Posts by RobThBay

Don't want to get run over by a Ford car? There's a Bluetooth app for that

Re: This years new Ford Ranger!!!

Plus, it'll probably be a subscription based service.

Grand Theft Auto 6 maker confirms source code, vids stolen in cyber-heist

Re: Should, if anything, enhance their business

The other thing lazy non-engineers say is.... don't worry, hardware is always getting faster.

Re: confidential data for Grand Theft Auto 6 has been stolen.

Bubblesort :)

There's a term I haven't heard in decades.

Keeping printers quiet broke disk drives, thanks to very fuzzy logic

Plugged air filter

Ahh... the good old days with Winchester drives.

We had a customer that decided to renovate part of their office which included replacing a bunch drywall. A few days later I get a call....your computer isn't working.

It turns out the air filter on the drive had become plugged with drywall dust resulting in a serious headcrash and I had to replace the fixed platter. No airflow to support the heads flying slightly above the disk's surface created an interesting circular pattern on the platter.

I still have that platter.

Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth II – Britain's first high-tech monarch

Re: ta ta Liz

We've had forever stamps in Canada (a place just north of The Land of the Free) for a long time as well.

You can never have too many backups. Also, you can never have too many backups

10 meg CDC Hawk hard drive.

I remember having to do backups the same way back in the mid 80's. We were using a Control Data Hawk hard drives with the same 5 fixed / 5 removable configuration.

I always did the backups when no one was around so there was no chance of distraction and forgetting where I was in the backup process.

It was always interesting going through security when I would have to fly somewhere with one of those 5meg (14") cartridges as carry on.

Ahhh.... the good old days.

NASA builds for keeps: Voyager mission still going after 45 years

Re: Spacetime

Bbc... great idea!

Russian military uses Chinese drones and bots in combat, over manufacturers' protests

Re: This is something that needs paying attention

You might want to have a look at DraganFly and Drone Delivery Canada. They both have heavy lift drones with long range capabilities. The range is even further if the drone is on a one way trip.

General Motors charges mandatory $1,500 fee for three years of optional car features

Re: Dealerships are doing this too

Nitrogen in car tires. Some marketing twit probably got a huge bonus for dreaming that one up.

The nitrogen fad seems to have (finally) vanished around here.

US Space Force deploys robot dogs at Cape Canaveral base

Re: The base in Florida?

Or a robot orange guy aka trump?

Where its MAGA hat?

I paid for it, that makes it mine. Doesn’t it? No – and it never did

I bought Photoshop CS4 years ago and needed to reinstall it recently.

It wouldn't register my serial number, so I called Adobe and asked what's going on?

They said..... oh, the activation servers were old and we decided to scrap them.

I asked... so now what do I do? The helpful idiot offered to sign me up for their new subscription based Photoshop.

I later found an Adobe support site which had full unlocked copies of CS4 (with all updates) ready for downloading.

What bunch of arse holes!

Canadian ISP Rogers falls over for hours, takes out broadband, cable, cellphones

From an "expert"

One of the "expert" talking head guests on the news last night said..... they should have backup systems....like using paper....

She went on and on and actually said nothing.

NOBODY PRINT! Selfless hero saves typing pool from carbon catastrophe

Re: With carbon copy mentioned right at the start...

Exactly what I was thinking LOL

Sony responds to inflation with $3,700 gold-plated 'Walkman'

Re: Oxygen free

Probably only limited by the number of twits with money.

Hmm... oxygen free.... you could claim the music sounds purer, because the soundwaves aren't getting disbursed by those pesky oxygen atoms. LOL

RAD Basic – the Visual Basic 7 that never was – releases third alpha

Re: Xojo

I started using PowerBasic user before it was called PowerBasic. It started out as TurboBasic from Borland.

Ahhh... the good old days.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba makes 9 datacenter energy patents available

Chinese patents ?

Since when does China care about patents?

Take this $15m and make us some ultra-energy-efficient superconductor chips, scientists told

Re: Déjà vu

Why not put it in orbit? The James Web telescope is operating at these supercold temps.

