Posts by Lobrau

Car trouble: Keyless and lockless is no match for brainless

Re: Possible Solution

Not wanting to dump all over what, I'm sure, is a lovely and practical motor but that sounds bloody awful

I thought Japanese manufacturers were supposed to be ahead of the game in terms of electrics?

Cancel your summer trip to nearby Proxima b. No chance of life, room service, say boffins

God forbid BA starts running flights out there. Probably wouldn't be so bad as you'd still be sat in the terminal

Fighter pilot shot down laptops with a flick of his copper-plated wrist

Re: Survivors

"They also didn't offer one to aircraft ground crew member who got dragged 90 feet into the air when chair went of by mistake"

Oops, somebody forgot to put the pins in! My old man told me a story of when he was on Buccaneers and one of the armourers forgot to do the same. Thankfully nobody was hurt but there were several 'interviews sans café' with the SEngO and his staff

D'oh! Amber Rudd meant 'understand hashing', not 'hashtags'

"that both permits law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies to get the information they need, whilst also protecting privacy."

Can't have both. Give them a yard and they take any length they damn well please

HMS Queen Elizabeth is delayed, Ministry of Defence confesses

Do they even have any aircraft available for the bloody thing?

Not going to be much use in active service without those.

Japan's terrifying techno-toilets will be made foreigner friendly, vow makers

Ah, Japan

Where the toilets are a metaphor for everything else there. Extremes of modernity and tradition. Something which was drawn to my attention when I went into a JR station bathroom to find a musical, heated, bum-washing, auto-drying toilet followed by, some days later, a visit to a squat toilet in an underground station.

CES 2017 roundup: The good, the bad, and the frankly bonkers

Re: Well...

Good call. Would also be preferable to what amounts to mumbled directions from the bluetooth headset at speed and shouty ones when riding slowly.

Three certainties in life: Death, taxes and the speed of light – wait no, maybe not that last one

Re: Faster computers?

Sounds like something from the late Mr Adams.

'Scientists have cracked the problem of FTL travel. By slowing the speed of light to just under 30mph, they were able to achieve superluminal speeds in the research head's 1974 Ford Capri'

One-way Martian ticket: Pick passengers for Musk's first Mars pioneer squad

No option to put all those the people in the poll onto the tanker spacecraft and fire it towards the Sun instead of Mars?

Scrapped NHS care.data ballsup cost taxpayer almost £8m

Lessons learnt:

1)We must be much more surreptitious about sharing patient data. Best scenario would be not telling them at all

2)Companies will part with lots of filthy, filthy lucre in order to access this information. Suggest employing more managers/lining directors' pockets with the proceeds

Plusnet outage leaves customers unable to stream Netflix. Horrors!

"Our engineers have been working really hard [snip]"

Oh well, that's alright then. As long as they're working hard

Forgive me, father, for I have used an ad-blocker on news websites...

'Is Forbes supposed to be something special?'

I think Forbes thinks it's something special but they're the only ones....

I can say without a shadow of a doubt..

..that I feel no guilt at all. If sites put in a hard block then I simply won't consume the content. Most of it isn't worth the time it would take to bypass the block. Any content that I really want, I'll pay for (usually in the form of books or streaming services).

I'm certainly not poking holes in my ad-blocker for the sake of the usual drivel put out by most journalists.

The advertisers and content creators need a bit more imagination in their revenue creation methinks.

Come in HTTP, your time is up: Google Chrome to shame leaky non-HTTPS sites from January

Re: It's pretty minimal cost

Realise this might be a bit late for you but have you considered LetsEncrypt?

AFAIK they don't do EV certificates but if you want a bog-standard one then it's free.

Unless some of you have technical horror stories from them that you'd care to share?

Bees bring down US stealth fighter

I suspect one doesn't use such destructive methods around a $138m aircraft when there are gentler means available.

I take your meaning though. Glad that sense prevailed and the bees were relocated to pollinate another day.

Did Spotify hire Alan Partridge to run its Netflix-style video push?

