Posts by PhilBuk

Microsoft revives Windows 10 Beta Channel even though OS doesn't have long left

That was my first thought when I heard this news.

Phil.

Post Office slapped down for late disclosure of documents in Horizon scandal inquiry

Re: De-Frocked

Didn't expect to see a TCM reference here!

Phil.

Boeing paper trail goes cold over door plug blowout

Re: Too Big To Fail

At the moment, airlines do not have much of a choice, Airbus's order book is full until at least 2030.

Phil.

IBM-led advertising X-odus gains steam as more flee Musk's platform

Re: Get the popcorn ready

The suit was filed in Texas. Does that state have anti-SLAPP laws?

Phil.

What happens when What3Words gets lost in translation?

If you have an iPhone, just open the Compass app and it will give you your location in Lat/Lon - no phone signal required.

Phil

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

Re: “what could have been”

It’s the English way.

To improve security, consider how the aviation world stopped blaming pilots

Re: Pilot Error

I'll second this. The presenter is a training pilot for his airline and provides detailed explanantions of incidents along with simulations (from FS2020) to illustrate them. He also has a related channel, Mentour Now, which discusses industry issues and technology - there is are a number of videos concerning Boeing's past and current woes.

Phil.

Move over, Google Earth. Caltech's here with a fresh 3D tour of Mars

VR Version?

Would be nice to have a VR version like Google Earth VR.

Phil.

Ex-politico turned Meta hype man brands Metaverse 'new heart of computing'

Re: Meta and creative disruption

I can't see a change of direction coming from Mark SugarMountain any time soon. He has one idea, and one idea only - a Meta walled garden - with Meta users wearing Meta VR systems logging into Meta servers and interacting with Meta's marketplace. Did I mention fun? No, I didn't. He's very stubborn and will just keep pushing this idea until he runs out of money or users, sorry, product.

Phil.

Brit newspaper giant fills space with AI-assisted articles

Re: Will anyone notice?

Works a treat.

Phil.

Halfords slapped on wrist for breaching email marketing laws

Re: One of those places

I've had that at Curry's - we picked up the item, an air frier, and took it to the main 'Pay Here' till. No email required!

Phil.

Meta now involved in making metalevel standards for the metaverse

Re: Seeking education here...

I wear glasses all the time in VR (Steam Index). I'm 67 and have astigmatism, different prescriptions in each eye and the usual age-related long-sightedness. I normally wear varifocals but find them a bit strange in VR. What I did was to get my optician to make up a pair of glasses with my vanilla prescription without any sort of magnification for reading, VDUs, etc.. To keep the cost down, I just got two new lenses in an old frame.

The glasses work fine, the picture is clear except at the edges where the frames can be seen (vaguely). The frames fit in the Index with no problem. Prior to the Index, I had a HTC Vive Pro which was also OK, in fact, it had more room than the Index.

Summary: glasses are OK as long as the frames are not to large.

Phil.

France levels up local video game slang with list of French terms to replace foreign words

Both are good. Serenity was the film based on the Firefly series.

Phil

Start your engines: Windows 11 ready for broad deployment

Re: Thanks for the reminder

Done. :)

Phil.

Thanks for the reminder

Useful article. Reminded me to disable TPM on my laptop to block the forced upgrade when they "accidently" flip the "Screw The Users" switch.

Phil.

Bing! Microsoft tests search box in the middle of Windows 11 desktop

Re: your cheating hearts (or blackjack or rummy or ...)

Probably Denuvo. Games using this DRM/Anti-Cheat would not run under W11 for a while. Looks like the tablesa have been turned.

Phil.

Photographer seeks $12m in copyright damages over claims Capcom ripped off her snaps in Resident Evil 4 art

Re: Breached who's copyright

This is about RE4 - released in 2005.

Conflicting messaging overshadows NHS Digital's attempts to inform public about patient data slurp

Re: Come on Reg

This doesn't inspire confidence:-

--------------------------------------------

Page last reviewed: 10 July 2019

Next review due: 10 July 2022

--------------------------------------------

Nvidia cripples Ethereum mining on GeForce RTX 3060 to deter crypto bods from nabbing all the kit at launch

The miners don't really want the mining cards - part of their business model is to sell the used video cards on to gamers when the current-gen are no longer useful.

Australia facepalms as Facebook blocks bookstores, sport, health services instead of just news

Re: Screaming from the over-entitled masses

Not Lazurus Long, Mark Twain beat Robert Heinlein to that by a mile.

Linus Torvalds labels Super Bowl 'violent version of egg-and-spoon race'

Re: If NFL...

Would that be Shinty?

No amount of Glasgow handshaking will revive this borked kiosk

Re: Pacific Quay?

Don't forget the Matlock Illuminations. Puts Blackpool to shame.

Phil.

What does my neighbour's Tesla have in common with a stairlift?

Re: most unreliable motor vehicles since the Austin Allegro

Was involved in a Cave Rescue once where the patient, a young girl who had fallen 30 feet and injured herself, was asked by the first contact team leader if she wanted her parents informed. She replied in the negative because "her parents were quite old, in their 50's, and it would be quite a shock."

The members of the rescue team exchanged surreptitious glances among themselves. The youngest person on the team was 49.

Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

Eh-em, Mandy Rice-Davis.

America's largest radio telescope blind after falling cable slashes 100-foot gash in reflector dish

Re: Don't forget...

What about Dr No? FRWL was the second "serious" Bond movie.

Phil.

UK's Ministry of Defence: We'll harvest and anonymise private COVID-19 apps' tracing data by handing it to 'behavioural science' arm

Re: "Ministry of Defence is sanitising it all first."

