gets its claws into everything
I de-installed LMI years ago...
some time after I was doing registry cleanup... couldn't believe the number of logmein hits I got when searching.
Posts by Captain Boing
112 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Oct 2014
Log us out: Private equity snaffles Lastpass owner LogMeIn
Tor blimey, Auntie! BBC launches dedicated dark web mirror site
Ohm my God: If you let anyone other than Apple replace your recent iPhone's battery, expect to be nagged by iOS
Fantastic Mr Fox? Not when he sh*ts on your lawn, kids' trampoline and your soul
Tuesday 30th July 2019 15:04 GMT
Re: Serious answer: get a couple of crows
hmm. interesting though your vid is, I am afraid the crows are not the solution. They exist in vast numbers and will wipe out all other birds (usually except other crows/type) in the area. There are areas of Ukraine where no other types of bird exist other than Jackdaws & Magpies. No song birds of any kind thanks to the crows. It is everyone's duty to make life as unpleasant as possible for all the corvids (except a few specials). If you don't agree I wish you could have been with me a couple of months back when I witnessed a Jackdaw raiding a Corn Bunting nest and butchering the young in front of the frantic parents who's attempts to distract the jackdaw were simply ignored by the much larger bird.
Crows are not to be encouraged any more than foxes... just moving the problem somewhere else
Tuesday 30th July 2019 14:41 GMT
Re: Make friends.
... and despite commonly held belief, my kid (who undertakes pest control) tells me that a fox ham baked in tinfoil on the barbie for 3 hours (don't want any chance of trichinosis) is remarkably good eating. Not the best thing he has eaten but by no means the worst. Yearling vixen is best (no powerful hormones to taint the meat) not stringy, dark meat with a fairly gentle flavour, not as gamey as venison and not pungent.
Tuesday 30th July 2019 14:13 GMT
Re: Advise from my experiences
do NOT use an air rifle on a fox. Unless you get incredibly lucky and drop one down his ear you absolutely will not kill it. The only air weapon that stands a chance will be a weapon for which you must own a firearms licence.
All you'll do is cause wounds and distress.. you'll no more likely to kill a fox with a 12ft/lb air rifle than it will kill you. All it will do is make painful holes in you that will get infected and cause misery.
Anyone who suggests an air rifle for this is a twat and will rightfully be prosecuted by the RSPCA when they find out.
Tuesday 30th July 2019 11:59 GMT
Townies... not a clue. The neighbours who are feeding the cute fuzzy orange puppies or not securing their rubbish are the main cause of the problem, along with the anti-social bastards that think it's OK to throw their half-eaten kebab on the ground. Any animal is only in a place because of what is there. Remove the incentive, the problem will go too. Everyone thinks a cat is the solution to a rat problem - this is only believed by those who don't know what they're talking about or have an exceptional cat. A cat will kill one rat and disappear with it. A terrier will kill all the rats for the sheer fun of the chase... a fox has the same mindset. He will get in the hen-house, kill them all and disappear with a single carcass. He'll wipe out an entire roost in a single visit for the joy of killing. Foxy's gotta go. For town foxes, the solution is to clean up our act, for country foxes it's to shoot them.
Admittedly it is tricky to let foxy "have it" with your .243 in a town garden (as well as most likely illegal and triggering a visit) but it is the most humane and effective method - those of you who have considered gassing or poisoning need a beating. This is the most horrendous way to dispose of a living creature and much as I am out to do a job, I do not agree with making the quarry suffer un-necessarily. Consider hunting with dogs, it is more about the people in the chase, but when the hounds catch the fox (and most times he gets away) he is dispatched in seconds... I agree it isn't pleasant (despite matching the foxes mindset - he is a predator after all) and I am not a fan of these horrific toffs that do it for the blood, but it is quick... not the lingering, painful, sickly death of a gassing or poisoning. The quickest method is a .243 to the head or chest. This causes catastrophic damage and the fox is dead in seconds (if not instantly), although pure adrenaline may see him run 20 meters.
A free-range egg farm near me was getting daylight raids and asked for help - the mark of a desperate fox. The neighbouring farm was also having problems. A bit of research and out on the hunt. We "offed" 8 foxes in 5 weeks in that area with another 2 on the list! That's ten foxes in about 4 square miles - there is no way that area can support that many without help - The foxes were breeding out of control and all of them living just above starvation hence the desperation and the problem, all because some silly old woman puts food out for them each night. Think of the damage 10 foxes in 4 square miles were doing to the naturally occurring wildlife - it was a desert! Now maybe some leverets will make it this year.
I don't care what anyone says, shooting done properly IS conservation. I have seen it with my own eyes. You might get weepy about it and I must say I don't get a kick out of the kill (it always leaves me feeling a bit guilty actually) but nature is nasty and when we f**k with it, we have to f**k with it some more to put it right.
let the slagging commence.
