* Posts by PNGuinn

1940 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Mar 2014

Cops baffled by 'canal corpse' that turned out to be COCONUTS

PNGuinn
Go

Palm oil. @ Jim

You know, that's so corny I ought to press the Report Abuse button after upvoting....

PNGuinn
Go

Re: Hold your horses @ FB

Not to mention us enquiring minds.....

PNGuinn
Pirate

Re: Someone pulled it out?

"If there is any alien life, it will be found in a disused canal."

Fail. This is Gunchester. It's more the alien life on dry land you need to wory about. It crawled out ages ago.

Here's why Whittingdale kicked a subscription BBC into the future

PNGuinn
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Need an opt out

@MSK

Yes - Yesterday in Parliament - R4.

Icon because it would be funny if it wasn't to damn seriously sad.

PNGuinn
Flame

Re: "Other countries are bounding ahead"

@Dan

Methinks there's not a lot of difference between News and CBeebies these days. Not that I've ever watched Cbeebies. I'm just presuming that its a dumbed down version of "Listen with Mother".

PNGuinn
Mushroom

Re: Licence 'rewording" required?

There's a world of difference between putting the Beeb's internet - or part of it - behind a paywall and requiring a TV tax for watching "catch up" from anyone else.

I defy anyone to come up with a cast iron definition of what "catch up" is. My guess is that they'll not dare to limit it to the BBC website - that'd set a dangerous precedent.

AND how do you police it? Give the TV licencing nazis the right / obligation to snoop on what anyone does on the intertubes??

I can see how THAT would appeal to those who we elected to serve(?) us.

Alternative - You've got a computer / tab / phone / ithingie - your'e a CRIMINAL leaching off the BBC - Get a TV licence - per device, please (we'll just slip that one in while noone's looking) - PAY UP or go to PRISON you terrorist.

PNGuinn
FAIL

Re: Licence 'rewording" required? @ac

This is where it is all so silly.

If catchup is so much of a problem - put THAT on a subscription basis.

Microsoft sets end date on Windows 10 support. Hey, wait, WHAT?

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: Sorry @Winkipop

I'm afraid I read it as "Windows 10’s official end of support: October 14, 2015"

My first thought was "It'll last that long already?"

I wonder why?....

German police ARREST SQUIRREL for stalking woman

PNGuinn
Joke

Re: Releasing Grey Squirrels

"you are obliged to humanely dispatch it."

To whom, pray?

Timid minds NEED to know etc etc....

Science sub spots lost Revolutionary-era SHIPWRECK

PNGuinn
Coat

Re: Ship to wreck

??

I've been wrecking my brains trying to understand that comment....

Female blood-suckers zero in on human prey by smelling our breath

PNGuinn
Go

Re: another option

More what? Enquiring minds etc etc...

PNGuinn
Thumb Up

Re: So what's new here?

@Toltec

Hmmm - good Idea. Do you think that would be worth a substantial research grant?

I can think of a few bald Westminster Weasels we could experiment on...

Time for a brutal TELLY-OFF: Android TV versus Firefox OS

PNGuinn
WTF?

Re: The thing to remember about Smart TVs...

@Fungus

Yew 'ad STEAM? Luxury.

We 'ad t' modify bicycle 'an pedal like 'ek t' get t' disk spinnin' 'an if we got t' speed wrong 'an even one of t' 30 lines broke up our dad 'd.....

Kids of today...

PNGuinn
Coat

Re: The thing to remember about Smart TVs...

@ESME

Yup, a few of us will still remember the tvs of the '50s.

Live chassis (hopefully connected to neutral not line, but 2 pin plugs were the norm then).

Nice thin wood veneer plywood cabinet, foil lined inside and connected to chassis.

70 degree angle crt with aquadag graphite coating on the outside for EHT smoothing - hopefully also connected to chassis, and dirty great VDR at the top behind the screen between EHT and chassis for regulation. Dirty (and they always were!) great scan coils squidged around the end of the inch or so diameter neck, a couple of magnadur rings for focus, adjustable via a wacking great knob poking out the back of the set, (You should have seen the Advance K1 magnetiser that magnetised 'em in the first place), ion trap magnet twiddleable around the tube neck...

Concentric on/off volume and brightness (sometimes contrast) knobs on the left under the screen, Concentric turret tuner and fine tuner controls on the right. (Choose 2 out of 13 channels for BBC / ITV, you'd need the fine tuning knob at least once as the set warmed up) Most sets only had the coil strips fitted for the local channels - a move to another district was a service job to fit more strips.