The next problems would be power and data transfer rates.

Not to dis your diskette, but there are some unexpected sector holes

One of our sales guys used to tell customers to handle 8" floppies very carefully. The info on the disk might get scrambled if the disk was dropped or mishandled. The data "bits" could slide out of place with any sudden movement.

LOL

The good old days.

Cybercriminals do their homework for latest banking scam

Hmmm...

I had something like this happen last Thursday.

My wife was transferring some money from our chequing account and the balance dropped below $100. A little while later a text shows up on my phone saying "....Chq Acct ***1234 balance is below threshold amt. Charges may apply. Review and deposit $ if req'd. Std msg rates apply. Txt HELP=help|STOP=stop."

Clues that it was a fake notice.

1. The account doesn't have a minimum threshold.

2. The bank wouldn't use short forms like chq, acct, $, amt, std and msg.

3. We don't keep very much money in that account, it often drops below $100 and this sort of message has never appeared before.

I admit the text did catch me off guard for a few seconds and I can see how some people would fall for it.

Rivals aren't convinced by Microsoft's one-click default browser change

Re: Infuriating

I switched to the ESR version a couple years ago because I was also getting tired of stupid "improvements & shiny new features".

A recent "improvement" that appeared in the ESR version replaced the always useful print preview with something that hides all the options (which pages, how many copies,etc) in new & improved submenus.

RIP: Creators of the GIF and TRS-80

Re: TRS-80 expansion interface

I worked at Radio Shack after school in the late 70's. Yup, returns came out of store sales.

Toshiba reveals 30TB disk drive to arrive by 2024

I remember hearing comments like that.... now I feel old. :)

Meta says it's building world's largest AI supercomputer out of Nvidia, AMD chips

...It basically means we humans can become quite IMMORTAL barring accidents!...

Ahhh, accidents like becoming a dinosaur's lunch.

Tesla disables in-car gaming feature that allowed play while MuskMobiles were in motion

In vehicle training

Playing Grand Theft Auto while doing GTA. Sounds perfect.

Canadian charged with running ransomware attack on US state of Alaska

federal enforcers

That's the first time I've heard the RCMP being called federal enforcers. Sounds pretty good, eh.

Sweden asks EU to ban Bitcoin mining because while hydroelectric power is cheap, they need it for other stuff

Re: I second that request.

I found this site the other day.... bitfarms.com

Their average cost to mine one bitcoin is an eye opener... $6,900USD!

What a massive waste of energy.

Giant Japanese corporations to launch bank-backed digital currency

Here's a shocker....

According to bitfarms (https://bitfarms.com/) it costs them $6,900USD to process 1 bitcoin.

International Space Station fires rockets to dodge chunk of destroyed Chinese satellite

Re: Misleading headline!

I'd forgotten that show. Thanks for the reminder.

140,000-plus drivers sent $60m in compensation checks after Amazon 'stole their tips'

Tax time

Now that the gubbermint knows about these payments, it probably won't be long before the tax demons show up wanting their share of the goodies.

Just imagine the tax bill some of those poor buggers are going to get hit with, especially that driver who's getting $28,000.

Zuckerberg wants to create a make-believe world in which you can hide from all the damage Facebook has done

Nothing new

This whole meta-crap sounds famiiar.... oh yeah, Bruce Willis in Surogates.

Sovereignty? We've heard of it. UK government gives contract to store MI5, MI6 and GCHQ's data to AWS

Re: "store their secret files in the AWS cloud"

Don't forget about spectre.

This setup reminds of the previous Jame Bond film where the intelligence services were going to house their data in the cloud.

Hmmm... did the JB writers know this plan was in the works??

Boots on Moon in 2024? NASA OIG says you better moonwalk away from that date, because suits ain't ready

Re: Nasa priority

Tall and very wide.

Facebook rendered spineless by buggy audit code that missed catastrophic network config error

No ad income for HOURS -- OMG!

How will Emperor Mark survive?

