Posts by Little Mouse

Anglian Water fishes for on-trend laundry list – including low-code work – in £24m trawl

Re: Translation

And they can have it. Just so long as it doesn't cost me more to flush after an Armitage Shanks Interface Defacatory Experience.

Let's go space truckin': 1970s probe Voyager 1 is now 14 billion miles from home

Chug it, Voyager 1, while the chuggin's spammy.

May your splitto boots never grease the ground!

Behold the Bloo Screen of Death: Bathroom borkage stops spray play

Me, for one.

Blackpool is famous in its own way.

Southport? I've heard of it, but that's about it.

Eugh.

Maybe a Star Wars lightsaber game for the Luke Skywalkers out there?

Or a drawing game. Literally piss art.

Not content with distorting actual reality, Facebook now wants to build a digital layer for the world

Where is the plane of Focus in AR?

For traditional 3D fun, e.g. IMAX, 3DTV, or VR headsets, your eyes focus on a single fixed-distance 2D plane. The virtual stuff appears to be in front of or behind that plane, but your eyes' focus stays fixed on the screen, and your brain does a pretty decent job (or not, in my case) of pretending not to notice the discrepancy.

But in Real Life, I need my eyes to focus on the actual position of the physical object that I am looking at.

How is it possible to overlay the two in AR? How can I focus on the virtual person sitting on a physical chair if my eyes need to be focussed on two different things at the same time to do so?

Research into deflecting potentially world-destroying asteroids is apparently not a 'national priority' for the UK

Re: This Makes Sense

Stopping one would be pretty cool though. Imagine it - just sitting there, not moving at all, as we scorch past each year, giving it the finger.

NASA is sending two small hand-luggage suitcase-sized spacecraft into the void to study binary asteroids

Re: Nice pics in the article

They look nice after processing, but the definition isn't that great. In those pics it looks like the larger asteroid is represented by about 15*15 pixels.

That is just a guess though. Does anyone have any hard data about those images?

Small hand luggage = 180 Kg?

I hope it's stowed safely. I wouldn't want one of those in the overhead compartment above my seat.

COVID-19 tracing without an app? There's an iOS and Android update for that

No app required?

So this functionality is going to be baked into the OS?

And it'll get removed when the Covid-19 threat has passed, right?

Right?

Worried about the Andromeda galaxy crashing into our Milky Way in four billion years? Too bad, it's quite possibly already happening

Friday challenge:

See if you can slip the term "gas band" into one of your meetings today.

Autonomous robots that can be injected? Not as far off as it sounds, say boffins, thanks to new ion-powered silicon legs

Re: The artist's rendition is all wrong

Laser or not - I just assumed that the robot would look like Raquel Welch.

DDoS downs New Zealand stock exchange for third consecutive day

New Zealand Stock Exchange down

Rest of world notices two days later.

Um, almost the entire Scots Wikipedia was written by someone with no idea of the language – 10,000s of articles

Jings!

Don't mess with Hard Ian"s wall.

Fusion boffins apply plasma know-how to building thrusters

Any non-thrust-related uses?

I reckon that a hand-held version, flipped around, could sort out the weeds on my patio once and for all.

Uncle Sam to blow millions on getting fusion power finally working – with the help of AI

But how long will it take to get there?

Let me guess - with these advances, experts predict we'll have fusion power for the masses in 20 years?

Someone please have mercy on this poorly Ubuntu parking machine that has been force-fed maudlin autotuned tripe

Re: Huh?

'I know "muir" means more, but "Och" doesn't seem to mean anything...'

Eye see you're having surgery: Origami inspires tiny, super-accurate robot surgeon

Tiny Terminators.

An army of scalpel-wielding mini robots programmed to slice up human eyes?

Euugh.

Butterfingers who don't bother with phone cases, rejoice: New Gorilla Glass 'Victus' tipped to survive 6ft drops

Re: Is dropping your phone common?

Yawn A/C - Didn't this all get dealt with 2 weeks ago?

See you after the commercial breakdown: Cert expiry error message more entertaining than the usual advert tripe

Re: Red triangle programs

Yes. Exactly that.

Re: Red triangle programs

...and a remote control toy car with a dildo attachment, if memory serves. Much amusement in the playground next day over that one.

( Also, wasn't it a pink triangle?)

IBM job ad calls for 12 years’ experience with Kubernetes – which is six years old

Re: It is in base 3 for obvious reasons

Looks like he has a fan / follower / heckler / stalker. Yep - I've noticed a lot of Jake posts getting shot down by an AC in recent days.

I'm not averse to the odd insult, especially if delivered with some panache, but "Booo, because you're Jake" on endless repeat gets pretty boring pretty quickly.

Keep it Together, Microsoft: New mode for vid-chat app Teams reminds everyone why Zoom rules the roost

Re: Really?

Agreed. Wake me up when we can finally talk to hologram avatars of each other, Hollywood-style.

Remember that black hole just 1,000 light years from Earth? Scientists queue up to say it may not exist after all

Re: Who is stealing the stars?

Stealing the stars? Maybe it's the Tau-Ceti Imperium snuffing them out.

But that'll never happen to us, right? We've got kangaroos!

Travel-sick Windows needing a Systemwiederherstellung would be in Germany, right? Austria? Not necessarily

Re: Schoolchild giggle?

Don't tell anyone I told you, but I suspect seven of five might actually understand those words, despite claiming otherwise....

Re: Weihnachtsspecial

I know someone who was surprised to find that their new PC came boxed with a German keyboard, plus a sheet of stickers to cover the "wrong" keys.

Dumpster diving to revive a crashing NetWare server? It was acceptable in the '90s

"GENIUS!" he told us, modestly.

