Posts by Mark 85

How do you ascertain user acceptability if you keep killing off the users?

Not a new thing delivery by air.

Hmn... we did aerial food delivery back in the late '60's whilst in the USMC. Those of poor sods stuck with mess duty periodically got carried away with our dispensing of food... Food fights weren't uncommon back then either. About 2-3 times a year as I recall. The downside was cleaning up which usually involved a call to the base fire crew to hose down the inside of the mess hall. It also usually involved some punishment such those responsible (or who were at least caught) spend the night scrubbing it down after the fire crew left.

BOFH: 'Twas the night before Christmas, and the ransomware struck

Re: How dare they hide something from him!

I never did find out if he finished his degree, but his immense technical and professional skills must have come in handy somewhere.

He's probably in management somewhere. Sounds like he has the proper personality.

The time PC Tools spared an aerospace techie the blushes

Re: Blinded by the verbosity

It's a rite of passage. One cannot become a true IT professional until one fat fingers the keyboard or takes down a system followed by a stream of profanity.

The scariest word in IT....

is "Oops"...... followed by a scream.

This isn't Boeing very well... Faulty timer knackers Starliner cargo capsule on its way to International Space Station

Re: Someone skimped on testing

Apollo had had manual override built in. I guess they forget to put how to override the system in the manual again.

Re: Santa Express

Boeing and redundancy should probably never be used in the same sentence of late. Well.. maybe. MCAS as I recall was 2 systems and should have been 3. But 2 clocks could have been better than one with the result being if they didn't agree than a human needs to get involved.

You leak our secrets? We'll leak your book sales, speech fees – into our coffers: Uncle Sam wins royalties fight against Edward Snowden

Re: Streisand Effect

I expect that Snowden will make the book available in PDF format on the internet soon -

If he won't, I'm sure there's a lot of websites that will. There's quite a few pirate types out there.

FCC proudly wastes $90m getting data-capped, pricey satellite internet to tiny percentage of US population

$80 per month?

But then you have to figure in the dish (with has to transmit as well as receive) and the equipment to go with the dish.

Cool 'joke', bro, you could have killed someone: Epilepsy Foundation sics cops on sick flashing-light Twitter trolls

Re: mailing a rabid bat or rattlesnake

That doesn't make much sense, most scorpions are relatively harmless, and a single one won't last long among lots of feet.

Considering the oarsmen had bare feet or maybe sandals, it's quite understandable. Scorpions are nasty looking and tossed in a jug (shaken not stirred) on to another ship probably put as much terror into the scorpion as the scorpion caused the crew.

Half a billion here, half a billion there – pretty soon you're talking real money: US Congress earmarks $425m for 2020 election security

Instead of having the votes sent "online" to the various collection points, wouldn't it be more secure to just burn a CD or two off each machine and send the CD's? If they're not online they can't be tampered with. But then the news networks, etc. would scream bloody murder because it interrupt their breathless breaking headlines.....

The National Museum of Computing goes Marie Kondo at Christmas: Luckily all the Lego sparks joy

Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers (APDO)

Who would have thought that such an organization actually exists? Is there one for phone sanitizers?

Deadly 737 Max jets no longer a Boeing concern – for now: Production suspended after biz runs out of parking space

Once every agency worldwide is happy, I would hope that Boeing goes through every aircraft very thoroughly to check for things like leaking seals and other bits that deteriorate with age and no use. Seals are a big problem as they dry out without fluid flowing.

It's 2019 so, of course, this Wells Fargo employee accused of stealing customer cash posed with wads of dosh on Instagram, Facebook

Posting on the internet... did he really think he wouldn't be caught? Unbelievable. See icon.....

Buzz kill: Crook, 73, conned investors into shoveling millions into geek-friendly caffeine-loaded chocs that didn't exist. Now he's in jail

Re: What a retirement party!!

Maybe they wanted the free room and board and health care?

Attention! Very important science: Tapping a can of fizzy beer does... absolutely nothing

Re: It must be just me

The squeezing works but it's probably the release of the squeeze that allows the carbonation to be re-dissolved. More testing is required.

Space Force is go, go, go! Because we have a child as President of the United States

Re: So, back to the Soviets for a moment...