Drake's Drakes

R&B artist, Drake, tours the length and breadth of the UK in a quest for the nation's best duck.

Auto erotic: Self-driving cars will let occupants bonk on the go

Re: If you are required to be available to take over

We wouldn't be living in the future if we used mere blinds to cover windows. No no, what we need is automated bonk-detecting smartglass, which tints to >85% black when buttocks or other such jiggly bits are detected.

NZ hotel bans cyclists' Lycra-clad loins

Re: @Stu Mac

The primary cause of motorcycle accidents where it isn't the fault of the rider is being shunted from behind at stops and traffic lights. If you filter between stationary traffic then this obviously can't happen to you, hence the reason we do it.

The same can be said for cyclists. Their cross-section from behind is considerably smaller than most motorbikes so they've got no chance if someone isn't paying full attention. At least bikers have their armour.

I'd be lying if I said it's not also nice to get ahead of the traffic though.

NASA boffin wants FRIKKIN LASERS to propel lightsails

Presumably, Mars wouldn't be the end goal; just a known distance. I don't think your average man on the street could imagine the distance between our solar system and Alpha Centauri. That said, don't think there'd be any problems with creating an array of lasers around Mars and applying the thrust from the opposite direction as a braking force. Any physicists (armchair or otherwise), feel free to correct me.

Sid Meir had some good ideas about getting to Alpha Centauri. Maybe NASA should give him a buzz

FBI iPhone unlock order reaction: Trump, Rubio say no to Apple. EFF and Twitter say yes

Are they hoping to potentially uncover more attacks?

If not then why do they need to get into the phone? They don't need evidence to prosecute the terrorists involved as they were slotted by the police. Doesn't seem much point in putting dead people on trial.

If they do suspect there could information leading to other terrorist cells then that's a different kettle of fish. Although I would imagine the terrorists' doctrine would protect against just such eventuality.

SpaceX: launch, check. Landing? Needs work

Thinking RUD might be the new night-out, over-exuberance acronym

Saw the video on twitter a few moments ago. Was thinking they'd managed it after the flare of the engine then slowly, slowly - oop, nope. Over she goes.

Quite the explosion but, as Mr Musk says, at least the pieces were a bit bigger this time.

I always look forward to updates from SpaceX. All very exciting stuff.

Drunk? Need a slash? Avoid walls in Hackney

Re: Missing the point

Any physicists care to explain what would happen if a wall coated with the repellent splashed urine onto similarly coated trousers?

Any non-physicists care to speculate as to the boundless energy that could be harnessed by the same?

Google chap bakes Amiga emulator into Chrome

Question is.....

....can I play Walker on it?

HTC's new One A9 will gulp Android updates days after Nexus mobes

$399 in the states. £450($695) in the UK.

They can shove that one up their arse then.

Could well be the one...

...to tempt me away from the Nexus 5X. I'm currently using the HTC One M7, which is looking long in the tooth. I had hoped to escape the atrocious update schedule offered by HTC/Three by switching to Google but if this has quick updates then it might be worth holding fire till its release. Hopefully it will have a card slot to bump that 32Gb flash up a bit.

KARMA POLICE: GCHQ spooks spied on every web user ever

Re: Cost Efficiency

Would have thought the last terror attack in the UK would have been the killing of Lee Rigby, which makes the investment figures seem even more dire.

SPOOKY new Pluto snaps will make the HAIR RISE on the back of your neck

Not to get too gushy...

..but these images are really awe-inspiring. I'm not sure how the decision-makers of this world can see something like that and not think "That's cool, we should spend more money exploring stuff like that" instead of, say, claiming for moat cleanings and the like.

Right, opt out everybody! Hated Care.data paused again

A well-organised, secure database, accessible to physicians and staff, would be a great thing.

But why allow such sensitive data to be sold to third parties? Without that fly in the ointment I'd have no trouble with the scheme.

Re: NHS IT projects

Would that my practice were so proactive.

Had to go to the surgery and ask to not be included in the scheme. Poor girl on reception had to go and ask for help as she had no idea what I was on about.