There's no need for modesty. Some instances of genius should be applauded & celebrated.

And this is one of them.

Getting a pizza the action, AS/400 style

Re: WORST. PIZZA. EVER.

It can't have been worse than the "seafood" pizza that I ordered once in Perth (Scotland).

Smoked haddock & crabsticks. On a pizza. Mmmmmm.

No joy for all you Rover McRoverface fans: NASA's next Mars bot is christened Perseverance

Re: Ok then...

I guess I'm too late (and too British) to nominate Coxy McCockface? (After the celebrity mop-topped particle physicist & Infinite Monkey Cage presenter, of course)

Will Asimov fix my doorbell? There should be a law about this

Re: 3 laws for AI

I don't remember that particular gardening story, but it's true that a recurring theme of Asimov's robot series was that the three laws didn't really work all that well

Mr Raphan might have done well to actually read a few of them (or even watch the movie, heaven forfend) before suggesting that they might actually be a good idea.

Beware the Friday afternoon 'Could you just..?' from the muppet who wants to come between you and your beer

Re: My version of the story

100% this.

A keen trouble-shooting mindset and some experience will enable you to isolate the causes of far more problems than pure technical knowledge could ever hope to.

Unlocking news: We decrypt those cryptic headlines about Scottish cops bypassing smartphone encryption

Re: Let me get this right

Maintaining the integrity of the data source, and being able to evidence this, is the cornerstone of digital forensics.

The CSI cliche of the investigator powering up the suspect's computer to see what they can find would likely be grounds to render any such evidence inadmissable (IANAL).

Do the kiosks create an image of the phone without changing the original? It doesn't sound like it, but some clarification would be appreciated.

H0LiCOW: Cosmoboffins still have no idea why universe seems to be expanding more rapidly than expected

2nd question

What's the speed of expansion in terms that I can readily comprehend?

How much would a distance of 150 million km increase over, say, 1000 years at the currently understood rate of expansion?

Riddle me this:

At what scale are the expansion effects actually happening?

Is it that the universe is getting bigger, but the physical things it contains are not, because local forces are, for example, holding my atoms together regardless of the medium around me?

Or is the space between everything getting bigger, and I am slowly expanding along with everything else, albeit at a rate that's only really measurable on a much larger scale?

'Buyer's remorse' drove HP's legal crusade to go after Lynch, High Court told

Slightly disappointed

I was hoping for a slightly more, well, American, Americanism.

"Yippee-kiyay, Motherfucker!!!"

You looking for an AI project? You love Lego? Look no further than this Reg reader's machine-learning Lego sorter

The article only makes a passing reference to the fact, but this thing is actually made of Lego.

So presumably it can put itself away tidily when it's finished...

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NASA boffins tackle Nazi alien in space – with the help of Native American tribal elders

And I guess I should add my roofbox to the bonfire.

Hyphens of mass destruction: When a clumsy finger meant the end for hundreds of jobs

An awesome tool. 20-ish years old, and functionality has stayed pretty much identical bar a few tweaks here and there. It's still my go-to choice for transferring large amounts of data from volume to volume, and holding onto the log files has definitely saved my skin more times than I can remember. ("Some of my files are missing from that data you migrated 3 months ago. They must not have got copied properly...")

But yeah - I have got burned once or twice too...

So, what's fashion going to look like on the Moon in 2024? NASA's ready to show you the goods

Orange works well. But what colour will the Lunar Penal Colony guards wear?

Conspiracy loons claim victory in Brighton and Hove as council rejects plans to build 5G masts

Re: Wow, what a catalog

From the petition:

"there is growing evidence of harmful effects"

Presumably of the "anecdotal" variety.

No ghosts but the Holy one as vicar exorcises spooky tour from UK's most haunted village

Re: I find it best just to ignore them

I, for one, welcome our repetitive nerd-culture spouting overlords.

The safest place to save your files is somewhere nobody will ever look

A user put in a complaint about me for doing the same thing - except I had been nowhere near the desktop, or even site, in question - and fortunately could prove it.

It turned out that one of our desktop contractors had done the deed, and on twigging that the user was none too pleased with the result, he'd told her he was me before buggering off. What a nice chap.

If you have enough of this type of gut microbe, you can get drunk for free after eating carbs

Re: OMFG...

I'm sure I read an El-Reg article not four or five years ago about an individual who generated his own gut-alcohol every time he ate.

Or did I dream it?

Guess who reserved their seat on the first Moon flight? My mum, that's who

Seconded. Sublime "Time Waster Letters" material, but for real.

Thanks for sharing, Dabbsy.

The Eldritch Horror of Date Formatting is visited upon Tesco

Call me a snob, but...

"Yup they was like a set you get 2 burgers 2 buns 2 cheeses slices and a sachet of the relish ."

That food sounds so processed it would probably last forever...

NASA boffins may just carve your name on a chip and send it to Mars if you ask nicely

My name's in Space already

Beamed out in Morse code more years ago now than I care to remember.

Tesla driver killed after smashing into truck had just enabled Autopilot – US crash watchdog

"Anticiptation"

A good driver spends pretty much all of their time second-guessing what unexpected crazy shit other drivers might suddenly pull out of the bag, and making sure they're in a good position to deal with it.

But if your own car is liable to behave in ways that you don't expect, how do you even begin to factor that in?

Guess what shrinks when it gets cold and then you shake it around a little? The Moon. We're talking about the Moon

I'm still not quite fully understanding just what kind of cheese it is though.

Presumably one of the softer varieties: Fairly malleable throughout, yet covered with a distinct outer "skin", such as with Brie or Camembert.

I'm no scientist though. Could the crust be artificial? Then we'd be talking Edam, or maybe even Baby Bel.