Posts by Martin-73

80-characters-per-line limits should be terminal, says Linux kernel chief Linus Torvalds

42 character lines are the answer. the ULTIMATE answer

Mine's the one with the towel in the pocket.

Nokia's reboot of the 5310 is a blissfully dumb phone that will lug some mp3s about just fine

Re: Wireless FM radio

Indeed, the entire subject of fractal antennas is a fascinating rabbithole

Re: Wireless FM radio

Stringing aerials to the washing line post is a bad idea. I found that out years ago... when various trousers and sweaters ended up wrapped round the wire due to strong wind

Beer because I needed one after having to climb the pole and cut down my own aerial to retrieve my clothes

eBay users spot the online auction house port-scanning their PCs. Um... is that OK?

Re: Browsers don't.

UGH, shades of IE6 all over again

Pint because I'm sorry you had to deal with BG

Re: eBay got back to us to say that

You're not simple enough to be taken in by reply No.36366 and are therefore not their target audience, please move on citizen

(ALSO very generous of you to assume there's that many replies... unless it's in binary with 3 and 6 representing 1 and 0)

I'd mess with em

I would be tempted to set up a separate vlan with many many dummy hosts with all kinds of interesting ports open.

Possibly with the sequence of IP vs Open Ports spelling something obscene in ASCII

Re: Browsers don't.

All the reasonable ones. Often with much reduced functionality, but any reasonable site should work for sufficiently small values of 'work'.

Re: Fraud is a big issue for etailer

Wild is also much MUCH chewier... to the point of being rubbery

Dude, where's my laser?

Re: Not unbelievable

I think the thing with such people as Brian is that their brain is so... relentless.. that it will go into single threaded mode to solve a problem. The thread that says 'that soldering iron is hot' isn't running... or is at least backgrounded.

Witness the (probably apocryphal) story of Newton boiling his watch while holding an egg for 5 minutes. The stereotype of the 'absent minded professor' is there for a reason.

Home working is here to stay, says Lenovo boss, and will grow the total addressable PC market by up to 30%

Re: I have to say I'm with Lenovo on this

Indeed, many non-chain pubs hereabouts have been doing 'roast dinner', delivered, for a reasonable price (generally the same as pre-covid prices, no extra for delivery). Our 'local' also does the beer thing (but bring your own milk jug for it). They're not I believe allowed to deliver the beer.

I know stateside many local ordinances will prevent that kind of 'dispense into customer's own container' beer thing. But laws can change

Re: I have to say I'm with Lenovo on this

Food trucks may be hit, but not as hard as you may think... most of them have a lot of 'can't work from home' type businesses on their routes. Possibly not with the density of office workers however, but large construction sites usually have a couple of vans that serve them. And they could simply tour residential areas instead. Working from home doesn't alleviate the need for 'a quick bite around teabreak time'

Re: I have to say I'm with Lenovo on this

I believe the companies already should be paying, especially for people on 'you get x number of GB per month' tariffs. I would imagine Zoom and the like to be huge bandwidth abusers?

Record-breaking Aussie boffins send 44.2 terabits a second screaming down 75km of fiber from single chip

No fibre to the [premises/home/business/manshed] in .au?

Hooray! It's IT Day! Let's hear it for the lukewarm mugs of dirty water that everyone seems to like so much

I have two of the classless things. one supplier I used to buy electronic components from apparently had a massive surplus of the things and seeing as they were prepackaged and surrounded with bubble wrap he simply dumped the components in them and posted the cup in its box.

I don't feel guilty using them because obviously the presents of the mugs as a surplus represented a loss for the evil company

Re: Tea addicts, but I've seen fiends go through three cups an hour

Yes I started out working at a university maintenance department. the cafeteria tea was never any good until it had at least two teaspoons dissolved in it. Not teaspoons of sugar you understand but the actual spoon

Tech's Volkswagen moment? Trend Micro accused of cheating Microsoft driver QA by detecting test suite

Re: Petty or Pedant?

Interesting. I wonder if that had to do with one brand trademarking 'Duck tape" ?

Oddly at least here in the UK, there's an alternative 'duct tape' used for exhaust ducting from extractor fans. It's basically thick wide electrical tape.