300 mA heater chain.

Dirty great dropper resistor for ac or dc mains operation with tappings for 200V - 250V. (Handy when the valve emissions got a bit low - drop the tapping down 10 - 20 V or so to get a bit more out of the Line and Frame output valves and CRT. So what if it steamed a bit.)

A great line of twiddle pots down one side of the back to play with on a regular basis.

On an upmarket set you might get a spot wobble switch (on the back of course) to switch in a circuit which modulated the frame at 10 Mhz to give the appearance of 2 lines instead of 1 and make the 405 line picture seem softer.

If you were really well heeled you'd be able to afford a console model with castors underneath, possibly with a nice pair of doors. (Apart from a bigger speaker usually the same innards as the bog standard) Dad bought an old one for a couple of squid in the 60's, gutted it and converted it into a nice walnut cupboard for the hallway to keep the phone books and bill hook in

Lots and lots of somewhat unstable wax covered carbon resistors, wax covered capacitors, usually 0.1uF, where the wax decayed to a sticky oily substance covered with adhered dusty flock looking like sticky miniature rodents, all electrically leaky.

A strong smell of real mice if they had managed to chew a way through the cardboard back.

A few nice octal (could be Mazda Octal or Universal Octal - very slightly different sizes) valves - 1/2 wave HT rectum fryer, frame output, line output, which could (and did) go short circuit and cook their bases. Mmmm very warm bakalite. Some late 50's models were fitted with Selenium metal oxide HT rectifiers. If one of those brutes broke down and caught fire you'd be lucky to get the pong out of the house, let alone the set.

If you were really lucky you'd have an Ekco. Way better than the average picture, decent gated AGC, generally well made, BUT it had a wax insulated line output transformer with EHT overwind contained in a perspex frame with the EY86 EHT rectifier soldered to 3 metal bits on the top of the perspex. Now when that little lot caught fire....In case your'e wondering... the EY 86 was a B9A 9 pin base with a top cap anode and directly heated cathode. The heater was at EHT potential and driven by a few turns of well insulated overwind from the LOPT. The valve was connected to the 3 solder points by 3 bits of tinned copper wire twisted round the top cap and appropriate base pins. Yeah - it did fizz a bit in damp weather. I'll never know why they didn't use the wire ended EY51. Maybe the EY51 was Mullard only. The rest of the set was firmly Mazda. The EY86 may have had a Mazda equivalent fitted. Misspent Childhood memories fail...

Getting all nostalgic now... OK Nurse, I'm coming. May I have some of those pretty orange ones again today?

Did speeding American manhole cover beat Sputnik into space? Top boffin speaks to El Reg

PNGuinn
Coat

Re: No manhole covers involved @ Gaz

Err - would it be too rude to suggest you might need to go on a diet?

Thanks - its that nice slim one that doesn't quite fit.

Microsoft to Windows 10 consumers: You'll get updates LIKE IT or NOT

PNGuinn
Devil

Re: THE SKY IS FALLING!

Y'know, sometimes the tinfoil hat updates itself and bleeps at me to put it on...

This could be more effective than the great firewall of China.

TLA or FLA "We need to shut down the intertubz for security reazonz... can you release this autoupdate for uz - pretty pleaze?"

Or alternatively, - for the lulz of course - Johnny cracker accesses MS's systems and....

Or alternatively Johnny nation state cracker....

Or alternatively certain organisations with our safety and best interests at heart just walk in through one of their own back doors without asking....

PNGuinn
FAIL

Re: THE SKY IS FALLING! "maybe it's not the OS for you"

Quite. Has been the situation for quite some time - since W3.11 for workgroups was replaced with W95 in my not so humble opinion.

How low in the water has the ship to get before the rats start to leave?

PNGuinn
Mushroom

Re: I'll go for two months. @ DOM

Nah - far to good for 'em.

Make 'em eat their own dogfood.

PNGuinn
Mushroom

Sweepstake

Ill raise you 3 months or less....

This really is going to end well, I can see it.

A new game for windows users - Russan Roulette from Redmond, aka be a conscripted unpaid ms alpha tester. What fun!

Sixty-five THOUSAND Range Rovers recalled over DOOR software glitch

PNGuinn
Go

Re: As I've commented previously

Ah, yes - worn key and lock syndrome.