Blackburn ain't big enough for the both of us: Mr Creamy and Mr Whippy at the centre of new ice-cream war
Fire up the FruityLoops! Sir David Attenborough wants someone to remix Balinese field recording
Amazon consumer biz celebrates ridding itself of last Oracle database with tame staff party... and a Big Red piñata
Bad news for WannaCry slayer Marcus Hutchins: Judge rules being young, hungover, and in a strange land doesn't obviate evidence
A few reasons why cops didn't immediately shoot down London Gatwick airport drone menace
Tuesday 25th December 2018 12:27 GMT 
Get George Digweed in!
A professional shot-gunner would have no trouble taking out the drone. And the article is wrong about spent shot representing a hazard as anyone who has been down-range on a shoot will testify.
The forward motion of the shot (where the destructive speed is involved) is exhausted in the upward arc and by the time it starts falling is pretty much gone... if it wasn't the shot would carry on travelling on the leading edge of it's parabola, but no matter once it peaks, the speed is gone - and it starts to fall, losing forward momentum all the time. Spent shot, in such a situation, is a rain of tiny pellets (mostly steel now-a-days), no worse than - and in my experience, much less than - a hailstorm. - Been there, done that.
It's a phone with a peel, but you'll have to wait a bit more for retro Nokia
What the @#$%&!? Microsoft bans nudity, swearing in Skype, emails, Office 365 docs
Neil Young slams Google, after you log in to read his rant with Google or Facebook
'It's back to the drawing board...' Innocent axions found not guilty of dark matter crimes
Friday 17th November 2017 10:25 GMT 
Don't make stuff up so your sums work...
It seems there is a correlation between the shrinking estimates for dark matter ratio versus the increasing ratio of observed conventional matter based on new discovery: Galaxies existing in huge bubbles of hydrogen (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/09/hubble_andromeda_galaxy_gas_halo/), vast webs of hydrogen connecting galactic clumps (http://www.iflscience.com/space/astronomers-directly-image-filament-%E2%80%9Ccosmic-web%E2%80%9D-first-time/).
I never accepted the premise of dark matter "our sums don't add up so we'll invent something to make them". I have every expectation dark matter, as it is conventionally envisaged, will wither to nought as our discoveries, quite literally, fill the void. In the past tow or three years we have discovered extra hydrogen that amounts to a quarter of the mass of the universe that was unknown five years ago... Science will answer everything but it takes a while.
As with all good science, I will be delighted to be proved wrong with the discover of the dark matter particle(s) - and let's face it, we have barely scratched the surface and are infinitesimally distant from the Planck Mass.
Brit moron tried buying a car bomb on dark web, posted it to his address. Now he's screwed
Car insurers recoil in horror from paying auto autos' speeding fines
Wednesday 1st November 2017 09:56 GMT
Re: If I am not driving, then I am not responsible for failure to follow road rules.
It all depends on the vehicle - if it is a driver-less, autonomous vehicle then yes I agree with you.
If it is a Tesla running in auto-pilot (i.e with driving controls and a driving position) then no I don't.
In the latter, you have to be able to take control of the vehicle. Simple as that.
You are blind and cannot drive a "normal" car, therefore the same rules apply. You can jump in a little autonomous pod, but as you could not be expected to take control of the vehicle, a Tesla is out of the question.
Wednesday 1st November 2017 09:43 GMT
It is simple - you still gotta be a driver
If you own a vehicle with auto-pilot capability, you still have to have a driver in control - the idea being you should be able and ready to take control If you notice anything wrong - and I think that includes exceeding the speed limit. I know the idea is that you can relax a bit but is that really realistic?
If you don't when you should, this is still driving without due care in my book. No need to muddy the waters with "iffs" and "whens"
It should only be an insurance thing if the vehicle is driver-less , like the little pods they are trialing at various cities around the world. So you couldn't allow a little old lady to buy a tesla as a personal taxi if she can't drive.
Car trouble: Keyless and lockless is no match for brainless
Programming in the Middle Ages: Docker makes a lovely pair of trousers
Farewell Cassini! NASA's Saturnian spacecraft waves goodbye for its Grand Finale
Equifax mega-leak: Security wonks smack firm over breach notification plan
Dolphins inspire ultrasonic attacks that pwn smartphones, cars and digital assistants
UK government's war on e-cigs is over
OMG, dad, you're so embarrassing! Are you P2P file sharing again?
Tuesday 11th July 2017 09:17 GMT
crap report
"if you rip music, you use whores and hurt puppies... you don't HURT puppies... do you?"
pathetic
from my observations, the reason those "older" people who rip music is because they can and they know how to do it. Generation snowflake, while prolific on line, tends to be, largely, technically inept.