Far-right leader walks free from court after conviction for refusing to hand his phone passcode over to police

Re: Would never have happened in my day

FSM may be fine, but not all pastas are... for example marine le penne !

Mine's the one with the meatballs in the pockets

Re: Would never have happened in my day

There is no immigration unless you believe the rumours about roswell.

UK MPs to off-payroll workers: Delay IR35 reforms until 2023? You wish

Thank you for that explanation. I am self employed in another field, so it made me wonder what was up. Knowing how IT is, it makes sense that people would set up companies and make themselves their own employee. It seems the IT sector is even more vicious than the electrical contracting sector!

Serial killer spotted on the night train from Newcastle

Indeed!

Ublock origin freaked out and closed the tab!

Square peg of modem won't fit into round hole of PC? I saw to it, bloke tells horrified mate

Re: I just didn't bother with a case :).

Wait you can do that?!

Re: Hmmm

Then lead free cra...err solder came along, and made the temperature required to do that likely to set fire to the board and toast any semiconductors or electrolytics.

Small b bastards. Have a pint for the memories of that smell of burning FR4

As Brit cyber-spies drop 'whitelist' and 'blacklist', tech boss says: If you’re thinking about getting in touch saying this is political correctness gone mad, don’t bother

Hardly clearer

Allow list is... not as immediately obvious as 'whitelist'

Doom Eternal: Reboot sequel is cluttered but we're only here for the rippin' and the tearin'

Re: Too much platforming

Platforming... ewww. One of the few things about the original doom and doom 2 that I really couldn't stand. Mainly because I suck at it

Hi, Google Duplex here, trying to book a haircut for a socially inept human. Sorry, 'COVID-19'?... DOES NOT COMPUTE

Someone probably asked it about an appropriate treatment to stop dry rot on their deck

Pervasive digital surveillance of citizens deployed in COVID-19 fight, with rules that send genie back to bottle

Re: Phone tracking

Frankly I think they should. The number of people at the local pub (yes I know*) claiming it was all bollocks and it's no more serious than a common cold (tell that to the victims) beggars belief. If they closed the pubs these cockwits would realize that something more serious than the common cold was afoot.

*neither myself nor my colleague are showing symptoms and we avoid interaction by choosing an isolated table... talking to others is still possible at distances over 6 feet...

Re: Nothing to Hide nothing to Fear

Usually I'm on boris's case too. But right now we need leadership and not a chaotic shambles of competing challengers for the job. So yes resign. But not right now when he's FINALLY doing the right thing and keeping us up to date.

US Homeland Security mistakenly seizes British ad agency's website in prostitution probe gone wrong

One does not drive on the wrong side of the road when visiting a foreign country by accident... I know, i've driven in foreign countries. it's one of the first things on your mind. Fleeing the country just proves that she knew she was guilty

It was seized by a bunch of incompetents, not an actual law enforcement agency (DHS doesn't count as one)

I think the charge is murder.... she deliberately drove at someone on the wrong side of the road and then fled the country.

Re: > signing a waiver reneging any claim against the US government for damages

They choose to continue the fiction that they're bound by contract law in order to prevent the uprising that would happen if the people found out the truth?

Your phone wakes up. Its assistant starts reading out your text messages. To everyone around. You panic. How? Ultrasonic waves

Re: LASERs

I believe so

Re: LASERs

It was Destin on smarter every day... in this video I think?

Not sure why you got a downvote, maybe an app developer is watching

Re: Stupid millennial pranks

I can confirm that newforest pony shite is flammable when dry, and very good for starting campfires (properly done of course, on gravel with nary a gorse bush around)

London's top cop dismisses 'highly inaccurate or ill informed' facial-recognition critics, possibly ironically

Me three, and it's available online to stream from certain sites... sigh. There goes the week

Icon: it's what REAL coppers have for lunch

Researchers trick Tesla into massively breaking the speed limit by sticking a 2-inch piece of electrical tape on a sign

Re: Sigh.

The exception to your correct post is the compulsive tailgater. I WILL slow down (if I can't stop to get the plonker off my arse) to a speed I consider less likely to result in injury to me when the moron inevitably hits me. I can and WILL even pull that to the point of actually stopping.

The above only applies (usually late at night) when one person is behind me only. If there's a queue behind me, then I am likely the problem.