Began to happen to me on my old Austin 1100. Mind you, the 3 cwt of keys on the ring(s) attached to the car key probably didn't help much.

Did something about it (new key - not many pence cost) when the whole kaboodle fell out of the ignition driving through Barking one day.

Simple problem - simple solution.

Samsung to launch a Snapdragon 808-based clamshell smartphone

PNGuinn
Happy

Re: Long hinge...

GIMME!

Norks execute underperforming terrapin farm manager

PNGuinn
Coat

Re: Putting aside the absurdity of the punishment...

@@ Lester.

Hedgehog....

Mole.

Water rat.

Badger.

Stoat.

Weasel.

TOAD.

PNGuinn
Joke

Re: Just asking......

They seem to have more relevance than some of the pictures atop the articles.

Can we have a "WTF is the relevance to the article" icon please?"

PNGuinn
Joke

He went to school in Switzerland

So THAT'S why he's cookoo about terrapinz.

Let me PLUG that up there, love. It’s perfectly standaAAARGH!

PNGuinn
Flame

Re: Spurs @ MM

In theory, yes, but if you've seen as many inventive ways of accomplishing that objective while studiously breaking as many of the regs as possible...

There appear to be an army of "Electricians" out there whose skills I am unworthy to attempt to emulate. The best of them seem to be kitchen fitters.

As an aside - I well remember looking over a property many years ago with a view to doing a rewire. For some reason I knelt on the bend of the stairs and copped a belt off a carpet tack. It turned out that the tack had penetrated the insulation of a bit of bell wire which fed a 13 A double socket on the living room off a 30 A fuse. Earth? what do I need one of them for - it works. Oh well...

Icon for obvious reasons.

Assange™'s emotional plea for asylum in France rejected

PNGuinn
FAIL

Re: France... AC "No, that was deliberate"

You do realise that there is more to "that part of the population" than that part of the anatomy don't you?

PNGuinn
Flame

Re: France... @ DaveDaveDave

NO. In fact the exact opposite.

Rape is a particularly vile, perhaps the most vile assult a person can commit.

By all accounts the alledged act in question was completely consensual. The argument is over the use of a condom. If the law makes that rape then the law belittles a vile crime and the law is an ASS. Not to mention those who wrote the law.

I'm not saying what is claimed to have happened was ok - there are probabably a whole raft of laws on the statute book to deal with that.

What I am saying is that calling the alledged act in question rape, together with the kind of sentence envisioned (which marks it a a minor misdemenor) is totally inappropriate.

PNGuinn
Headmaster

Re: France... re: bass...

Bit of a balss up there somewhere methinks.

PNGuinn
Joke

Re: Even if.. @ BoB W

Simples.

1. Come out of the embassy backwards and start walking (backwards) towards Kent.

2. Try to get noticed by the Plod.

3. Mutter something about being confused after falling off the back of a lorry and wanting to claim political asylum.

4. Enjoy a good meal at the ststion and a luxury trip to Calais.

Reg hack survives world's longest commercial flight

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: BA, Bangalore to Boston with a 90 minute layover at T5

" For my own sanity I schedule a one or two day layover in Blighty and go see a corner I haven't seen before"

Slough?

PNGuinn
FAIL

Re: Polar Routes

Yeah, right.

Photos or I don't believe you.

What's black, sticky, and has just 8GB of storage?

PNGuinn
Unhappy

Re: @Grifter, Wtf. @ Shadow

History repeats like a dish fried in old fat.

The original EEE / Atom spec was borked, rumour has it, 'cos mikkysoft were terrified it'd give the Penguin a beakhold on the laptop market and thence.... So it was pitched as a small device for email and a bit of browsing etc. Shame ASUS did such a good job of the hardware. The Linux devices were actually far better specced than the Xpletive ones - 20 Gb storage on 2 ssds - a 16 GB one and a fast(er) 4 GB. That can, I gather be upgraded. Shame the memory can only go to 2 GB.

PNGuinn
Happy

Re: Wtf @ Salts

Or stuff something decent on it like a cut down Mint, Debian or even one of the Puppies.

I wonder how that Atom compares for grunt to the one in the asus EEE901? That's still a very credible little laptop even today.

I presume the new Atom is 64 bit? Then Mint or Debian dual booting with FatDog 64 on the microSD for in memory only computing.

MMM... an EEE in my pocket - I'll look into this one a little further. I wonder what the windows versions will fetch on Fleabay in a few months time?