I have seen it I have a house full of <30yr olds... There is no way in hell todays yoof are buying their music out of some altruistic mission. For one reason or another, they simply have no other way open to them.
MP3 'died' and nobody noticed: Key patents expire on golden oldie tech
Wednesday 17th May 2017 09:46 GMT
*sigh*
"... to ensure you don't lose any of it."
you are still aliasing anything between any two bit counts.. step from 14 to 15, what about 14.3? it cannot be _faithfully_ encoded in a digital form .. . you have lost immediately by sampling. In a lab, virtually any sampling resolution could be shown to be different from the original. I get what you are saying but you need to qualify "perceived loss"
If audiophile reckon they can tell the difference if the signal comes through cable with oxygen in the insulator then this matters no?
'I feel violated': Engineer who pointed out traffic signals flaw fined for 'unlicensed engineering'
While Facebook reinvents Sadville, we still dream of flying cars
PACK YOUR BAGS! Boffins spot Earth-size planet most likeliest yet to harbor alien life
Friday 21st April 2017 09:26 GMT
Re: I don't get it
@Axman said: "Why do exobiologist/astroboffins insist on the 'goldilocks zone' thing. We are, after all, talking about alien life.
<snip>
... exoticophiles - things like bugs that use solvents other than water, thingymajigs that operate at cryogenic temperatures utilising superfluidity and superconductivity, gassy bags of ephemeral catalysts floating in Jupiter like skies, organised magneto-creatures feeding off of a star's chromosphere... I could go on and on and on."
Simple. As your comment points out, the permutations are dizzying (and currently unknown to science). However, we DO KNOW it works with the "goldilocks" mix so lets start on a certainty to minimise the task. It happened here so is likely to have happened elsewhere.
Streetmap loses appeal against Google Maps dominance judgement
Friday 10th February 2017 09:56 GMT
what a stupid, identi-kit slap at big corp. - GM is far from a "crayoned mess" ya goit!
People vote with their feet, if GM wasn't fit, no-one would use it and it would die. Everyone slags off starbucks for the same reason - fact: Their coffee is good and appeals to a LOT of people.
GM is the same. I prefer their clean looking profile over Streetmaps dated A-Z look. If I need more streets go to the OS Explorer maps and the times I have used streetview to scope out a destination so i actually know what i am looking for when i get there is a great use of tech... I know that google are not doing this out of some altruistic ethos... in the same way i know TV programs are just something t keep me hooked in-between advert breaks.
Google got big because they are good at what they do. You might not like what they do (they are very creepy) but to keep us hooked they provide some nice trinkets.
I am not saying they would not exploit their position to further their own cause - just like vauxhall or ford recommending their own parts when you get your car serviced. It happens all the time.
My hole is a private thing – see for yourself
OpenStreetView? You are no longer hostage to Google's car-driven vision
Monday 19th December 2016 07:03 GMT
@J.G.Harston
"not at all"? so when faced with map or no map, you would prefer the latter if there was only google. Exactly.
google maps I have found to be very accurate and the map data is subject to much tighter correction/alteration than anything else, and street view is excellent for showing me what I am looking for when I get to a new address (mainly UK or Canada).
Really, John, don't stand on the sidelines and sneer - get involved, make a difference.
Monday 19th December 2016 06:55 GMT
hmmm... has a long way to go. it seems it is uni-directional, you don't have a lot of scan around a particular point , and even some goyt has used his approach/departure from heathrow plan to "add" info. IN THE DARK!!!
Like most crowd-sourced stuff, it comes from a loving place but it will degenerate into mediocrity and flame-wars
I don't like Mondays, Pokemon, Twitter or Facebook – Sir Bob Geldof
Tuesday 26th July 2016 18:46 GMT
Seriously? these rock-knob luddites (geldof & bonio et-al) just need to STFU now and collect their royalty cheques. It was reported that one African rapper turned down Band Aid 30 because Africans are sick and angry with their continent being constantly portrayed as a starving dust bowl when the truth is far from it.
The original Band Aid is a classic example of townies "helping" country-folk (its a metaphor guys) The BBC world service found, in 2010, "evidence, compelling evidence, that some of the famine relief donations were diverted by a powerful rebel group to buy weapons". This article is a hard read to anyone (self included) who misguidedly gave money http://www.spin.com/featured/live-aid-the-terrible-truth-Ethiopia-bob-geldof-feature/ and it is widely accepted that Band Aid aided and extended Mengitsus war, but now with heavy battle weapons purchased from the Russians with Live Aid money (my money!) to provide him the best equipped army in Africa at the time. And... added 10 years or so to the war which now could not blow itself out.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
