* Posts by PNGuinn

1940 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Mar 2014

Send up a satellite to zap space junk if you want Earth's orbit to be clean, say boffins

PNGuinn
Coat

Re: It all seems a bit far fetched, to me

So, if they sent up a thingie to p*ss on the unwanted object, you're suggesting they'd p*ss off everybody?

Maybe they should launch a mini olympic sized swimming pool. People probably p*ss in them all the time.

Thanks, mine's the smelly waterproof wetsuit on the end peg

Attempt to clean up tech area has shocking effect on kit

PNGuinn
Boffin

Re: Why is it always the cleaners?

"All was fine until it arrived at the fab and the brown coat in stores took each one out of their ultra clean package to count them."

Not static, but reminds me ...

We made a bit of kit where an input was protected by a, IIRR, a 10 mA 20 mm glass fuse. The entire batch just through manufacturing had all the fuses dud. As were all the replacements out of stores. Goods in were accused of not testing the fuses. Swore black's blue and several other colours that they'd tested every one on receipt.

Muggins got detailed to investigate. "Now love, we've got a problem with these fuses - can you show me exactly how you test them?"

Turns out someone had provided a bit of test gear with a meter that drew some 100 mA. Take fuse out of packet, put it across tester, meter needle kicks slightly, fuse good. Put fuse in "Tested and OK" box. Repeat.

Explaining why that was not a good idea was quite difficult.

World's oldest URL – fragments 73,000 years old – discovered in cave

PNGuinn
Coat

I call prehistoric b***sh*t

It's a date. and far more recent than those daft paleoarchiowhatsits think.

1601. Or maybe 1608.

If you disagree, find me the next rock with the remaining digits on.

Far better they waste their time worrying how and when and why ....

NURSE! My coat's coming untied at the back!

Python joins movement to dump 'offensive' master, slave terms

PNGuinn
Boffin

Re: that's the point where things start to go downhill.

How about

BOFH / PFY?

Chromebooks gain faff-free access to Windows file shares via Samba

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: I don't know why...

"They would, but no-one has come up with a good name for it yet. "

How about Goolie - as in a kick in the Googles.

Dust off that old Pentium, Linux fans: It's Elive

PNGuinn
Linux

Re: That's nice ...but why bother?

"It's based on an older version of Debian".

Not quite old enough unfortunately. That's when poor old Debian got itself fully encumbered with systemd. Wake me up if the next version migrates to Devuan and becomes systemd free.

I'd give it a whirl then for sure.

Microsoft gives Windows 10 a name, throws folks a bone

PNGuinn
Pint

"That went out the window for me"

I see what you did there - have one of these!

PNGuinn
Trollface

LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need?

Clippy?

Ex-UK comms minister's constituents plagued by wonky broadband over ... wireless radio link?

PNGuinn
Trollface

@teebe

"we’re doing all we can be arsed to do to resolve the matter."

"we’re doing all we CAN'T be arsed to do to resolve the matter."

There - FIFY

PNGuinn
Flame

Whats the fab radio, Normende perhaps

Telefunken, 1960 vintage, or something very like it.

Evidenced by the lace tablecloth, the little girl's clothes and the rapt excitement on her face at the latest Shiny.

My parents bought one or something very like it in Trinidad in 1960 so my Dutch grandmother could listen to Hilversum on Short Wave.

Pseudo stereo from PU input if you forked out for an external tinny speaker. No stereo decoder on FM. Lots of valves to cook their way through a paxolin pcb. EM84 magic eye tuning indicator. Dodgy push button controls, switches soldered to said pcb. Glass tuning dial which, i said amongst other things, in large script, if I remember correctly "Stereo, Allegro, HiFi ..."

Best german propaganda on steroids.

>> What the valves did to the pcb

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: A microwave link to populated areas?

Ah, Swindon.

The Slough of the West.

IBM slaps patent on coffee-delivering drones that can read your MIND

PNGuinn
Boffin

Re: So, Wally works for IBM?

Re prior Art:

Nah - that shirley goes back to the previous century, and the the nutrimatic vending machine.

You know, when HAL still knew a thing or two.