So what dd we expect? Well.. dear leader promised balanced budget. Yet we look at his history, and bankruptcy seems to a big item in his past. The debt has gone way up faster under Trump than anyone expected.

Re: No point.

Add in a heavy dose of paranoia about everyone else, and some delusions of grandeur. He seems to think he's the "king" with god-like brilliancy and wisdom. If any of us mere mortals acted like he does, we'd be in a rubber room, wearing a white coat with extra long sleeves and maybe on thorazine.

Did he mix Fox up with the Sci-Fi network a few times?

I almost expect the Space Force to have some spiffy uniforms like say from Star Trek or even from some really bad movies of the 50-60's. Maybe kids outfits like they had cowboy outfits back then? Now if only there were phasers*... maybe next budget then.

Never, ever set one for "kill bulldozer" when you wanted "stun".

You cannae break the laws of physics, cap'n... Boffins call BS on 'impossible' black hole, fear readings were botched

Re: Don't black holes accrete mass?

Well said. We've only studied a tiny part of space so we don't know everything there is to know.

No box shifting, no Buck Rogers. Bezos-backed Blue Origin blasts off once again

Re: Is it just me

We've had discussions on this before including references to how Bezo's birds look like the ones in Flesh Gordon.

Careful with that Axe, Eugene: Excessive use of body spray causes school bus evacuation

Had to Google that cheese... Luck is with me... It's seems to be one that's banned and it's at the top of the list: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/french-cheeses-that-most-foreigners-will-never-dare-try/

Re: First one I thought of.

Ah.. Florida Man or maybe Almost Florida Man strikes again.

Oi, Queenslander who downloaded 26.8TB in June alone – we see you

Re: Quick maths

I know of four people who downloaded all the available ship plans from the NMM in high-res. One does live in Down Under. But I sure don't think it was 28.8 TB. I'll have to check with them and see....

Edit: Nope... I just checked... it was "only" 77GB.

It’s been two years since net neutrality was killed in the US. Let’s celebrate by having another fight over it

Re: Things haven't been so entrenched since the fields of Flanders, a century ago.

An interesting side note is that Congress changed the amounts corporates can contribute to election candidates. They increased it. So.. follow the money and the votes. Dysfunctional? More like "well-paid" by the special interests who have the money.

Americans should have strong privacy-protecting encryption ...that the Feds and cops can break, say senators

said Feinstein. "In American law there is no place that's immune from inquiry if criminality is involved,"

Ok... you and the rest of Congress (both houses) and Admin branch go first. And maybe just uncrypt all government communications? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right? I'll go sit quietly over there by the beer cooler and wait to see what happens.

Once more, the Constitution comes under fire because government want to take away the right to privacy with some "promise" of never using illegally... I was born at night but not last night.

And then there were two: HMS Prince of Wales joins Royal Navy

Re: And All Who Sail In Her

Several Dutch ships in the Java sea have been removed and all were listed as war graves. Here's a link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/worlds-biggest-grave-robbery-asias-disappearing-ww2-shipwrecks

Re: Carrier/No Carrier

I don't think tanks would have helped to crap during sea battle. Or am I missing something?

Internet jerk with million-plus fans starts 14-year stretch for bizarre dot-com armed robbery

Re: Second of his name.

Even if one juror dissented with an 'Innocent" vote, he still would have been convicted. The only time all jurors have to agree is a murder case. There might be others but that's only crime I know for certain as I've done jury twice, once for an assault crime and once for a murder trial.

Indeed and American lawyers... If you ever meet one, count your fingers when done and go wash your hands.

Tesla has a smashing weekend: Model 3 on Autopilot whacks cop cars, Elon's Cybertruck demolishes part of LA

A man and his dog....

And he didn't notice that he hit three vehicles until someone flagged him down? WTF?

Amazon: Trump photon-torpedoed our $10bn JEDI dream because he hates CEO Jeff Bezos

Google? Perhaps it's just the DoD didn't want ads served to their employees?

Re: Whole single vendor thing was a scam from the beginning

Sole source of anything is a problem as it puts you at the mercy of your supplier. Then there's "store your data on someone's computer and they own your data". Does the DoD really believe that any outsourced computer is more secure than what they might have? Is there a guaranteed secured and encrypted line that runs only between the DoD and the outsourced computers?