Assange™ is 'upset' that he WON'T be prosecuted for rape, giggles lawyer

Re: WTF?

Isn't it because he's afraid of being extradited to the US if he goes to Sweden; hence the reason he's holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy?

HTC One M9 Android smartphone: Like a M8 with a squinty eye

Re: Time to change

In the exact same situation here. Think I'll be switching over to Nexus 6 come renewal time. Missus has the 5 and it's a joy to use.

Vince Cable opens hipster-friendly London tech creche

Think every mention of 'cities' in the article could be replaced by the word 'city' as there seems to be only one in the UK, according to ministers.

My self-driving cars may lead to human driver ban, says Tesla's Musk

Not entirely sure I'd want cars learning to drive from some of the nuggets I regularly encounter on the roads.

Not saying I'm a saint. We all make poor judgements sometimes. Hopefully the aggregate of good drivers will outweigh the bad.

German music moguls slammed for 'wurst ever DMCA takedown spam'

Re: die die die

Haven flown Lufthansa before, I could see why the leaflet may have been mistaken for being printed in English.

Poll: Yes, yes, texting while driving is bad but *ping* OH! Hey, GRAB THE WHEEL, will ya?

The number of times I've seen people texting when I'm riding along. The compulsion to grab the phone from plonkers in convertibles and hurl it into the path of oncoming traffic is nearly too difficult to resist.

I now assume that everyone is out to kill me when I'm on the bike and ride accordingly.

HUMAN RACE PERIL: Not nukes, it'll be AI that kills us off, warns Musk

Cultured man is Musk

AI research certainly brings up Questionable Ethics and I appreciate Mr Musk's Learned Response to the book. Indeed, I find him Refreshingly Unconcerned With the Vulgar Exigencies of Veracity.

If anyone works the Mistake Not... into a reply they will have my eternal respect

DAYS from end of life as we know it: Boffins tell of solar storm near-miss

Re: a near miss

Yes but a near miss != nearly missing

Dungeons & Dragons relaunches with 'freemium' version 5.0

Re: Paper shortages

I would suggest checking out Pathfinder. Basically an OGL rewrite of 3.5ed, objectively the best D&D ruleset.

You can read most of the material over at http://paizo.com/prd/

LOHAN seeks stirring motto for spaceplane mission patch

Google Translate a go-go

Ferrum faciem Dei

(Punch the face of God)

Use Tor or 'extremist' Tails Linux? Congrats, you're on an NSA list

Re: ll vs ls -l

Well, I may be on an NSA list but at least I can get more work done now before they come and get me.

Ta muchly, real timesaver!

Surprise Android 'KitKat' update fixes nasty OpenSSL vuln

HTC trailing once again

My HTC One updated to 4.4.2 just last week. Not sure whether this is due to HTC's lab processes or Three being slow pushing the update; perhaps even a combination of the two. I think this one will go the way of my Wildfire S and be getting the Cyanogenmod treatment once the contract expires.

GPs slam NHS England for poor publicity of data grab plan

No leaflet, confused receptionist

As per title; no leaflet through the door, unless it was tucked into the local rag. When I phoned the health centre to opt out the receptionist had to go and ask someone what it all meant. Poor girl sounded like she hadn't even heard of the scheme.

Not had any confirmation that my records have been made exempt so may well still end up on the register. Has there been any info on deleting the data once on the DB in line with the DPA?

Spread the gospel! Tim Berners-Lee's Open Data Institute goes global

Re: Open Data?

Same here. Admittedly, it was a brief read of the site but it largely seemed to be encouraging data owners to release some titbits of open data so they can fleece people for the rest of it.

I was expecting links to APIs or something which would actually be useable. Ho hum

Kiwi jetpack gets all-clear for manned tests

Re: Do not want.

Interesting. Care to enlighten us?

Brits: We can stop trolling if we know where they live - poll

Re: The older...

..or indeed know what a troll is.

This weekend: Watch HOT STARS shower! Moon won't interfere

Judging from the Met office website..

..it should be pretty clear here oop North. I want to see some rocks on fire so hope they're right.