Question - what's more broken - IBM or the US patent system?

Boffins build a NAZI AI – wait, let's check that... OK, it's a grammar nazi

PNGuinn
Go

I'll refrain from further comment ...

... Until the more upright netizens have had a chance to train it and turn it into a really intelligent ... potty mouthed, racist, bigoted ....

Yay! Tay mk ii.

Plz canz we av an Clippy wiv ai's??

Now that's a dodgy Giza: Eggheads claim Great Pyramid can focus electromagnetic waves

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: Electric Ka

"Almost certainly they are designed to propel the occupant's ka to paradise"

Could that be where his Muskyness got the idea of propelling a Tesla into spaaace?

PNGuinn
Boffin

Re: "building material with the properties of an ordinary limestone is evenly distributed"

Brian - Shirley that would have to be a frictionless spherical cow to minimise RF attenuation. No?

PNGuinn
Facepalm

Re: Relieving Chambers

Wouldn't having the Relieving Chambers above the Burial Chamber tend to make it a bit damp?

PNGuinn
Black Helicopters

Re: Correlation, causation, and all that @ Phil O'Sophical

BBBut, 200kc/s, BBC home service.

Any fule kno that's run by aliens. Wot more proof d'ya need??

We're all doomed, I tell 'ee.

PNGuinn
Alien

Re: That's what they want you to think...42

Do you mean 42 mice or 42 Martians? Be precise, man

Perhaps Marvin visited that place once ... Perhaps all that concentrated RF blew all the diodes down his right hand side ... Perhaps the Total Perceptive Vortex is somewhere down there ...

We need far more serious research into this important subject.

Enquiring minds ....

ps ... I'll bet the mice were furious.

UK.gov: New London courthouse will focus on crimes of a cyber nature

PNGuinn
Pint

Ministry of silly walks

I was a bit flummoxed at first when I followed that linkey, finding myself in Salisbury square looking in the opposite direction, at a rather nice well proportioned edifice, which from the sight of the passers by was the home of the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Have one of these - it's Friday tomorrow. >>

GPU fairy visits Huawei owners, leaves graphics boost under phones

PNGuinn
Black Helicopters

So, the Real Question is:

What additional data is the phone going to secretly going to slurp, and who is it going to be sent to (at the phoner's expense, of course)?

Answers on a postcard, please, to ....

Google weeps as its home state of California passes its own GDPR

PNGuinn
Mushroom

NO

""We think there's a set of ramifications that's really difficult to understand," said a Google spokesperson, adding: "User privacy needs to be thoughtfully balanced against legitimate business needs.""

Que?

WHAT IS IT ABOUT F*&@@I*G NO THAT YOU DON'T QUITE UNDERSTAND???

Drug cops stopped techie's upgrade to question him for hours. About everything

PNGuinn
Megaphone

Re: It's a sound salvation.

That's the problem when you lie to your kids.

Any fule kno the're for washing your socks in.

IBM memo to staff: Our CEO Ginni is visiting so please 'act normally!'

PNGuinn
Black Helicopters

Bull

I remember reading a book some time ago about the British Military in India during the war.

I recall an incident one camp, ISTR it was an RAF base. Now the Raf have never been very good at bull, and the base was happily functioning as well as could be expected under bureaucratic constraints.

Then one of the big cheeses was scheduled to visit. Much wasted effort on spit and polish, importing some coal to whitewash etc.

Come the great day, visitor expected at 2.30 pm sharp.

At 2.00 pm, ancient Indian gentleman driving even more ancient bullock cart loaded to the brim with yet more ancient manure arrives at the main gate and will NOT move.

Eventually he manages to communicate in broken English that he is responding to a telephoned order from the base ".... cartload of bullshi* to be delivered to the main entrance at 2.00 pm SHARP".

It was not recorded what happened next.

>> And the flies, remember the flies. We need a Bullshi* icon.

Meet the Frenchman masterminding a Google-free Android

PNGuinn
Childcatcher

It needs a catchy name ....

A new os for the paranoid.

It needs a friendly, catchy name.

Easy to remember, easy to pronounce.