Windows 11 in detail: Incremental upgrade spoilt by onerous system requirements and usability mis-steps

Re: "design paradigms from those devices could successfully carry over into a new Start"

The company further explains that "every glyph in our system icon font has been redesigned to embrace a softer geometry and more modern metaphors."

I'm guessing the little darlings spent more time ...embracing softer geometry and more modern metaphors... than doing anything useful.

WTH is "more modern"? Will next weeks font tweek be called "even more modern"?

What if Chrome broke features of the web and Google forgot to tell anyone? Oh wait, that's exactly what happened

Re: firefox

That's why I'm using the ESR release of Firefox. You get the security updates and none of the new & improved "features".

Pretend starship captain to take trip in real space capsule

Yeoman

Will Yeoman Rand be along for the ride?

Airbus to help build Mexican Moon-mining automata

MSA?

Mexico has a space agency?

We're all at sea: Navigation Royal Navy style – with plenty of IT but no GPS

Re: Reg units need not apply

Google "Gimli glider" in Canada.

Many years ago a 737 was enroute and ran low on fuel. The pilot ended up gliding into an old unused airport that was hosting drag car races at the time. The pilot was familiar with the Gimli airport because he used to fly gliders in that area.

Metric conversion error caused them to not load enough fuel.

Re: "two main reasons why the Royal Navy no longer uses [paper charts]"

If you can't do it yourself, how do you know the technology is giving you the right answers?....

Something like that happened at work quite a while ago. The boss was using Google to give him time and distance info between bus stops. I knew the numbers were wrong since I drove route on a regular basis.

One day I took a stopwatch and noted all the actual driving times between stops. I showed him my results and got told off for wasting time, he claimed my numbers were wrong because he used a computer and checked with Google.

That was the last time I tried to be helpful and schedules are still wrong.

UK funds hydrogen-powered cargo submarine to torpedo maritime emissions by 2050

Re: How stupid is this?

Sounds like something drug smugglers would fund.

DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats sue NYC for trying to permanently cap delivery fees

So why can't I order a meal for takeout and pay the same amount that the restaurant ends up with after dealing with a door dash order?

Intel's Mobileye unveils first 'production-grade fully electric self-driving vehicle,' partners with Sixt for Munich launch

A Johnny cab?

...claimed Johann "JJ" Jungwirth, Mobileye's vice-president for....

Does anyone recall when it was referred to as a JohnnyCab?

Rumors of satellite-comms-capable iPhone abound. The truth could be rather boring

13 or X3

Hmm... I wonder if Apple will really call it an iPhone 13? Or will they chicken and use X3 instead?

US govt calmly but firmly tells Blue Origin it already has a ride to the Moon's surface with SpaceX, thanks

Re: "NASA hopes to send astronauts to the Moon by 2023"

So it'll be a one way trip?

For a true display of wealth, dab printer ink behind your ears instead of Chanel No. 5

Re: Ditched inkjets

My ancient (from mid 90's) HP 6P is still going strong and I have 1 more unopened toner sitting on the shelf.

I guess I'll have replace the printer after I run out of toner.

Hubble, Hubble, toil and trouble: NASA pores over moth-eaten manuals ahead of switch to backup hardware

Re: Sounds Like...

Where's Elon's space Roadster these days?

Huawei hits the highway as Volkswagen signs to put 4G in 30 million vehicles

Hmmm.... didn't Huawei buy a bunch wireless tech patents (90?) from BlackBerry earlier this year?

‘Fasten your seat belts, raise your tray table, and disconnect your Bluetooth headsets from the entertainment unit’

by guaranteeing a slot in an overhead bin for every passenger...

Sounds like they're getting rid of the seats.

Will there be different size bins for big vs small passengers or are they using a one size fits all scheme?

Japan assembles superteam of aircraft component manufacturers to build supersonic passenger plane

Subaru and helicopters

Cool.... so my next Subaru might be a helicopter.

I wonder if a Subaru Bell 412EPX will still have the turbo hood scoop?