Don't forget the copy in a USB stick left on the 8:20 from Waterloo.

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

Re: Covid jail "prank"

I think SW1A 2AA is better.

Microsoft Notepad: If it ain't broke, shove it in the Store, then break it?

Re: Leave the 'pads alone

Copy the XP version into Win 7 - it still works. It doesn't have the 'improvements' that made the Win 7 version useless such as 1.5 line spacing that would revert every time it was restarted. Always use it for those text files from *nix systems that don't have terminating line feeds like DOS.

Phil.

Oh. And no fecking ribbon.

Friends, it's fine. Don't worry about randomers listening to your Skype convos. Microsoft has tweaked an FAQ a bit

Re: Old Codger

Just don't flush the toilet.

Phil.

Quick question, what the Hull? City khazi is a top UK tourist destination

Re: Pedant's corner

How about "Wookey Hole Cave". All three words mean cave.

So Cave Cave Cave.

Silly money: Before you chuck your chequebook away, triple-check that super-handy digital coin

Re: ..the biggest of payments problems...

At least money still works after being dropped in the toilet.

Apollo 11 @ 50: The long shadow of the flag

Re: Armstrong the LEM pilot

There was a lunar landing program for my HP-33e calculator. Never managed to land safely. It also lost the program when you turned it off - should have waited a couple of months and bought the 33c.

ReactOS 'a ripoff of the Windows Research Kernel', claims Microsoft kernel engineer

And Gary Kildall ripped off DEC RT-11 to create CP/M says Ken Olsen (via a medium).

Stop using that MacBook Pro RIGHT NOW, says Uncle Sam: Loyalists suffer burns, smoke inhalation and worse – those crappy keyboards

Re: Hot Pies

The other thing to know was the location of the only key that stopped it from whirring itself to death when you divided by zero (come on - everybody did that at least once).

That magical super material Apple hopes will hit backspace on its keyboard woes? Nylon

Re: Apple keyboard malfunction issues and IFixit.

Probably an ASR33, my first too. Could be why I now have hearing aids.

Phil.

Ethiopian Airlines boss confirms suspect flight software was in use as Boeing 737 Max crashed

Re: Why not just disable the system and put the planes back in the air?

Put the Board and entire Marketing dept. on the plane and fly it round the world. Then maybe we will think about it. Schedule a stop off at Lukla and try landing there. The result would be a benefit to mankind.

Phil.

Boeing big cheese repeats pledge of 737 Max software updates following fatal crashes

Re: MCAS is being misportrayed

@Alister

The rule of three is broken - so is the rule of two. The 737 has two Flight Computers (FCs), these each have their own AOA sensor - there are no links between the two. In flight, only one FC, and therefore only one AOA is used. The standard operating procedure is to alternate FCs between flights. So it's worse than you thought - only one AOA is used during flight and if that one is buggered, so are you.

Great design Boeing!

Phil.

They're BAAACK: Windows 10 nagware team loads trebuchet with annoying reminders to GTFO Windows 7

You created a new user to just say that? Now ain't that suspicious.

Phil.

UK joins growing list of territories to ban Boeing 737 Max flights as firm says patch incoming

Re: God, the stress involved in writing this stuff...

No. Just make sure you use this week's framework.

Phil.

If at first you don't succeed, you may be trying to install that Slow Ring Windows 10 build

Re: So what is the company/games?

Try Fortnite.

Cut open a tauntaun, this JEDI is frozen! US court halts lawsuit over biggest military cloud deal since the Death Star

"or that weird Aussie one with the hook-nosed but ever so sexy lass in black leather"

Ahhhh. Claudia Black of Farscape fame!! Muppets in Space.

Phil.

LG's beer-making bot singlehandedly sucks all fun, boffinry from home brewing

Re: Get a keg Re growlers

Whoops - sorry. Class 37. Class 38 was never built.

Phil.

Re: Get a keg Re growlers

I thought that a 'Growler' was a Class 38 diesel engine.

Phil.

Mystery sign-poster pities the fool who would litter the UK's West Midlands

Re: Mommy

In the bit of Midlands that I grew up in - it was Mam.

Phil.

Great Scott! Is nothing sacred? US movie-goers vote Back To The Future as most-wanted reboot

Re: There is plenty of original material

Larry Niven - Ringworld et al.

Phil.

Shocker: UK smart meter rollout is crap, late and £500m over budget

Re: What could possibly go wrong?

Smart water meters might be compulsory but not always feasible. I have a visual water meter under a cover in the pavement near the end of my drive. The guy from the water company surveyed my house before installation and I pointed out that mains water entered the house at three points. He duly took photographs of the incoming pipes as proof and they later installed a non-smart meter. Most houses on our road have the same arrangement. Smarts only work if you have one incoming main.

Phil.

In Space, Still: 20 years since Russia hurled first bit of floating astronaut hostel into orbit

>>Or, launch Skegness! Think about it, space tourism is the future and Skegness's tourism is in decline, so could be a winner.

You will just have to wait for the spindizzy to be invented. I can, however, think of more deserving places to be launched into space e.g. Slough.

Phil.

DXC: Everything is going to plan, too well in fact... we've chopped so many staff, our IT projects are now behind

That sounds like the CSC - sorry DXC, that I knew and don't have to work for anymore.

Phil.

Pirate radio = drug dealing and municipal broadband is anti-competitive censorship

Re: The true face of democracy....

If paid lobbyists were banned, politicians would be bankrupt.

Phil.

Basic bigot bait: Build big black broad bots – non-white, female 'droids get all the abuse

Re: Gold?

I would imagine that the butlers will end up grey so only John Major will complain.

Phil.