Another day, ANOTHER Windows 10 build for us Insiders

PNGuinn
Trollface

Interesting wallpaper

Interesting wallpaper. Is that poor lassie running towards the water a beta tester in distress? Will the wnidows Nads experience drive YOU to want to drown yourself? Will there be penguins behind the rocks to save her?

Just waiting for the plankton to bite...

Rampaging fox terrorises rural sports club, victim sustains ‘tweaked groin’

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: Foxes generaly don't chase people @ J G I

That's a bloody small tin to squeeze a fox into. How do they manage to chase people after they have been corned? Enquiring minds etc etc...

Silly Google's Photos app labelled black people as gorillas

PNGuinn
Facepalm

And for the next SNAFU...

So... we have the big G panicing. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. QUICKLY.

Cue frantic tweaking of algorithms.

Cue over rapid adoption of fix.

Cue lots of pictures of Gorillas, Baboons etc catagorised as...

POPCORN!

Boffins set networking record with marathon 12,000 km fiber data run

PNGuinn

Re: So....how was it really tested?

Yup - I was wondering that. 7,456 miles of production cable wound around the lab or even the whole campus sounds somewhat impactical. And possibly slightly expensive.

So, unless it was a bank of reels of the fibre equivalent of 44 swg copper wire I wonder how they got their results. We need to see this repeated in a real life installation somewhere - not necessarily 7,456 miles but long enough to prove the concept.

It also raises a somewhat off topic question in my mind. I know very little about fibre optic cables. I gather they are a plastics material. I'm wondering how long they last - and does the light causes degradation (eg yellowing or an increase in opacity of the fibre)? If this can / does happen will increasing optical power significantly shorten the effective life of the cable?

KRAKKOOM! SpaceX Falcon supply mission to ISS EXPLODES minutes after launch

PNGuinn
Alien

Re: 3d farms

According to a radio 4 prog I was listening to while driving up the A1 in the wee small hours of last monday morning It's already been done. In Chicago using hydroponics. (The USian factory vegggie farmer called it by a different name so it appears that we have another difference between English and American.)

He and the BEEB were enthusing about not wasting good land for growing food and the factory farm being right by the point of consumption, and saving space by growing veg in multiple levels.

Beeb were particularly taken with LEDs being used for the lighting.

Mind was 90 per cent on the road, 10 percent on the proggy But ISTR that it was in some disused disco building or something.

Off topic - or maybe not if your tin hat is tingling.

PNGuinn
Coat

Re: Motoring along...

I am given to understand that an excess of cabbage can easily cause a severe overpressure event.

Thanks - must dash - mine's the one with the activated charcoal pills in the pocket.

Q: What's black and white and read all over? A: E-reader displays

PNGuinn
Happy

OK - Here's the deal.

1. At least A4 screen - ideally A4 long by Septic paper wide. MUST be reflective ie liquid paper or equivalent).

Most of the documentation I read is A4 / Letter. My eyes are getting old and I don't want to squint through powerful glasses a few inches from the screen or have to scroll around a tiny screen.

2. Something robust enough to take the daily knocks of working life.

3. Plenty of internal storage for the reader - say 128 Mb minimum.

4. Slot for an SDHC card.

5. Ethernet connectivity.

2. Able to load open formats eg pdf, odf etc.

3. A device **I** own - I don't take kindly to being the product.

4. Decent battery life - weeks - and AA / AAA batteries with the option to use either NiMh or alkaline cells.

5. Easy in situ charging giving me the choice of changing batteries or plugging in.

6. At least a couple of USB sockets and a small trackball - I HATE trackpads.

7. A matt screen is essential, no need for colour, 600 dpi would be nice.

I'm sure this sort of thing would have applications for the partially sighted as well as students and working engineers.

For bonus points an extra processor, normally off for power conservation, which can be brought in to give access to a browser, office package etc with small virtual keyboard so that the brute could be used as an occasional laptop substitute. SIM socket for 3G might be nice but I'd probably use a USB dongle.

Oh, and of course, running open souce software and os.

If I was being silly I could add camera and the ability to make calls, but frankly, apart from the hilarity of holding an A4 device to my ear...nothing like this could beat the 3x optical zoom 8 MP compact camera that lives with me at work. Would be useful to display / record images from a snake camera though!

