has benefitted enormously from misery and death. Your virtue signalling will be rewarded somewhere.

Made Me Laugh Out Loud

"My goal is to become the overstock kingpin of electronical devices..."

"electronical devices" ...aha ha ha ha ha...

Blame of thrones: Those viral vids of PC monitors going blank when people stand up? Static electricity from chairs

Re: For extra fun ...

If only everyone had that attitude, the world would be a less touchy and nicer place to live in.

Remember the big IBM 360 mainframe rescue job? For now, Brexit has ballsed it up – big iron restorers

The Reg is getting as bad as the BBC in finding things to blame on Brexit. The guys are having difficulty getting a haulier and there is no mention in the article that any of them blamed Brexit. The only mention comes from the author of this article "Brexit worries seem to have put the frighteners on haulier companies..". It's a poor world we live in when you cannot have any faith in politicians and even less in reporters.

So we're going back to the Moon: NASA triggers countdown by firing up spacecraft production

At Last!

Another giant leap for mankind. Last I heard I'd be living on the moon, now I guess I'll just have to be happy to retire to the moon.

Welsh police use of facial recog tech – it's so 'lawful', rules High Court

Re: How in the name of sweet beJesis is this legal?

You've just listed three of the most annoying types of people I can think of. The current breed of journalists are extremely annoying and aren't really journalists, just sensationalists. The current breed of photographers are all Instagrammers photographing their bistro-style sandwich to impress their friends. As for the uppity citizens...

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

Eh?

What the hell is an ableist insult?

LightSail 2 successfully unfurls its silvery solar sails, prepares to become a truly solar-powered satellite

I applaud the effort but I'm not convinced that all they have done is just deploy a sail in space. Is there any data to show that the trajectory before sail deployment has changed? I would have sent it up on a trajectory away from earth and captured data showing acceleration due to sail deployment. All I can see on the dashboard is some mundane data that doesn't tell us much about how the sail is contributing to it's velocity. Perhaps there is more data hidden away?

Large Redmond Collider: CERN reveals plan to shift from Microsoft to open-source code after tenfold license fee hike

Re: Scientific Linux?

They have recently announced that they will be discontinuing SL development and moving to CentOS 8.

We've read the Mueller report. Here's what you need to know: ██ ██ ███ ███████ █████ ███ ██ █████ ████████ █████

Re: Please just give it a break

I agree with you entirely, especially when there is no real analysis and it is simply ranting about something that did not produce the result the 'journalist' wanted. The only tech angle is whether or not the Russians messed around with FB, Tw, etc, to try and sway those who live their life through internet forums and not in the real world.

Need a Ferranti Pegasus board in your life? Brit computing history could be yours for four figures

Dials, Switches, CRTs, Blinking Lights.

Them were the days. We flew to other planets on five year missions with just that technology.

From Red Planet to deep into the red: Suicidal extrovert magnet Mars One finally implodes

Re: "reality TV "stars" dying from crash landing, habitat failure, or slow suffocation. "

Watching "reality TV "stars" dying from crash landing, habitat failure, or slow suffocation. " would have been!

Straight outta Blighty: Readers, if you were a tech billionaire, what would you do?

Britain Needs Us Billionaires

I'm a billionaire and I don't care if I only make half a billion during the Brexit catastrophe, I'm still British. The only thing that would make me move is if ever Corbyn and his uneducated, anti-semite racists ever get into power!

Boffins build blazing battery bonfire

Re: Interesting idea

I challenge you to find a list of all climate researchers, of which there must be at least 1000 on it and indicate those who are "persuaded" and the one or more who has not been "persuaded".

Also climatology is no longer a science, it is a belief system. In any scientific field you can question any conclusion without being called a denier!

Whilst most of us agree the climate is changing, as there is sufficient evidence for that, some of us would like to question how you can prove that the majority of that change is caused by mankind.

Once convinced, some of us would like to see what the optimal solutions might be i.e. work with it, or work against it.

At the moment the panic reaction is to call everyone who uses fossil fuels evil and tax the blazes out of the poor while providing eye-watering subsidies to the wealthy (e.g. solar panel subsidies that could only be afforded by the relatively wealthy).

Of course anyone on the IPCC jetting all over the world to exotic locations for a chat are clearly exempt!

Amazon tried to entice Latin American officials with $5m in Kindles, AWS credits for .amazon

It's not a country!