Preferably 2 syllables.

A human sounding name, like Marvin?

>> Won't someone think of the diodes?

The chances of anything really new coming from storage are a million to one, but still they come

PNGuinn
Mushroom

Dell has partnered with Sony Pictures

Bye bye Dell then. Another one off the list.

>>sony

As Tesla hits speed bump after speed bump, Elon Musk loses his mind in anti-media rant

PNGuinn
Unhappy

@ Kieran and Jellied Eel

"So as Kieran says..

Journalism is about what is happening now. As in today. If something happened literally yesterday, a news editor will question whether it is worth a story. This creates a distorted sense of what is real"

Which is a large part of the problem. More and more we want our drip feed of sensation, and we want it now. We're not really interested, don't want to think and are easily bored. We get the "journalism" we want. Shallow, ill thought out puff pieces. Don't think, move along now, nothing to see here.

Sometimes a story "gets legs" and the press go on and on ... and tell us very little. When that Malaysian airliner disappeared it was headline news for days, to very little newsworthy effect.

El Reg kept sthum for a couple of weeks, then produced a well researched piece on the subject. That provoked a flurry of commentardery - I had no idea how many pilots were on here - and a very illuminating discussion.

I'm afraid that just wouldn't happen today in the mass media.

I'm in the uk. The Hawaiian volcano made the news briefly. Old news. No followup, If I want to know, I've got to search myself. Sad.

If Journalism and the press don't take a lead to raise standards, who will? Who will pay?

PNGuinn
Happy

@ C

Two small points regarding this august publication:

1. There's a certain stubborn doggedness on the part of el reg not just to "bite the hand that feeds IT" but to sink its claws in and to rip the flesh off to get to the bone when necessary.

2. The same applies to the commentards. We have the privilege of having some extremely intelligent and knowledgeable folks on here, who aren't afraid to rip a journo's piece to shreds if necessary. Doing that doesn't mean being nasty or ripping into the poor guy himself, and sometimes folks do go too far.

The end result is that we can often get a wide ranging discussion started which is both illuminating and instructive. Real journalism needs to be accurate and thought provoking, and the writer of the piece needs to be accountable and challengable by the readers.

That puts considerable responsibility on the publication, the journo(s) AND the readership.

Oh, and a good sense of humour helps.

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: Technically, the media is plural

Look, if people can annoy me by saying that "data" is plural, I can annoy them by suggesting that data are plural.

GNOMEs beat Microsoft: Git Virtual File System to get a new name

PNGuinn
Mushroom

Off topic (slightly), but

Wouldn't it be lovely if Slurp were to embrace systemd, extend it and then ....

Ooh, look a m$ cloud with a silver lining.

One can dream. Some things just deserve to be together. Like turds and puke. And guess who's got plenty of experience with the polishing duster.

US regains supercomputer crown from Chinese, for now

PNGuinn
Trollface

Boring.

Wake me when it deduces the from first principles the existence of 43.33364528 perfectly smooth spherical elephants.

Oh, sorry - the processor isn't made by Intel - missed that bit.

Ok, wake me when it deduces that the answer is .... 42.

Astronaut took camera on spacewalk, but forgot SD memory card

PNGuinn
FAIL

Re: We can send men to the moon

Yup, there's hope for humanity yet.

PNGuinn
Coat

shiny!

Personally, with a new bit of shiny to play with, I'd

1. Check the bloody batteries are suitable and fitted / charged.

2. Check the recording media for size and fitting.

3. Try the bloody thing out and get to understand how to use it.

4. TURN OFF it's ability to phone home with all my precious data. (Even in spaaace you can't be too careful!)

5. RTFM

>> Thanks, it's the one with the tinfoil lined space helmet in the pocket.

Boffins bash out bonkers boost for batteries

PNGuinn
Go

Re: Energy

Hmmmm.

Personally, I'd far rather walk around with a well capped fullish tin of petrol in my pocketses than one of these new fangled buggers. Petrol, handled properly, is actually pretty safe.

YMMV. Your new shiny just might not go critical on you.

PNGuinn
Boffin

Re: Two improvements

"maybe there is some cold fusion involved too?"