Abort, abort! Metal-on-metal VIOLENCE as Google's robo-car nearly CRASHES

PNGuinn
Trollface

Re: A World's first: an Audi that aborts a lane change. @TRT

Upvoted - but downvoted because you were driving a Pious

PNGuinn
Coat

Re: FURY ROAD!!!

I seem to recall that Mr Python had a problem with killer Morris Minors. It may have been associated with the advent of killer sheep and large holes in the wainscotting....

If my memory is correct this might be important information.

Thanks. Mine's the one with the book of scripts in the pocket. Must go - eels in the hovercraft again you know.

Hated Care.data scheme now 'unachievable', howls UK.gov watchdog

PNGuinn
Stop

@ Alister

"Hated Care.data scheme now 'unachievable', howls UK.gov watchdog.."

So - full steam ahead then I presume.

After all, it's not the daft gubbermint who's got to pay for it. WE the poor bloody taxpayers will have to pay for our own private data being spaffed.

Democracy?

Google IS listening: Binary blob banished from Chromium build

PNGuinn
FAIL

Listening?

"Builds of Google Chrome will still download this module by default. It will not be activated unless the user explicitly flips a preference to do so."

Hmm... Listening to WHOM?

There's this little button labelled in black on a black background, which, if you press it, ignoring the clear warnings in the execute only file called beware of the leopard in the locked directory...

So just possibly I'm being awfully paranoid and frightfully unfair, but no real change then I presume.

Microsoft's new mission statement: It's all about doing MAGICAL THINGS

PNGuinn
Mushroom

What a load of 'Nads!

See title.

Get your WELLIES to MARS: Red Planet reveals its FROZEN BOTTOM

PNGuinn
Joke

Re: Wet for 1.5Billion years @ the 7th tom

"lahars move with great ease - and cutting power."

They have power cuts on Mars? Colour me shocked! Lahars knicking the copper I presume.

BT: Let us scrap ordinary phone lines. You've all got great internet, right?

PNGuinn
Mushroom

OK, so the USO is outdated...

I fully agree that the Universal Service Obligation has been outmoded for a very long time, and URGENTLY needs updating in this internet age.

BT, as the dominant telco, has great advantages, and with that go great responsibilities. It's high time the USO was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. It should REQUIRE universal provision of a certain level of broadband. At the moment I would suggest a MINIMUM of 20 Mb per line. At all times. This should cover most current domestic / some small commercial needs.

Whether higher speeds should be specified for larger enterprises is another question altogether.

The problem is that the bandwidth needed seems to be rising expotentially. Since provision is expensive and time consuming (But I refuse to accept so expensive and time consuming as BT seem to be making it) someone is going to have to very accurately determine the likely demand say some 10 years ahead and put that rolling figure into the obligation. Good luck with getting that one right every time.

However, a reputable and experienced telco, faced with suitably severe penalties for non compliance should be able to ......

OFFCON? I think not. I wouldn't trust them to correctly determine their corporate toilet paper requirements for next week (or maybe last week).

Now, IF we can get that all sorted, and everyone has suitable broadband provision at a reasonable cost, AND we can get the reliability up to the the levels of POTS (engineering exercise) AND provide a compatible POTS type service over broadband (failsafe from local power failure - another engineering exercise), by all means lets talk about retiring the existing POTS service.

If not, BT/ Kingston - go stick your head(s) in a duct.

Basically, there are two issues here:

1. The urgent need to make usable broadband provision part of the USO - which I'm sure BT are not wanting in any shape or form.

2. If, (when 1. is satisfactorily achieved) we can yank out all the copper before the pikeys do.

Kamikaze Rosetta probe to ram comet it's chased for billions of miles

PNGuinn
Flame

Re: Rosetta is cool?

"In space, stay in the shade and heat radiation means you'll eventually cool down to the background level of near absolute zero."

Which is why you NEED that nice warm cup of tea. Only an idiot would pour it down his / her pants.

Samsung caught disabling Windows Update to run its own bloatware

PNGuinn
Happy

Re: I'd hazard a guess

Nooo...

Build your own box (or if a lapdog choose the hardware carefully).

"Buy" a copy of Debian - It's a tad cheaper than windows. Spend the dosh on the hardware.

Install same.

Install traditional init and remove systemd.

Pin as reqiured.

Browse and install software as desired.

Job Done.

Enjoy.

Stealing secret crypto-keys from PCs using leaked radio emissions

PNGuinn
Stop

re pitta bread / farmhouse loaf @ Steve

ARRRGH! My teeth!