Has no-one registered that amazon is not a country and it's actually the name of a group of mythological female Greek warriors! So maybe the Greeks should be contesting it or maybe a bunch of feminists should get together and contest it or maybe ICANN should grow a pair and give it to Amazon.

Dear alt-right morons and other miscreants: Disrupt DEF CON, and the goons will 'ave you

Just use the following...

Ctrl-Alt-Delete!

Sorry, Neil Armstrong. Boffins say you may not have been first life-form to set foot on the Moon

"..one small step..."

Neil Armstrong will always be the first man on the moon who made that giant leap for mankind. It's just a pity we have tripped over our own feet since then and never really took advantage of that giant leap.

Sub-Prime: Amazon's big day marred by server crashes, staff strikes

Re: Seriously snowflake?

Plenty of UK people with meaningless degrees who are doing "McJobs" (shops, restaurants, warehouses, cleaning etc.)- as lots more people with meaningless degrees than meaningless degree level jobs available.

FTFY

Keep your hands on the f*cking wheel! New Tesla update like being taught to drive by your dad

Auto-crash-pilot

Even with your hands on the steering wheel, what would you be able to do here?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-44460980/this-car-is-on-autopilot-what-happens-next

After you realised that the car wasn't going to do anything.

Jocks' USO block shock: BT's 10Mbps proposals risk 'rural monopoly'

Natzionalism At It's Worst!

The sad thing is that if it was DT (Deutsche Telekom) they would welcome it with open arms. Quite simply they just want to cause conflict with anything that starts with British!

400 million Foxit users need to catch up with patched-up reader

Re: I second the Sumatra PDF recommendation

Thanks for that. 5MB download and works just the way Foxit used to. I also recommend this.

Germany strikes again over Amazon warehouse pay

Re: The 'Jack Boot' is on the other foot now!

You're not German and owning most of Europe isn't a feather in your Tyrolean hat. If I were German I'd prefer to disown most of Europe. Germans have a better sense of humour :-)

GCHQ protesters stick it to British spooks ... by drinking urine

Re: WHEN I AM PRIME MINISTER...

I think if you bothered to pay any attention, the poor fellow wasn't "man-hunted" for trying to get medical treatment for his child. But then facts are never as emotional as fiction, now are they.

BMW i8 plug-in hybrid: It's a supercar, Jim, but not as we know it

Re: Idiot's Solution

You make me laugh professor Arnaut! What kind of idiot would refer to a Haynes manual before dismantling and refurbishing something as complex as a gear box! I don't know, I really should have got a degree in gearboxology before even attempting it!

Well at least you didn't run off after dropping a lone comment, for that at least, I salute you.

Re: Idiot's Solution

Yes you should.

Yes, I managed it from reading a Haynes manual, that's how complex a gearbox is. Describing the everyday life of almost every gearbox in the world isn't an argument for your preferred solution.

Is the solution to these inefficiencies to bolt on a completely different drive mechanism? Really?

"In 2004, the Honda Racing F1 Team produced what they considered a “jewel in the crown” in race car design...a light weight composite gear box..."

Yes indeed, I suspect the BMW engineers never even left their armchair when they came up with the solution of a (Toyota) hybrid in an impractical car with a ridiculous price tag. They should clearly be awarded some sort of prize in recognition of their engineering brilliance. A golden armchair perhaps?

Re: Idiot's Solution

Yeah, sorry, if taxi drivers are buying them they must be the best solution.

Normally I use my brakes to stop the car but from now on I'll use my gears, I'd hate for my brakes to contribute to global warming.

Re: Idiot's Solution

I think you will find that BMWs products are based on a sales strategy and not an engineering one. They're not really very well known for radical ideas, just small changes every few years so as not to scare off their middle management customers. And what have their brilliant engineers come up with as a solution? A hybrid! How novel.

Re: Idiot's Solution

Oh no! Let's start with a crap solution, make it less crap and convince the buyer that you have the best solution. Honestly you should be a car salesman. Let's just continue with your methodology...now that we've got a light engine, a heavy battery and a heavy DC motor, let's swap the heavy battery for a light one to drive a light starter which will get rid of the heavy DC motor and we'll add a light and simple gearbox (not one of those complex one's you previously specified). Voila! I'm a better car salesman than you!