Re: Sigh.

THIS. The biggest hazard on the UK's roads is people who don't use their damn mirrors. I have routinely been stuck behind (almost always old) drivers with their damn door mirrors on their little car folded in. Maybe when they passed their tests mirrors hadn't yet been invented? (usually indicators don't work either).

Causing unnecessary holdups results in unsafe overtaking. It's not JUST the overtaking driver's fault. The idiot pootling along at 25 under the limit is at least 50% responsible for not pulling over.

Re: Sigh.

Very strange, I learned in 2008 (I was 34, but had never NEEDED to drive before, it was for my then other half's motability wagon). I was told to ALWAYS apply the handbrake at traffic lights and select neutral. Otherwise a slip of the foot could result in lurching into oncoming traffic. And I was allowed to use the handbrake on the hill start too! Passed first time, thanks to an accommodating examiner. He KNEW one set of lights in the area was programmed for a ridiculously short amber time, and used them to check my emergency stop!

Re: Sigh.

Ah so you've met WAZE? Took me down a 60mph dirt track filled with muddy potholes and tractors, instead of the 50mph section of road it was avoiding. I gained about 200 new grey hairs on that trip. That's when I started second guessing it. (its prior record of shaving minutes off a journey was quite good)

Re: Sigh.

As a driver of 4 wheeled vehicles only now (used to be a pedal biker before i got fat and old though), i can attest to the veracity of 'don't notice them'. Hence the 'think bike' campaigns.

It's the same effect as that famous experiment where you count the baskets scored by 2 basketball teams, and completely don't notice the gorilla that stops and waves at you. As a car driver, you're mostly going to be looking for cars, 2 headlights etc... I nearly pulled into a biker once, I managed to hit reverse and get back out of the junction before he hit me. Shook both of us up. Since then, I look twice... once automatically, and the second time to actually LOOK. It still surprises me how often there's something there that i didn't see first time.

Re: Sigh.

Oh yes, THIS... TITSUP

Totally Inability To See Useful Prompts

Duped into running bogus virus scans at Office Depot? Dry your eyes with a small check from $35m settlement

Simply take the rest of the refund by shoplifting

Ever had a script you just can't scratch? Excel on the web now has just the thing

Re: Call me a luddite and downvote me baby

I agree with this entirely. My boss even calls me 'worst case scenario' when doing demand calcs for electrical installations or the equations for surge protectors. Because it prevents callbacks and makes for happy customers (users in IT land)

"Hoping" is an odd way of spelling 'omfg they did it again'

Call me a luddite and downvote me baby

But internet is NOT UBIQUITOUS, especially on mobile devices, which are the goto even for many professionals when using office type apps. (and now i see why the goto statement was deprecated in BASIC).

It is possible, even in London, to find a coffee shop with no internet access. (the CLOUD wifi crashed and 5G? how about 1G... sorry we stopped that in '97)

But all you wanted to do was look up something you KNOW you have seen on that device before.

The CLOUD (which i still maintain is named because some idiot marketwat misinterpreted those networking diagrams that used a cloud symbol for the Internet) is a BACKUP for your LOCAL STORAGE/APPLICATIONS. geez

OK, which Dombås stuffed Windows 10 to bursting at Swedish flatpack flinger?

Re: "Relationship-ending"

Also depending on the grade, heat may allow corrosion to start.. and once it starts... it's going to continue

Re: "Relationship-ending"

"If you have experience with alternative suppliers (of self-assembly stuff), you realise how well they actually do."

1 million times this. The stuff's never pre-broken, the instructions are a doddle, and you can buy Swedish meatballs while there. (not forgetting the jam!)

You'll never select all and mark as read again after this tale of peril... Oh, who are we kidding? Of course you will

Re: needing to haul together on a rope to remove a ferrous tool

"field day". I see what you did there

At last, the fix no one asked for: Portable home directories merged into systemd

Indeed, and that use case would be my colleague's work laptop. Which is itself, oddly enough, portable. Thus not requiring this idiocy

Boris celebrates taking back control of Brexit Britain's immigration – with unlimited immigration program

Re: Good, good.

Ah my country isn't done for. My country is the EU.

The little england is done for. And i have popcorn