Aah, so THAT's why they need to keep the temperature down.

PNGuinn
Holmes

Re: Diode or Storage @ Chris G

Quite easily (in theory) if you ignore the energy needed to generate / control the magnetic field?

And to pressure lubricate the dancing snakes?

How much snake oil is needed to lubricate the hide of a perfectly smooth spherical elephant?

That could be seriously expensive - https://www.tradecounterdirect.com/product/monument-tools-snake-oil-1-litre_1-litre.html

PNGuinn
Mushroom

Re: Diode or Storage

"Unobtanium. That's what's missing. And maybe a soupcon of expensivium, too."

Don't forget bulletproof tinfoilhatium for when the new improved lithiumbombiun goes bangbium!

There are already enough safety issues around with current technology that make me yearn for the durability and operational safety of nicads.

Open justice FTW! El Reg fought the law – and El Reg won

PNGuinn
Megaphone

Re: Winning a headline

IT WAS THE VULTURE WOT WON IT.

c'MON, 'OW DID YOU miss that one THEN?

>> add virtual beer icon.

Julian Assange said to have racked up $5m security bill for Ecuador

PNGuinn
Coat

Re: Upvoting own posts

"Is that akin to smelling your own farts?

I know some of you do this"

So How many commentards smell ....

Enquiring minds etc ....

Ida thunk it'd be a more suitable question for an erudite tech site such as wot this is to enquire as to how many commentards have, and on how many occasions, successfully LIT a phart. ....

No, don't bother, I'll get it myself.

PNGuinn
Happy

Re: Suing would backfire, badly

Courts use video links ...

But they've cut off his 'hinternet access.

Everyone say "Aaaaaah"

PNGuinn
Joke

Re: @Florida

"He's eating their food, he's using their Internet connection and apparently he has no problems at all just pissing over..."

Perhaps he should learn to use their toilet as well ...

Oh, sorry, tldr.

PNGuinn
Angel

Re: Heroes

"... screwed god knows how many liberal luvvies out of the money they stumped up for his bail ..."

So, he's not all bad then.

America's forgotten space station and a mission tinged with urine, we salute you

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: Swallowing floating globules of water

Methinks it'd be a brave man (or woman) to swallow any globules of "water" aboard anything designed or built by NASA.

Bowel down: Laxative brownies brought to colleague's leaving bash

PNGuinn
IT Angle

co-workers ...

...or cow orkers?

German IKEA trip fracas assembles over trolley right of way

PNGuinn
Go

Re: Bring it ON! Robot Punch ups.

More like "Ow! you've just hit all the diodes down my right side. I'm so depressed."

PNGuinn
FAIL

"Only reason I did know was that I answered a call thinking it was a test call and found a customer on the other end. Managed to get them transferred to an agent and then logged out rapidly. I've no idea how many people I hung up on.."

Not nearly enough. Have you no conscience?

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: "Don't understand the down votes."

Ahh by "Cycling" and "Motorsport" you mean velodrome events and the likes of F1.

Look on the bright side. At least that keeps them and the spectators from blocking up the roads and footways / verges.

PNGuinn
Holmes

Re: Smiles in the aisles

So watching a bunch of overpaid prima donna's push a plastic pig's bladder round a patch of artificial grass is considered sport then?

FIFY.

Navy names new attack sub HMS Agincourt

PNGuinn
Devil

Naming things

"I wonder if anyone else here feels that naming our latest nuclear sub after a famous French defeat by the English might not be entirely diplomatic in the middle of Brexit negotiations?"

Would you rather we called the bloody thing the M'hem Therese?

Scissors cut paper. Paper wraps rock. Lab-made enzyme eats plastic

PNGuinn
Boffin

Re: tinworm

Nah, that only eats tinfoil hats.

You mean its omnivorous cousin the metalmaggot.

NASA's TESS mission in distress, Mars Express restart is a success

PNGuinn
Coat

Re: Whenever I think of something getting Oriented

"I think of facing towards Mecca. I don't know if that is a good thing for a satellite."

Bingo!

Ok I'm going ....