Behuld – zee-a internet ouff tuilet tissuoe at Meecrusufft Sveden. Bork bork bork!

Re: Seen in LIDL today : Christmas toilet rolls

I guess the snowman ranks right up there with the bog rolls that have politician's faces on them?

Re: Børk, børk børk?

If we're doing Muppets Swedish Chef.. then "isker do"!!!!!

Re: I'm sorry

This would be where AI and me diverge quite quickly.

I've already decided to diverge. Bought the super-sized "bag" of toilet paper that was on sale for a great price. At the register, got handed a coupon for Kaopectate. What the hell????

Whoooooa, this node is on fire! Forget Ceph, try the forgotten OpenStack storage release 'Crispy'

Re: Thermal Incident

"The old meeting minutes and printouts of his e-mails were presented to him in a folder, which just happened to be at hand. The presence of several witnesses was a great help."

Beautiful ;)

Always know where the bodies are buried and have documentation. Hallmark of true BOFH.

BOFH: I'd like introduce you to a groovy little web log I call 'That's Boss'

Re: Most people have nothing interesting to say on a regular basis.

Put it on Wikipedia and it will go ballistic.

You should really tag that with a spoiler alert,

Why? Do you read the comments before the article?

Asteroid Bennu is flinging particles of dust and rock from its surface – and scientists can't work out why

Re: Space Dandruff

Dandruff would be better than it actually being alive and those are eggs being released. Yeah.. I've read too much science fiction... so back to my room.

Icahn and I will force a Xerox and HP wedding: Corporate raider urges HP shareholders to tell board to act 'NOW'

What is that saving going to cost the workforce?

Look at the history of takeovers. The workforce is cannon fodder once he strips the assets and sells them off. Yes, he's made billions for himself and stockholders. The workers.... get zip.

Bandwidth weirdness at TalkTalk has customers fuming at being denied on-demand I'm A Celeb

Their response reminds of the line from Animal House during the panic by Kevin Bacon... "Remain calm, all is well!".

Since the FCC won't act, Congress finally moves on robocalls by passing half-decent TRACED Act

Re: Color me skeptical

Since Pai runs the FCC, perhaps the law should make him also liable to some degree. I can see where he'll waffle about, make excuses, and if forced to fine the Telcos, drop the fines for some reason. So, for now, don't I agree, don't expect much change except in the amount of bovine excrement that will be shoveled by the FCC.

Escobar Fold 1 snort all it's cracked up to be: Readers finger similarity to slated Chinese mobe

If it were a corporate (in the US/Euro sense), this would be a loss leader to suck off and legitimize profits from their "other" businesses. But, maybe they just bought existing stock are a firesale price re-branded them.

Internet Society says opportunity to sell .org to private equity biz for $1.14bn came out of the blue. Wow, really?

I'm also wondering what a non-profit organisation will do with $1.14bn ...

Make the board very happy and very wealthy.... Judging from the article all the inter-related companies involved, I would expect at some point there will be some charges levied for "fiduciary responsibility" not being used. But by then, all the perpetrators will have divvied things up, sold off assets, etc. Which makes me wonder... is Icahn involved in this?

Astronauts brave razor sharp edges and fiddly pipes to bring joy to boffins

Re: tumbler ??

In space, a bobber and a worm won't work.

Pablo Escobar's brother is Medellín in the foldable phone biz, sniffing out new markets

Re: ...Donald Trump’s penthouse and a Foxconn factory

I need to brain reset also in addition to cleaning the afternoon beverage I just sprayed on the monitor. Well done El Reg.

Trump Administration fast-tracks compulsory border facial recognition scans for all US citizens

We're getting one step closer to being stopped while walking down the street and having someone step out and ask to see your papers. I fear more and more for the Republic every day of late.

Larry leaves, Sergey splits: Google lads hand over Alphabet reins to Sundar Pichai

Re: Profoundly banal

Well, they're leaving won't change a thing other than occasionally going out back to the body of "do no evil" and shooting it a few more times and maybe a stake through it's heart just to be sure.

Vote rigging, election fixing, ballot stuffing: Just another day in the life of a Register reader

Ah youth... wasted on the young. Then again, way back in the dark ages, I spent my time writing a few games of an adult nature. They didn't go anywhere but it was fun and taught me a lot.